Analysis Of Bushido: The Way Of The Warrior

In general, the first few hours of being in prison are always the hardest. The Japanese, where not excepting so many prisoners of war, and at first they did not know what to do with them. Around ninety-five thousand Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, and British were POW 's to the Japanese. Through cultural traditions on the behavior on the battle field, they governed through Bushido: "The Way of the Warrior". Though using the Bushido, they treated their prisoners horrible and killed most of them.The Japanese held most of the POW 's camps in Asian mainland and the Dutch East Indies. As Japan was conquering more and more land, they had no idea what to do with the prisoners. At first they started to just execute them, but after a

At the time, Japan had to send cargo ships all round Malay Peninsula to Burma 's ports. However, there were two problems. One, they did not have enough cargo ships, and the other was the enemy kept sinking the cargo ships they had. A few years early, the British wanted to connect both railroad, but they would have to make a trail through the jungle, and it became way to expensive. The British thought is would take around five years to complete, but the Japanese needed it to be finished in sixteen months. Most prisoners of war were forced to work on the railroad. Around sixty-one thousand prisoner were transported to the railroad, and eighteen thousand were Dutch, thirteen thousand were Australians, and six-hundred and fifty Americans. They were told that they were going to a nice peaceful place to wait until the war ended. However, that was not the case. They were force to live in tiny bamboo huts, they got a pound of rice a day, and they had to survive what the jungle through at them. The Japanese did pay the prisoners by rank, and if they wanted meet they had to kill it for them selfs. They had to work ten days a week and then a rest day. Their were Bamboo doctors, but they had very little supply or skill. Many of the prisoners suffered from malaria and dysentery. The prisoners had a black market of tobacco and cigarettes. The target date was February 1943, but the Japanese needed it sooner, so they moved it up to August. The prisoners no longer had rest days, and the Japanese had to recruit two hundred and fifty thousand civilians to work on the railroad. Soon after a Epidemic hit and many prisoners died and the ones who were to sick to work, where deprived of their rations. On October 17, 1943, the rail road was finish, but it took months to get supplies across because their were many