Hell on Earth: Aging Faster, Dying Sooner-Canadian Prisoners of the Japanese During World War II

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
the author of Military Archives: International Directory of Military
Publications and The Bantams: The Untold St

Based on official records, medical transcripts, and first-hand accounts,
this examination of the Japanese mistreatment of Canadian POWs during
World War II details the litany of atrocities (murder, starvation,
torture, beatings, slave labor, disease, and deliberate medical neglect)
that were inflicted over four years of captivity that were, literally,
hell on earth. It also brings to the fore the Canadian government’s
inconsistent response to two different wartime injustices. Ottawa has
repeatedly refused to support—and has even opposed—claims that
surviving ex-POWs have made against Japan for monetary compensation. At
the same time, however, our government has to date given $357 million to
Japanese-Canadians and Japanese nationals who were displaced during the
war. The inference McIntosh draws from this is that only the group with
the largest number of potential domestic votes gets the redress. This
important and harrowing book sheds considerable light on the suffering
and sacrifice of thousands of Canadians soldiers during World War II.