Mitsui Madhouse

Herbert Zincke was stationed at Clark Field in the Philippines when Japanese aircraft struck there only three hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. His unit had retreated to the island of Mindanao when all American and Filipino soldiers in the Philippines were ordered by their commanders to surrender. Zincke was shipped to Camp No. 2 on Tokyo Bay, where he was a slave laborer until the end of the war. Soon after their arrival at the Kawasaki labor camp, Zincke and his fellow prisoners began to call their barracks, which were owned by the Mitsui Corporation, the Mitsui Madhouse for the brutal treatment meted out by the Japanese guards. This work tells the story of Zinckes survival and is drawn from the secret diary he managed to keep out of his Japanese captors hands. Zincke recollects being spared death by the Japanese camp commanders samurai sword, the diet of rice and thin soup that resulted in drastic weight loss and an inability to do the required factory work, the POW British doctor who attended the prisoners and was frequently beaten because of his constant efforts to keep the sick men from going to work, and many of the other terrible conditions and experiences he endured during his three year imprisonment.