First German POWs in North Africa

 

Image size: 1600 x 1531 pixel. 893 KB
Date: Thursday, 17 April 1941
Place: Tobruk, Libya, North Africa
Photographer: Unknown

Men of the Australian 9th Infantry Division guard Italians and some of the first German prisoners to be taken during the war in North Africa, after Rommel's first unsuccessful assault on Tobruk, 17 April 1941. If we are talking about Heer Division, it was the 5. leitche-Division during the 1st Siege of Tobruk that was on 10-14 April 1941. However, on the 2nd Siege of Tobruk from 30 April to 7 May 1941 it was a mix between the elements of the 5.leichte-Division and the newly arrived 15. Panzer-Division (except for Panzer-Regiment 8 that was not involved yet). BTW, if someone asking: Why are their heads bowed? It is actually a basic techniek of not to look your captors in their eyes, state only your name and number. Look what happened at Malmedy: at the Nuremberg Trials the SS Soldiers stated in their defense that the American POW’s looked at them tauntingly almost staring them down ... we all know how that ended for the Americans! 

Source :
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=4981605118546865&set=gm.2563691697254982
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205205791
http://menofwehrmacht.blogspot.com/2020/12/first-axis-pows-at-tobruk.html

Sasebo Relocation Center for Japanese Returnees

Image size: 1600 x 1252 pixel. 342 KB
Date: Friday, 20 December 1946
Place: Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan
Photographer: Julian Wilson

Forcibly returned from Manchuria, these Japanese at Sasebo Relocation Center are awaiting transport to other camps or a place with friends or relatives. Between October 1, 1945 and December 31, 1946, 5.1 million Japanese, civilians and soldiers, returned from Manchuria, China, Formosa, the Pacific, Okinawa and Asia. Another 1.1 million returned in 1947. 676 Japanese decided to return from the United States, either because they rejected their US citizenship after internment or because they were Japanese citizens. To accomplish this, the remnants of Japan's shattered fleet and liberty ships and LSTs operated by 100,000 US Navy personnel were used to transport them home. Many were processed in Sasebo, a camp operated by the US Army. The returnees would carry the ashes of the dead from overseas or who died along the way in small white boxes. If they did not have a place to go, they were housed in camps like Uraga Relocation Center in Tokyo Bay. Food, clothing and medicine were scarce, and death from starvation or dysentery was frequent. Since many of the repatriated Japanese had lived outside of Japan their whole lives, reintegration into Japanese society was difficult. Often they were treated as foreigners and denied housing, education and employment. Sasebo now has a monument to the 6.2 million repatriates. 

Source:

http://www.worldwar2database.com/gallery3/index.php/wwii1100

Japanese Envoys Escorted to Hong Kong Government House

Image size: 1600 x 1241 pixel. 354 KB
Date: Sunday, 16 September 1945
Place: Victoria, Hong Kong, China
Photographer: Unknown

UK Royal Navy Commander Carr escorts Japanese envoys to Government House. They surrendered the Japanese forces in China on September 16, 1945, in Hong Kong. The instrument was signed by Imperial Japanese Army Major General Umekichi Okada, Imperial Japanese Navy Vice Admiral Ruitaro Fujita and UK Royal Navy Rear Admiral Cecil H. J. Harcourt. The 10,000 Japanese soldiers of the Hong Kong garrison were held at Shamshuipo barracks, like the Allied prisoners of war who survived the invasion of Hong Kong in 1941. Within a few months, all the Japanese, except for 271 suspects of the Japanese Secret Police (Kempeitai) who were held for investigation of the International Military Tribunal. Several surviving officers of the 23rd Army, which conquered Hong Kong in 1941, were also found in Japan and flown out to Hong Kong for investigation and trial.

Source:
http://www.worldwar2database.com/gallery3/index.php/wwii1098

221 Japanese Prisoners of War Approach USS Admiral C. F. Hughes

Image size: 1600 x 1301 pixel. 845 KB
Date: Tuesday, 1 May 1945
Place: Apra Harbor, Guam, Marianas
Photographer: Unknown

LCT approaches Coast Guard-manned USS Admiral C. F. Hughes (AP-124). She put in at Guam on April 30, 1945, and all her passengers disembarked. After taking another group on board, including 221 Japanese prisoners of war from a Tank Landing Craft (LCT), she stood out of Apra Harbor on May 3. The transport made a two-day stop at Pearl Harbor from May 10-12 to disembark the prisoners and then continued her voyage back to the west coast. While over 420,000 German and Italian POWs were held in American camps, only 5,000 Japanese were detained by the war's end. This was partly because of explicit and implicit orders to fight to the death, a reluctance by Americans to take prisoners, and an increasingly obvious threat to the Japanese Home Islands. Many Japanese fighting men preferred to die in combat rather than be taken prisoner. At the end of the war, when it was realized that Japan was going to lose, About 2,500 were held at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin. The rest were dispersed to Camp Huntsville, Camp Hearn and Camp Kenedy in Texas, Camp Clarinda in Iowa, and Camp Livingston in Louisiana. Camp Kenedy housed most of the Japanese POW officers. 

Source:

NARA (National Archives) Record Group 26: Records of the U.S. Coast Guard, 1785 - 2005 (ARC identifier: 355). Series: Activities, Facilities, and Personalities, compiled 1886 - 1967 (ARC identifier: 513164). NAIL Control Number: NWDNS-26-G-4669

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_further_indication_that_not_all_Japanese_fight_to_the_death_is_this_bag_of_221_Nip_prisoners_of_war._Sprawled_on..._-_NARA_-_513225.tif

http://www.worldwar2database.com/gallery3/index.php/wwii1061