Japanese POW's in the USSR?

[Eugene (J. Baker)]

Last official group of POWs (1025 men) was repatriated 23 Dec. 1956

Eugene: Where were most Japanese POWs taken to? To Dalstroi, Kargopollag, Minlag, Vorkutlag, Rechlag, Yyatlag, Gorlag, Steplag? Do you happen to know when the first gulags were opened on Sakhalin Island? My map of Gulags at their zenith in 1939-1953 show that Sakhalin housed two gulag camps – one around Koton or Smirnyh and another one in the north around Oha.

The source i mentioned above says about 30 regions of USSR - mostly Khabarovsk region, Primorsky region, Altaic, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Chita, Amur, Buryatskii regions, some small numbers in Turkmenia, Georgia, Ukraine and in Europeic part of RSFSR.

[David Thompson]

There's a lengthy article from the New York Times on the repatriated Japanese POW posted on this thread:

The last known German soldiers to be released from the SU
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=18914

[SIDHARTHA]

anybody of you know about this that an indian leader subhash chandra bose who was fighting with japan against british . was taken away by soviets in manchuria during the month of august in 1945 on second world war . but then they never declared this that they had caught great indian leader . is it true ? pls comment on this .

[Sven-Eric]

As far as I remember, Bose was killed in a plane crash outside Taiwan.

[kamal]

With due respect, the situation is not that simple. The chain of events leading to and after the "crash at Taihoku" were riddled by contradictions so serious that no investigator would believe in them. No one did, beginning with Allied Intelligence. Habibur Rahman died in Pakistan in 1990. Major Kono too died in 1990s. Dr Yoshimi is alive.

So far as I know, they rejected the crash theory long back. Indian Government is dragging its feet over the DNA test of "Bose's" ashes kept in Renkoji temple. They know that it will be negative. The ashes are not Bose. Because there was no crash. IJA HQ, Field Marshal Terauchi, General Isoda (of Hikari Kikan) and Staff Officer Colonel Tada, among others, charted out Bose's escape from the British who were baying for Bose's blood. The plan was carried out and Bose transported to Russia. There was no crash, it was just a plant. The world changed a lot after August 1945 and eveyone lost interest in Bose.


Lt. Gen Shidei Tsunamasa, INA Leader Bose, the pilot and couple of other bigwigs dies in a made -up crash
and the rest, the small players live to tell the tales, with no photographic evidence of the crash or the dead bodies.


Does anybody has more research into this mystery???

[Peter H]

From ebay,seller paxondoug.

Released POWs from the USSR 1949,1950


A recent Japanese estimate is that 62,068 Japanese died in Soviet captivity 1945-1946 alone.(Article in JapanFocus,2006,internet link now down).Figure supported here as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_p ... viet_Union

From 2009
Moscow finds gulag records on 760,000 Japanese POWs
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ ... 725a3.html

[JoeB]

"1000 Days in Siberia" by Iwao Peter Sano is a first hand account of Japanese POW held postwar by the Soviets. He was US born, sent by his family to be 'son' to his uncle in Japan, a not unheard of Japanese custom, drafted into the IJA late in the war, captured (without his unit having done any fighting) in Manchuria by the Soviets. It's not a particularly dramatic book, though well written with good humor. Hard work, chronic lack of enough food, but the Soviet guards generally didn't have any particular antipathy toward the Japanese: drudgery and boredom, mainly. As the title implies, he was released in 1948.

US intel files of Korean War period contain reams of interviews of these guys with diagrams of the factories and mines they worked at, etc.

Joe

[Zabelin]

About 40 POWs were executed (shot dead) according military trial orders.

[Anatol]

The illustrated notes of the Japanese prisoner of war it is possible to look
Here: http://kiuchi.jpn.org/ru/nobindex.htm,
There is a card of an arrangement of Japanese camps.

[Zabelin]

Has anyone anything about the former russian Red Army mayor Alexey Berzin ("Front") who served at Kwantong Army intelligence dep. after being captured by japanese army during Nomonhan incident 1939.
Thanks in advance.
Zabelin

[Peter H]

From: http://victory.rusarchives.ru/index.php ... =40&page=1

Captured by the Soviets

[Peter H]

Same source.

Moscow 1946--Japanese tanks on display

[Peter H]

From: http://bbs.tiexue.net/default.htm?ListU ... 6-0-1.html

Soviet painting