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The Final Betrayal
by Mark Felton
This
book examines the period between the unconditional surrender of Japan
on 14 August 1945 and the arrival of Allied liberation forces in Japanese-occupied
territories after 2 September 1945.
The delay handed the Japanese a golden opportunity to set their house
in order before Allied war crimes investigators arrived. After 14 August
groups of Allied POWs were brutally murdered. Vast amounts of documentation
concerning crimes were burned ahead of the arrival of Allied forces. POW
facilities and medical experimentation installations were either abandoned
or destroyed. Perhaps the greatest crimes were continuing deaths of Allied
POWs from starvation, disease and ill-treatment after the Japanese surrender.
The blame rests with the American authorities, and particularly General
MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific. MacArthur expressly
forbade any Allied forces from liberating Japanese occupied territories
before he had personally taken the formal Japanese surrender aboard the
USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. Vice Admiral Lord Mountbatten,
Commanding Allied forces in Southeast Asia, protested against this policy,
believing that pandering to MacArthur’s vanity and ego would mean
condemning many starving and sick prisoners to death. Deaths among British
and Commonwealth POWs were significant as opposed to American POWs who
were already largely liberated in the Philippines and elsewhere.
MacArthur’s and the American leadership’s obsession with sidelining
the British in Asia cost hundreds of British and Commonwealth lives, hundreds
and hundreds of lives, that otherwise would have been saved if Mountbatten
had been permitted to proceed with his liberation plans
Price 15.99 (was £19.99)
Hardback 224 pages
ISBN: 9781848840942
Available from :-
Pen & Sword Books
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Tel: 01226 734555
Fax: 01226734438
Email: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk