Kanose, also known as ''Tokyo 16B'', was a

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

camp during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

located in the

Showa Denko {{Infobox company , name = Resonac K.K. , native_name = レゾナック株式会社 , native_name_lang = ja , romanized_name = Rezonakku kabushiki gaisha , logo = Resonac logo.svg , type = Public , traded_as = {{tyo, 4004 , hq_location_city ...

Carbide Plant at

Kanose, Niigata was a town located in Higashikanbara District, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. In 2003, the town had an estimated population of 2,753 and a population density of 10.68 per km2. The total area was 257.69 km2. On April 1, 2005, Kanose, along with ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. The first 100 prisoners at the camp came from Mitsushima POW Camp. Of these, one died from malnutrition (the result of fellow POWs stealing his meals), and a further three died from burns in a furnace accident at the carbide plant. On July 26, 1945, the

B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is a retired American four-engined Propeller (aeronautics), propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to ...

Straight Flush In poker, players form sets of five playing cards, called ''hands'', according to the rules of the game. Each hand has a rank, which is compared against the ranks of other hands participating in the showdown to decide who wins the pot. In hi ...

of the

509th Composite Group The 509th Composite Group (509 CG) was a unit of the United States Army Air Forces created during World War II and tasked with the operational deployment of nuclear weapons. It conducted the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in ...

dropped a

pumpkin bomb Pumpkin bombs were conventional aerial bombs developed by the Manhattan Project and used by the United States Army Air Forces against Japan during World War II. Its physical characteristics closely replicated those of the Fat Man plutonium b ...

on the camp, narrowly missing it. Eight guards and work supervisors were tried at the

Yokohama War Crimes Trials The Yokohama War Crimes Trials was a series of trials of 996 Japanese war criminals, held before the military commission of the U.S. 8th Army at Yokohama immediately after the Second World War. The defendants belonged to class B and C, as define ...

for acts of brutality and stealing Red Cross parcels. Sentences ranged between one and a half years to twenty-five years. The camp commander, Hiroshi Azuma, received

clemency A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...

largely due to his acts of intervention against his guards and his compassion towards prisoners. After the war,

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

Japan broadcast a drama called ''Christmas in Kanose'', based on the Christmas 1944 concert run by the prisoners and directed by POW Frank Smith, from the

West End of London The West End of London (commonly referred to as the West End) is a district of Central London, Central London, England, in the London Borough of Camden, London Boroughs of Camden and the City of Westminster. It is west of the City of London an ...

References

External links

Roger Mansell page on Kanose POW Camp
Japanese prisoner of war and internment camps {{Japan-mil-hist-stub

See also

References

External links