Behind the Barbed Wire

Book excerpt: On December 8, 1941, Japanese troops methodically took over the U.S. Marine guard posts at Peiping and Tientsin, causing both to surrender. Imprisoned first at Woosung and then at Kiangwan in China, the men were forced to laboriously construct a replica of Mount Fujiyama. It soon became apparent that their mountain was to be used as a rifle range. In 1945 the author was among those transferred to the coal mining camp at Uteshinai in Japan. Recounted here are descriptions of the living and working conditions at the prison camps in China, the treatment of American prisoners by their Japanese captors, and how the POWs were able to hold themselves together.