Mukden Camp Horrors- Allied POWs and the Reality of Slavery in Manchuria

by Rebekah Fuller

​The prisoners of war (POWs) journeyed on the Tottori Maru to Manchuria—conditions aboard such vessels were undeniably hellish, giving rise to the collective term “hellships.” The POWs would arrive at the port, and the men were then separated into two groups. The first group consisted of the sick POWs who would be taken to the hospital, and the second group would be taken to the Mukden POW camp. The POWs were forced to work at various factories near the camp, regardless of the conditions. The POWs were also visited by a medical unit, which later became known as Unit 731. Some survivors have said that the forced labor was “slavery in every way.” In 2015, one of the companies that profited from the forced labor, Mitsubishi, issued an apology to the Allied POWs who endured the harsh treatment.

Figure: [1] ADBC-Memorial Society. Tottori Maru. (2025) https://www.west-point.org/family/japanese-pow/PhotoFile/Tottori.jpg.

The 1,500 American POWs were selected to work at the Mitsubishi factories due to their skills in aircraft and machinery. They were initially transported by train to Manila on October 3, 1942. Of all the men, only fourteen officers were among them. Upon arrival, a few hundred more were added to the group. It was not until October 6, 1943, at Pier 7 in Manila. The POWs were loaded onto the hellship Tottori Maru (Figure 1). This ship was owned by Mitsubishi’s shipping subsidiary, Nissan Yusen Ko-Kan (Japan Mail and Steamship Company). The conditions during the journey were indescribable. The men were forced or pushed down a ladder into the ship’s hold. The officers were allowed to stay on deck during the voyage to Manchuria.[1]
The ship arrived at Pusan on November 8, 1942. The temperature was bitterly cold. Out of 1,500 men on board, the vessel carried 1,300 who were ill during the 32 days at sea. Eighty-one men were taken to the local hospital, and 28 died there. One hundred fifty-three remaining men finally arrived at Mukden POW camp after a month's stay at the hospital. Twenty-three more would die on the route to Mukden POW camp. But there were seven who never made it off the Tottori Maru alive.[2]

The prisoners of war disembarked from the vessel as snow descended upon the pier. Several individuals lacked footwear. The men were compelled to remove their clothing and were supplied with warm garments, including boots for those in need. Train cars awaited them; it was projected to take three days to reach Mukden. During the journey, the prisoners of war received nourishment for the first time in many days. The train halted at Keijo, Korea, where an additional carriage was attached. This carriage accommodated approximately one hundred British and Australian soldiers who had been captured in Singapore.[3]

Figure:[2] ADBC-Memorial Society. Mukden POWS- Documents. https://www.adbcmemorialsociety.org/mukden-pows.

The factories where the POWs were forced to work are as follows.

Tei Katon Tannery                       Manshu Leather                   Nakayama Steel 
Electric Crane Co. (TKK)             Seian Textile                         Manchu Cloth 
Manchu Kosaki Kai Kibasha Ki Kaish (MKK)                           Mitsubishi

   The most prominent factory in Mukden was the Mitsubishi facility, which would later become associated with Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. Initially located outside Mukden City in the 1920s, the site had previously operated as a Ford Motor Company plant. In 1936, it was purchased by the Manchu Kosaku Kikai Kabushiki Kaisha, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi. The POWs would later refer to it as the MKK.[4] The workers were required to pay respect by bowing low, regardless of the rank of their Japanese overseers. 
    The POWs were assigned shifts ranging from 8 to 12 hours in length. Before leaving the factories, they were searched, and they were typically given only one day off every one to two weeks. They were also strip-searched when they made it back to Mukden Camp. Upon returning to Mukden Camp, they were strip-searched again and forced to stand for extended periods before being allowed to dress and proceed either to the barracks or the kitchen, where they received a meager dinner. The POWs worked in various industries, including the foundry, textile mill, Electric Crane Company (TKK), leather tannery, and a combination steel wire and saw mill. 
Many of the POWs hated the fact that they were making equipment that was going to be used on their brothers and allies. They had a motto: “No part will leave this factory in working order.” As a result, sabotage was not uncommon at the Mukden factories. It did not matter what was produced in the different factories; the result was the same. Nothing was made in 100 percent working order. In May of 1944, 150 American POWs were transferred to Mitsui’s lead mine in Kamioka, Japan—a group labeled as “troublemakers” due to their defiance and resistance.[5] 
The conditions that the POWs had to endure were harsh winters and scorching summers. In November 1942, the death rate was one man a day. By Christmas, from the diary of American Air Force Private Sigmund “Sig” Schreiner, he wrote that “Eight men have died in the last few days.” [6] The doctors predicted that more would die by the end of the month from cold conditions. Because of the frozen ground, the Japanese officers decided to store the dead in a warehouse until Spring to bury them. The summer was just as bad. From the smelting heat to the long exposures in the sun that resulted in burns, many of the men died from infection.   
In the report by Major Stanley Hankins, he wrote that there were 1 to 2 incidents when two men were severely beaten and confined without trial.[7] But from the form of statements that the punishments started with slapping or kicking or punching with fists, large chunks of wood, or rifle butts. The beatings were so severe that some men would lose consciousness. Some of the beatings caused some of the POWs to lose teeth, hearing, and have other symptoms that caused brain damage. Some bones were broken, but the object was more to humiliate and cause pain than to incapacitate.
The POW officers were given enough food to gain weight, but often, they were drunk. While the lower-ranking POWs were starving from the neglect they received from the POW officers.[8] The forced starvation was not seen as an issue by the Japanese. They had been practicing for many years. The Japan Medical Association legalized the forced starvation of the mentally and physically disabled. It is not much of a leap to say that they would do the same to the POWs in their care during the years of the POWs' captivity.[9] When the POWs were finally freed, the doctors did not know if they would survive, as many of them already looked like walking skeletons.[10]  
Unit 731 arrived at Mukden Camp on February 13, 1943. Ten medical officers and 20 other ranking officers stayed for two weeks to conduct their numerous biological experiments. Unit 731 would return a total of three times to observe the soldiers on whom they administered their experiments. One of the most horrific examples of the Unit 731 experiment was when they singled out Sergeant Herman Castillo. He was taken into an empty barracks and then placed in a wire cage that measured 55 feet in length, 3 feet 6 inches high, 12 inches wide, and 33 inches across. He was in this cage for two weeks straight. Unit 731 medical staff would periodically check on him to ensure that he was, in fact, still alive. Srg. Castillo survived the ordeal. He would have health issues for the rest of his life.[11] Unit 731 would use the results of its experiments on the POWs of the Allied Forces in hopes that it would help Japan win the war. It was not until after 1945 that the truth about the biological experiments conducted by Unit 731 was revealed.[12]  
In 2015, Mitsubishi Materials Corporation issued an apology to the victims of forced labor during World War II. Senior Executive Hikaru Kimura delivered the statement at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles: “In keeping with the spirit of our company’s mission statement, today we apologize for the tragic events in our past and express our profound determination to work towards a better future.”[13] One 94-year-old veteran, James Murphy, who had endured forced labor in a copper mine, called the apology “a glorious day.” He noted the symbolic power of the moment: POWs had once been forced to bow to any Japanese soldier, regardless of rank, and to see the Japanese bow to them made this even more significant. Murphy also reflected on the conditions of his captivity by stating, “It was slavery in every way: no food, no medicine, no clothing, no sanitation.”[14] 
The history of the Imperial Japanese POW system has not been discussed enough in public discourse. What horrors these men had to endure, from the beatings to starvation, all the way to forced labor on equipment that would be used on their fellow soldiers. Having to hear that the people who were behind it all were not punished or given apologies must have devastated them, as it would me. The 2015 Mitsubishi apology may have been many years in the making, but did it help men like James Murphy? Maybe. On the surface, it was the right thing to do, but my question is: Why did it take so long for an apology when a lot of the men who suffered from the forced labor have already passed?
Sources:
[1] Linda Goetz Holmes, Guests of the Emperor: The Secret History of Japan’s Mukden POW Camp, (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2010): 8.
[2] Holmes, Guests of the Emperor, 10.
[3] Ibid, 10.
[4] Ibid, 40. 
[5] Ibid, 47-50.     
[6] Sheldon H. Harris, Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-45 and the American Cover-Up, London: Routledge, 2002. [Revised Edition]: 165. 
[7] Mukden P.O.W. Camp (Temporary Camp) Mukden, Manchuria, Major Stanley H. Hankins, 4. Maj Hankins - Google Drive. 
[8] Holmes, Guests of the Emperor, 51-57.
[9] Harris, Factories of Death, 344. 
[10] Sarah Kovner, Prisoners of the Empire: Inside Japanese POW Camps, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2020): 151.
[11] Holmes, Guests of the Emperor, 18-19. 
[12] Rana Mitter, The Manchurian Muth: Nationalism, Resistance, and Collaboration in Modern China, (Berkley: University of California Press, 2000): 115. 
[13] Abby Phillip, “Mitsubishi apologizes for using American POWs as slaves during WWII,” The Washington Post, July 20, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/07/20/mitsubishi-apologizes-for-using-american-pows-as-slaves-during-wwii/. 
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.

Bibliography 
ADBC-Memorial Society. Tottori Maru. Photo. (2025) https://www.west-point.org/family/japanese-pow/PhotoFile/Tottori.jpg.
ADBC-Memorial Society. Mukden POWS- Documents. Photos.  https://www.adbcmemorialsociety.org/mukden-pows. 
Harris, Sheldon H. Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-45 and the American Cover-Up. (London: Routledge, 2002). [Revised Edition].
Holmes, Linda Goetz. Guests of the Emperor: The Secret History of Japan`s Mukden POW Camp. (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2010).
Kovner, Sarah. Prisoners of the Empire: Inside Japanese POW Camps. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2020).
Mitter, Rana. The Manchurian Muth: Nationalism, Resistance, and Collaboration in Modern China. (Berkley: University of California Press, 2000).
Mukden P.O.W. Camp (Temporary Camp) Mukden, Manchuria. Major Stanley H. Hankins. 1-5. Maj Hankins - Google Drive. 
Phillip, Abby. “Mitsubishi apologizes for using American POWs as slaves during WWII.” The Washington Post, July 20, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/07/20/mitsubishi-apologizes-for-using-american-pows-as-slaves-during-wwii/.