Posted on 07/30/2002 1:03:01 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
HUNDREDS of former US prisoners of war have begun a battle for compensation after uncovering documents that allegedly prove the wartime administration deliberately used them as a tool to whip up domestic support for war with Japan.
A former prisoner has uncovered papers in the US National Archive that she claims prove the government restricted the travel of 7,000 American citizens from the Philippines, while at the same time encouraging evacuation of Americans from other potential Japanese targets in China and south-east Asia.
A federal lawsuit filed yesterday in Washington, DC, alleges that the government at first wanted to keep Americans in the Philippines to discourage Japanese aggression, but later used them as a political tool.
A group of 500 former prisoners claim the plan was devised by the US wartime leader, Franklin D Roosevelt. with the approval of Winston Churchill, Britains Prime Minister, to cause outrage among American citizens unwilling to back a war on Japan.
Americans were denied passport and travel documents to let them flee. They were later captured by the Japanese and held in notorious camps under appalling conditions.
Marcia Fee Achenbach, one of those captured, was four when her camp was liberated by US soldiers in 1944. She discovered the papers while doing research in the National Archive. Among the evidence uncovered was a telegram that Francis Sayre, the high commissioner of the Philippines, had sent to the US state department urging an evacuation plan. The state departments confidential reply read: "Visualise the remaining of Americans generally in the Philippines in an emergency, and plan accordingly."
Other evidence includes a letter from one of the commissioners secretaries indicating that officials were not to issue passports. The secretary states that she wrote more than 5,000 letters rejecting passport applications during the build up to Japans attack on Pearl Harbor.
In the notorious Philippine POW camps, starvation and disease were rampant, and hundreds died as internees were reduced to eating cats, dogs, rats and weeds to survive. Many of the camps leaders were executed by the Japanese as the US army advanced to recapture the islands. Ms Achenbach said: "I remember having to run around to get away from the shelling. I grew up thinking that we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was angry and astounded to find out later I didnt have to go through some of the things I went through."
Anthony DAmato, the lawyer who filed the suit, believes the orders came directly from Roosevelt. He also thinks the US leader discussed his plans for the Philippines in telephone talks with Churchill.
Transcripts of those conversations were ordered to be sealed indefinitely by President Harry Truman, but Mr DAmato is asking for them to be made public. "We believe this smoking gun is in those transcripts," he said.
Frances Cogan, a professor at the University of Oregon, said the government had other reasons for its actions. "It was thought that if they moved the Americans out of the Philippines, it would look like we were going to launch a war against Japan," said Prof Cogan, author of Captured: The Internment of American civilians in the Philippines 1941-1945. "Another reason was to keep the Filipino people from feeling they had been deserted and left to rot."
Regarding the actions of US officials, Prof Cogan said: "Certainly they lied. Certainly they kept them from leaving and getting transportation out. The effect was that people remained there, however they did it and for whatever reasons."
Even if the allegations are proved, legal experts say winning a suit against the government over a wartime event that that happened 60 years ago may not lead to the desired apology. One complication is that the prisoners have already received some financial recompense. After their release, former prisoners were paid one dollar for each day of internment from the proceeds of a sale of Japanese assets frozen in other countries. As part of that deal, the United States and other nations waived the rights of their citizens to sue Japan.
In the 1930s and 1940s an important issue was being worked out. The question was, were the Phillipinos born under the U.S. administration of the islands entitled to citizenship? (It should be noted that many Philipinos served in the US military, often in menial jobs.)
As best as I can tell, the "Commonwealth of the Philippines" issued their own passports from at least the 1930's. Hence the issue of passports in the post many have referred to Philippinos trying to obtain US passports, rather than US citizens being denied.
Not unlike today FDR as POTUS let our military deteriorate almost to a point of no return. He was to busy doing social engineering to be bothered with it. Anybody remember CCC camps? Building parks and such instead of defenses? That was FDR. Yep FDR & CCC was gonna save the nation. Yet he could have done the same thing by opening defense plants getting us ready for what was coming. Not till the first bombs were dropped on us did the light bulb go off and the idea the primary function of government is national defense cross his mind.
FDR was a DUNCE at best a Socialist Lite is more of a better description. No actually he was from one of the nations wealthiest families which I guess some how in the eyes of some made his judgments somehow right. I found this in his bio at the White house.gov web site. Yep he stood for not so conservative values and everything todays party controlling Moderates & Liberals could ever ask for in Big Government.
By 1935 the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery, but businessmen and bankers were turning more and more against Roosevelt's New Deal program. They feared his experiments, were appalled because he had taken the Nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget, and disliked the concessions to labor. Roosevelt responded with a new program of reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.
It seems their fears were justified. Yet our elected still hasn't learned. It's OK it seems as long as it's your parties idea. FDR dern well by his social programs first mentality nearly cost us our nation. Better to be armed and ready to fight than be struck and go try and find or build a weapon afterward.
BTW if we had put sufficient military presence in the PI's, in the South Pacific, and in the Mediterain Basin rather than parking our few functional defense assets as an easy target to hit then I don't think Japan, Germany or anyone else would have given it a try. They grew strong simply because we grew weak. That is the same mistake taking place now and history it seems is to be repeated.
Demon
Rat!
Though I also feel it important to point out that by no means have I ever felt, nor will I ever feel that I was someshow "screwed" in that process. It was a great honor to have served in Vietnam with so many noble men and women. That, in itself, is and will always be reward and reparation enough.
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