POWs of Japan testify to Congress

click for testimony

Every year, for at the last 10 years the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society has submitted testimony for the record at one of the annual joint House and Senate Veterans Committees hearings for Veterans Service Organization.

On Tuesday, March 3, ADBC-MS testimony was part of the Legislative Presentation of Multiple Veterans Service Organizations (AXPOW, PVA, SVA, GSW, MOAA, FRA, IAVA)..

Jan Thompson, President of the ADBC-MS called on Congress to do the following in this 75th Anniversary of Liberation:

1. Award, collectively the American POWs of Japan the Congressional Gold Medal.
2. Instruct the U.S. Department of State to prepare a report for Congress on the history and funding of the “Japan/POW Friendship Program” began in 2010 and how it compares with programs for Allied POWs and Takahashi groups.
3. Encourage the Government of Japan to continue the “Japan/POW Friendship Program.”
4. Encourage the Government of Japan to expand its “Japan/POW Friendship Program” into a permanent educational initiative.
5. Request the Government of Japan to include the history of POW slave labor in the information provided about the sites of Japan’s “Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining” on the UNESCO World Industrial Heritage list.
6. Work with the Government of Japan to create a memorial at the Port of Moji on Kyushu where most of the POW hellships docked and unloaded their sick and dying human cargo.

Included in the testimony is a Timeline of events during 1945, the 75th Anniversary of the end of WWII.