Forgotten Casualties

Kevin T Hall is a postdoctoral researcher at the Ruhr-Universitaet-Bochum in Germany. He specializes in modern Europe (primarily Germany), United States, and military history. He is the author of Terror Flyers: The Lynching of American Airmen in Nazi Germany.

List of Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 1. Axis Policies to Combat Downed Enemy Flyers 29 2. War Crimes Narratives: Pacific and Southeast Asia 63 3. War Crimes Narratives: Europe 104 4. US Postwar Flyer Trials 129 Conclusion 143 Appendix: Index of Analyzed US Flyer Trials Held in the Pacific and Southeast Asia 151 Acknowledgments 243 Notes 245 Bibliography 271 Index 303

This well-researched book reaches into the darkest side of the POW experience during the closing months of WWII. Hall challenges readers to imagine the captors' worst behaviors toward prisoners of war, mostly shootdowns of B-29 bombers over Japan in 1945 and B-17s and B-24s over Germany in1944-45. Highly recommended.-- "Choice Reviews" Kevin Hall's new book provides an intriguing study that will be essential reading to anyone interested in the air war of World War II and the treatment of prisoners in Axis countries. It is buttressed by gripping narratives of the downed flyers in both Germany and Japan and by an analysis of the perpetrators in the post-war trials held in Nuremberg, Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as many other trial locations in the vast Pacific region previously controlled by the Japanese. Lastly, it highlights the differences and similarities in the treatment of downed flyers in the two countries. For example, in Germany, civilians played a larger role in the mistreatment of airmen, while in Japan, military police and government officials took a stronger role, frequently ordering the cremation of executed airmen.---Eric A. Johnson, Professor Emeritus of History at Central Michigan University, and author of Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews and Ordinary Germans Kevin Hall shows that crimes against American airmen were not only conditioned by the vicissitudes of the war but by the xenophobic racism of the Nazi and Japanese governments. He proves that warfare is indeed a bad taste business, and never more so than when a barbarous regime knows it is losing. Through seldom-consulted sources, Hall tells the stories of the Allied flyers in detailed and macabre technicolor. Abundant photographs throughout the book help restore humanity to the forgotten victims. At the end, the reader sees that these were very young men not far removed from their high school prom. They were scarcely out of boyhood when their lives were so senselessly and callously taken from them. Hall has written a poignant book that breaks the heart.---Michael Bryant, Professor of History and Legal Studies at Bryant University, and author of A World History of War Crimes: From Antiquity to the Present