Скачать или смотреть Former American prisoners of war tour places they were held in WW2

(16 Oct 2014) American former prisoners of war (POWs) held in Japan during World War II on Thursday toured places they were held nearly 70 years ago, and recounted their memories.
Three of the men, all in their 90s, visited the Heiwajima Kannon, a statue of the Goddess of Mercy, at the site of the former Omori prison camp.
Bill Sanchez, 96, from Monterey Park in California, was one of those set to work to build the island in Tokyo Bay and the Omori prison camp on it.
He said he watched American B-29 bombers as they bombed nearby Tokyo in the closing days of the war.
Sanchez also worked at nearby docks, one of the better jobs for Prisoners of War because it was possible to steal food.
He and the others said they were lucky to have survived the camps and the "hell ships" that carried them to Japan.
Also joining Sanchez on Thursday were two other former POWs who had been imprisoned in different camps.
Jack Schwartz, 99, from California, and a graduate of the California Institute of Technology, was taken prisoner in 1941 and remained in the camps till the end of the war.
Oral C. Nichols, 93, of New Mexico, was put to work in a mine in northern Japan.
This was the first time he had returned to Japan since the end of the war.
The group arrived in Japan on Sunday and were visiting various locations to reflect on their wartime memories.
They also met Japanese lawmakers and the US Ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, in Tokyo.
They were expected to visit Kyoto later to sightsee before they depart on Monday.
During the Second World War, more than 30,000 allied force members were put in as many as 130 prisoner camps which spread across Japan, according to POW Research Network Japan.


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