Men who at the start of the war would only have fought according to what they had expected of war, a civilised war, as civilised as war is. But in the jungles of the Far East with a combatant that had been ordered to, “Die for their Emperor” that was short lived, it turned to a brutalising and sickening one.

The Japanese had no compulsion about the way they treated their foe, if there were a slower way to die they would practice it.

Some of the British and Australians troops who were caught, had a far worse ending to there lives, in order to harden and bloody there new Japanese warriors they tied the British and Australians to trees or posts and used them in live bayonet practice.

From the PRO

The spoils of war

You would think that after the Japanese had rounded up all their Captives and placed them in secure conditions their eminent deaths would recede, no, the following event in one of the camps occurred.

"1943 we were reminded that Japan had not signed up to the Geneva protocol on the treatment of prisoners of war and they showed us, an American was beaten so hard he just crawled into his bunk and died" Captive Hoten camp

“Another American, private Noah Heard, was caught by the Japs themselves stealing a Red Cross parcel. Since these parcels were intended for POWs but were never issued (the Japs simply added them to their own rations) Heard was rightly taking what rightly belonged to him"

" Nevertheless, Yuri condemned him to death. The method of execution was singularly brutal; Heard was tied to a post and used for bayonet practice. The American Officers were forced to witness his murder, for this after the war, Yuri was executed.”  Geoffrey Pharaoh-Adams. *