5.12 Prisoners of War

A sister attends to a patient suffering from severe malnutrition following Hong Kong's liberation.

British prisoners of war captured in the New Territories.

After the fall of Hong Kong, some 9,000 captured soldiers were interned in prisoner of war (POW) camps in North Point, Sham Shui Po, Argyle Street and Ma Tau Chung, while 2,700 nationals of Japan's enemy countries were detained in camps at Stanley.

The POWs did all work in their camps; some were sent to Japan to do hard labour for the Japanese army. Congested conditions at the camps and shortage of food meant that internees were afflicted with diseases and hunger for a long period of time, and many died of dysentery and cholera.

At the end of the war, a third of the POWs who survived were suffering from infectious diseases, and most were pitifully underweight.

Credit : History Museum of HK.