Prisoner Of War

Day 40: Recently, I came across a missing piece in the puzzle of my father's incarceration as a Prisoner of War. I knew that he had been in a camp in Manchuria which had been liberated by the Russians, but beyond that, I had no information until I stumbled across the word "Manchukuo" in some of my mother's paperwork. At the time, it did not occur to me to check on line to see what a search might yield, but today as I was thinking about my father in terms of being a veteran, I Googled the name and found an official website which listed him among the 280 officers who were imprisoned there. His name is misspelled on the roster as it is on the tag he wore, and I do not know if it is also misspelled on his military records, but at least now I have a starting point for further research.

According to the website, there were a number of unpleasant incidents involving the liberators, but the personal story which will remain strongest in my mind is of a big Russian who literally threw my emaciated father over his shoulder and took him somewhere for a good meal. My dad's diabetes was undiagnosed at the time, so he promptly collapsed in a coma as his blood sugar level spiked. He was among the men who were first evacuated by air, and he received immediate medical attention.

The privations my dad suffered while imprisoned exacerbated his condition, and he never reached his 40th birthday. I cannot help but wonder how the other prisoners in the same camp fare today. On this Veterans Day, my thoughts go out to them if they still live, and to their families.