Unjust Enrichment: How Japan's Companies Built Postwar Fortunes Using American POWs

In September 1999, some 500 American WWII veterans filed suit against five Japanese corporations (including Mitsubishi and Kawasaki), seeking reparation for having been used as slave laborers during the war. According to the plaintiffs, these corporations built their postwar success on a foundation of American forced labor. The companies say they have been wrongly targeted, because the modern conglomerates have no relation to the wartime entities accused of these practices, prohibited now as then under the rules of the Geneva Convention. Holmes (4,000 Bowls of Rice), a respected historian and researcher who is part of a presidential panel working to declassify the records of Nazi war crimes, weighs in heavily on the side of the former American POWs. Using recently declassified documents, Holmes bolsters the vets' claims. (One formerly top secret Japanese cable read, ""Due to a serious shortage of labor power in Japan, the use of the white POW is earnestly desired."") But the most emotionally charged evidence comes from the former POWs themselves. In interview after interview, Holmes chronicles the abuse of American captives, whose lingering medical and emotional problems are compounded by the belief that their suffering has been minimized by a postwar culture more moved by the plight of other groups of war victims. (Feb. 19) Forecast: A front-page New York Times article on October 2, 2000, broke news of the case on a national level. This book provides a foundation for further media coverage, and should be widely cited. Meanwhile, buffs and vets will find out about the book via newsgroups and the like.