I am an editorial writer at The Korea Times, focusing on foreign policy, North Korea and domestic politics. My key areas of interest include North Korea, foreign interference in elections, election integrity, cyberattacks and human rights. Prior to joining the Editorial Board, I served as both Politics Desk editor and Culture Desk editor. During my career, I have reported on the Presidential Office under the Lee Myung-bak administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Assembly.
Saving soldier slaves: US lawyer's unending mission
This image captured from the 2009 documentary film “Inheritance of War” produced by James Parkinson and directed by Ashley Karras shows American prisoners of war (POWs) during World War II. Captured by the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942 when the United States surrendered the Bataan region to Japan, the U.S. POWs were sent to prison camps in Japan where they were enslaved, treated brutally and malnourished until the end of the war.
By Kang Hyun-kyung
By Kang Hyun-kyung
SHARJAH, UAE _ World War II is long past. But for some people, the deadliest war in human history is still a source of pain as their traumatic wartime experiences continue to haunt them.
Like in Korea, in the United States there are some 20,000 slave labor victims who were forced to work for private Japanese companies during World War II. Many of the survivors passed away but for the remaining few, their unspeakable wartime suffering never goes away.
American prisoners of war (POWs) were captured by the Japanese in the Philippines' western province of Bataan in April 1942 when the United States surrendered the region to the Japanese.
From there to reach Camp O'Donnell in Capas, the American POWs were forced to march 110 kilometers for six days without water or food. Some 500 to 650 U.S. soldiers died during the Bataan Death March. Some were shot dead by the Japanese and some were beaten to death.
The remaining soldiers were sent to prison camps in Japan where another years-long ordeal awaited them.
Just like Korean slave labor victims, the American POWs were abused, beaten and starved all during three years while they worked for private Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel.
The Korean and U.S. slave labor victims, however, experienced very different post-war treatment after they returned home.
Korean wartime victims received compensation from their government and in late October they got the green light from Korea's Supreme Court that they can seek reparations from the Japanese corporations for their lost wages.
The American POWs, however, were forgotten by their government.
Some of the American POWs filed lawsuits against the Japanese companies operating in California in 1999 after the passage of a law that allowed World War II victims to seek reparation from Germany and its allies.
US lawyer James Parkinson / Korea Times
James Parkinson, 69, is one of the lawyers who represented American POWs who were forced to work for Japanese companies.
U.S. wartime victims who filed lawsuits against Germany won and Germany paid $8 billion to clear the hurdles their companies faced in California. But the U.S. POWs who filed lawsuit against Japan lost their legal battle.
Unlike Germany, Japan was a signatory of the 1951 Peace Treaty, which waivered U.S. POWs' claims. The treaty stood in the way of their post-war compensation from the Japanese companies.
After losing the two-year legal battle, Parkinson tried unsuccessfully again to help the war veterans get financial compensation from the U.S. government and met Congress members to ask for their support for the former POWs who suffered a lot in service of their country.
Parkinson said the way American POWs were treated when they returned home was “monumentally unfair” and “one of the greatest injustices.”
“England did it. The Netherlands did it. (Wartime victims in those countries) were paid by their own governments,” he said during an interview with The Korea Times on Nov.4 at the Expo Center in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates.
Parkinson, author of two books, “Soldier Slaves: Abandoned by the White House, Courts and Congress” and “Autodidactic: Self-taught,” participated in the Sharjah International Book Fair as a guest speaker.
After his previous endeavor to help U.S. POWs collect lost wages went in vain, he didn't give up.
He published the book “Soldier Slaves” in 2006 to raise the American public's awareness of the wartime heroes, how they were abused by the Japanese during World War II and how the U.S. government turned a blind eye to the war heroes.
His book has stirred a nationwide debate about the plight of the wartime victims.
He then produced the documentary “The Inheritance of War,” the film adaptation of his 2006 book. Directed by Ashley Karras, the film depicts the struggles of U.S. POWs who fought for their country in the Philippines.
Parkinson, who has worked as a trial lawyer for 40 years, said the U.S. POWs case, along with the tobacco case, are two monumental legal cases that have had significant impact on his life.
“One of the great honors in my life was representing those men,” he said. “They didn't tell their stories to their families because they didn't want to talk about their sufferings.”
As a lawyer, Parkinson had to sit down with his clients on a regular basis and then came to realize their sufferings didn't end even after the war.
According to him, the traumatic wartime experiences haunted them for the rest of their lives.
“Many of them wake up in the middle of the night screaming and fighting because they thought they were still in the war. There was one man I talked to and he got up in the middle of the night and marched straight up on his bed and banged his head on the wall and had to go to the hospital,” he said. “I have one client who so hated Japanese and even in 2000 he wouldn't get a Japanese car. He and his wife went to the Pearl Harbor Memorial. In Hawaii, he saw a bunch of Japanese. He was going to throw water at them. His wife had to stop him.”
Parkinson said the Japanese were infamous for their brutal treatment of POWs. According to him, the ratio of POWs killed by Germans was 2 percent, whereas the ratio for POWs killed by the Japanese was 35 percent.
“One of the soldiers who was part of the Bataan Death March told me that the Japanese ordered a U.S. soldier to dig a hole and get in there. The soldier did. And the Japanese told the next soldier to bury his colleague in the hole, which the soldier hesitated. The Japanese shot him and ordered the next soldier to bury him. Terrified by what he saw, the soldier buried him alive,” he said. “Modern day Japanese are very respectable, but not the ones in the 1940s.”
Parkinson said his clients were the source of inspiration for patriotism. After losing the battle, Parkinson said, his clients were worried about him because he spent millions for the two-year lawsuit. Early on, he and his clients agreed to pay the legal fees if Parkinson were to win the case.
“One of my clients, Al Barest, came to me after the legal battle. He was so upset,” he said. “He gave me something. You know what he gave me? When he was imprisoned in 1942, he took a little American flag and rolled it up and hid it on his body. He kept it all four years during the war and kept it all next years. He came in my office and held his hand out and didn't say a word. He handed me that flag. Every single day when I see the flag, I remember his heroism and his dedication to his family and to the country. It has had a huge impact on me overwhelmingly.”
Parkinson's legal battle for World War II POW survivors, albeit lost, has inspired him to live the rest of his life as a cause-driven man. “Giving back to the students, that all came from those men.”
For the past nine years, Parkinson has launched a campaign for literacy and gave speeches to nearly 40,000 high school and college students in the United States, the UAE, Tanzania and other countries. During his lectures, he handed out his autographed book, titled “Autodidact,” to encourage students to read books to succeed in their lives.
On the sidelines of his session at the Sharjah book fair, Parkinson gave lectures to some 1,000 students in six high schools in the UAE _ two schools in Sharjah, two in Dubai and another two in Abu Dhabi_ before he returned home to California.
He encouraged the students to read as many books as possible, noting their success in their lives hinges on how many books they had read during their schooldays.