Built between 1942 and 1945 by Allied prisoners of war and native slave labor, and extending from Ban Pong, Thailand, to Thanbyuzayat, Burma, the Burma-Thailand railway was intended to supply Japanese forces fighting in Burma. As World War II progressed, American submarines and Allied aircraft had increasingly threatened Japanese cargo ships in ...
The Bullet Decree or "Kugel-Erlass" in German also known as "Aktion Kugel" was a secret decree (Geheimbefehl), issued by the German army. The Bullet Decree stated that escaped and recaptured POW’s were to be handed over to the Gestapo for execution, in direct disobeying of the provisions of the Third Geneva Convention.
Little Switch and Big Switch were the code-names for the large exchange of prisoners of war during the Korean War in 1953. It was preceded by Operation Little Switch, which involved the exchange of sick and wounded prisoners.
One of the most notorious atrocities committed against POWs in the Pacific theater of World War II, the Bataan Death March took American and Filipino troops to prison camps in the northern Philippines after they surrendered to the Japanese on the Bataan Peninsula on 9 April 1942. As a result of their three-month defense of the peninsula, America...
When the occupation of Germany was completed by the Allied forces, there began the formidable task of bringing to some form of justice the vast number of war criminals. It was a task that would last until 1948, when the German courts were authorized to take over this responsible act of retribution. There were many legal and moral problems involv...
A German torpedo hit the RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915. Shortly after, a substantial second explosion shook the ship. Within 20 minutes, the vessel known as the "Greyhound of the Seas" had sunk to the ocean floor, resulting in the deaths of almost 1200 individuals. A new two-step investigation...