Seminar Summary
CODE OF CONDUCT AND BEHAVIOR OF PRISONERS OF WAR WHILE IN CAPTIVITY
In August, 1955, the Code of Conduct was signed by President Eisenhower and this code offered guidelines for dealing with the enemy while a prisoner of war. Subject to the code, actions as a POW should follow the mandate contained in that short document and the simple rule of the code is to furnish the captors with only name, grade and service number, plus a few minor items which, in some cases, depending on the branch of service, include date of birth and home town. This is simply not enough guidance for a young soldier and unblinking adherence to the code is tantamount to having a death wish. Therefore, members of the armed services require instruction (about two-hours) in addition to the normal one-hour-a-year of hearing someone read the Code of Conduct from a manual and then forgetting about it for another twelve months.
The seminar uses American prisoners of war during the Korean Conflict to form the foundation for the class because the behavior of captive Americans while interned in North Korea by the Chinese for three years was despicable and also because the camps were slaughterhouses, especially Camp 5 on the Yalu River.
Most people don’t know that more men were killed in Korean POW camps during captivity than any other war in American History. From October, 1950 to April 1, 1951, 7,000 men were captured (mostly army and then marines) and in this same period, 3,000 were killed. That’s 43 percent of the population. During World War II, 4 percent of POWs held by the Germans and Italians perished, 34 percent held by the Japanese died, Viet Nam had 14 percent, and the infamous Confederate Andersonville prison camp in Georgia had 32 percent expire. Only with Russians captured by Germans during World War II was the rate higher (60 percent) and with Germans captured by Russians the rate was 45 percent.
“What is the status of a POW?” The common answer is that he is a non-combatant but nothing can be further from the truth. The POW camp is a battlefield and an extremely dangerous one. Gen. Lemuel Shepherd, commandant of the Marine Corps at the time, noted that:
Men who become prisoners of war must learn to accept the implications of their fate with the same fortitude with which they have learned in the past to steel themselves to accept the stark reality of death in battle. The prisoner-of-war stockade is only an extension of the battlefield where they must . . . carry on an unequal struggle with the only weapons remaining to them – faith and courage.
How does one behave while a POW? This question is the essence of the seminar, which is not to take away from the Code of Conduct but to add some survival (common) sense to it. Prisoners are absolutely worthless to an army on the march. You’re a nuisance which has to be fed, guarded, housed, and taken care of. They’d rather shoot you unless, and this is important, you have some value.
Value has three different arenas and they are (1) military intelligence – usually reserved for higher ranking officers, (2) slave labor – e.g., the Japanese during World War II and (3) propaganda (in Korea, everyone was involved, officers and men alike). At Camp 5, for example, there were over 1,500 men in this camp alone and each and every one of them, without exception, signed various anti-American propaganda documents. The disgrace in this was that the officers let down their men. Their was no leadership and it was dog eat dog. This is one of the key points in this seminar. Without leadership stems chaos and chaos reined supreme in Korea. We can’t allow that to happen again.
One final topic must be squeezed into this seminar and that is the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, (July 27, 1929). This surreal document will be reviewed and a discussion concerning this convention will be interwoven with various behavior patterns encountered in Korea and possibly to be employed by POWs in the future.
A possible concern may be that this seminar will trash the Code of Conduct but it certainly will not because the code is used as a foundation and anything else is a supplement to it. The code is an essential tool to guide one through the ordeal of being a POW. That said, it will be explained that one can, indeed, go a little beyond the code. If you want to know my wife’s name, you got it. Kids? You got it. Relatives and friends? Got it again. If my men need food, water, medical attention, I will get into a conversation with my captors to obtain these items. It is impossible to go through years as a POW without some intercourse with the enemy. Give them what they want without giving away the farm and you may survive the end of the war.
But, do not collaborate. Collaboration with the enemy is treason, a distinction without a difference. Collaboration at a military trial carries the death penalty.
All of this has been tried and tested in Korea. The soldiers did not come home to military bands, ticker-tape parades and/or medals. In fact, many men were court-martialed, including two lieutenant colonels, for collaboration and concluded with some stiff penalties. This, too, will be discussed. One can only go so far but Korea proved that if all the men, led by competent officers, stuck together, the captors would relent. This has been exhibited over and over again. Leadership by example is the key.
If you desire to have a two-hour seminar conducted by Raymond Lech, author of Broken Soldiers (University of Illinois Press), please feel free to get in touch with him by visiting
www.authorlech.com
Broken Soldiers
All the drowned sailors
