The one unresolved issue of the Pacific War is the treatment of American prisoners of war, during and after World War II, both by the Japanese and by the American government. Never before in American military history have so many Americans, military and civilian, been taken captive by an enemy at one time. It was a triumph for the Japanese, and an embarrassment to our own government. Over 36,000 men, mostly military but some civilian, were thrown into Japanese military POW camps, forced to labour for companies working to meet quotas for Japan’s war effort.

Guests of the Emperor takes you inside the largest fixed military prison camp in the Japanese Empire: Mitsubishi’s huge factory complex at Mukden, Manchuria, where 1,200 American prisoners were subjected to brutal cold, starvation, beatings, medical experiments and an extremely high death rate while being forced to help manufacture parts for Mitsubishi’s Zero fighter planes.

This book is the first to reveal conclusively that some Americans at Mukden were singled out for medical experiments by Japan’s biological warfare team, the infamous Unit 731. Nowhere else did American prisoners despise their officers so much; commit more creative sabotage; survive such brutal cold; endure death by friendly fire; and require the combined efforts of an OSS rescue team and special recovery unit, to come home alive.

About the Author
Linda Goetz Holmes is the first Pacific War historian appointed to advise the government Interagency Working Group declassifying documents on World War II crimes.