When General Jonathan Wainwright and 33 other Allied officers were held at Liaoyuan Prisoner of War Camp in Jilin province in 1944 and 1945, the regime was unremittingly harsh.

Japanese officers gave every POW a piece of paper detailing the positions of everything in their rooms, and any infringements were punished.

The POWS were given corn porridge for breakfast and lunch every day, and dinner always consisted of vegetables and bean curd.

On the days high-ranking Japanese officers or officials from the International Red Cross visited the camp, the prisoners were given steamed bread, but only on condition they didn't mention the monotonous diet and poor quality of their usual rations to the visitors.

Two of the POWs made a wooden rocking chair and presented it to Wainwright to celebrate New Year in 1945, but the gift sparked confusion and alarm among their captors. A card the men had included expressing the wish that Wainwright would be home by October was misinterpreted by the Japanese, who suspected it was a coded message. They were unable to break the "code" so they destroyed the chair instead.

The POWS had no access to news, and were fed disinformation about Japanese "victories" to cover the reality that Japan was losing ground every day. Some of the prisoners said the guards seemed delighted at the POWs' discomfort if the false information was believed.

Qu Daode spoke with He Na.

(China Daily 05/06/2015 page6)