Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Prisoners of war United States Attitudes'
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1
Ryan, Laura M. "Return with honor : Code of Conduct training in the National Military Strategy security environment /." Thesis, Monterey, Calif. : Springfield, Va. : Naval Postgraduate School ; Available from National Technical Information Service, 2004. http://library.nps.navy.mil/uhtbin/hyperion/04Sep%5FRyan.pdf.
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Williams, J. Barrie. "Re-Education of German Prisoners of War in the United States during World War II." W&M ScholarWorks, 1993. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539625841.
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Byrne, Karen Lynn. "Danville's Civil War prisons, 1863-1865." Thesis, This resource online, 1993. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-02092007-102016/.
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Diaz, Jose Oscar. "“To Make the Best of Our Hard Lot”: Prisoners, Captivity, and the Civil War." The Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1233764501.
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Ruschau, Adam Richard. ""Fighting mit Sigel" or "running mit Howard" attitudes towards German-Americans in the Civil War /." Oxford, Ohio : Miami University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=miami1180542121.
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Vourkoutiotis, Vasilis. "The German Armed Forces Supreme Command and British and American prisoners-of-war, 1939-1945 : policy and practice." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/NQ64687.pdf.
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Rock, Adam. "The American Way: The Influence of Race on the Treatment of Prisoners of War During World War Two." Master's thesis, University of Central Florida, 2014. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETD/id/6345.
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When examining the Second World War, it is impossible to overlook the influence race had in both creating the conflict and determining the intensity with which it was fought. While this factor existed in the European theater, it pales in comparison to how race influenced the fighting in the Pacific. John Dower produced a comprehensive study that examined the racial aspects of the Pacific theater in his book War Without Mercy. Dower concluded that Americans viewed themselves as racially superior to the Asian "other" and this influenced the ferocity of the Pacific war. While Dower's work focused on this relationship overseas, I examine the interaction domestically.
My study examines the influence of race on the treatment of Japanese Prisoners of War (POWs) held in the United States during the Second World War. Specifically, my thesis will assess the extent to which race and racism affected several aspects of the treatment of Japanese prisoners in American camps. While in theory the American policy toward POWs made no distinctions in the treatment of racially different populations, in reality discrepancies in the treatment of racially different populations of POWs (German, and Japanese) become clear in its application.
My work addresses this question by investigating the differences in treatment between Japanese and European POWs held in the United States during and after the war. Utilizing personal letters from both American policymakers and camp administrators, U.S. War Department POW camp inspection reports, documents outlining American policy, as well as newspaper and magazine articles, I attempt to demonstrate how treatment substantially differed depending on the race of the prisoner. The government's treatment of the Japanese POWs should illuminate the United States Government's racial views during and after the war.M.A.
Masters
History
Arts and Humanities
History
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Roy, Oindrila. "EXPLORING THE INFLUENCE OF FAITH ON FOREIGN POLICY ATTITUDES IN THE UNITED STATES." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1416593434.
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Crager, Kelly Eugene. "Lone Star under the Rising Sun: Texas's "Lost Battalion," 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment, During World War II." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2005. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc4737/.
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In March 1942, the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment, 36th Division, surrendered to the Japanese Imperial Army on Java in the Dutch East Indies. Shortly after the surrender, the men of the 2nd Battalion were joined as prisoners-of-war by the sailors and Marines who survived the sinking of the heavy cruiser USS Houston. From March 1942 until the end of World War II, these men lived in various Japanese prison camps throughout the Dutch East Indies, Southeast Asia, and in the Japanese home islands. Forced to labor for their captors for the duration of the conflict, they performed extremely difficult tasks, including working in industrial plants and mining coal in Japan, and most notably, constructing the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway. During their three-and-one-half years of captivity, these prisoners experienced brutality at the hands of the Japanese. Enduring prolonged malnutrition and extreme overwork, they suffered from numerous tropical and dietary diseases while receiving almost no medical care. Each day, these men lived in fear of being beaten and tortured, and for months at a time they witnessed the agonizing deaths of their friends and countrymen. In spite of the conditions they faced, most survived to return to the United States at war's end. This study examines the experiences of these former prisoners from 1940 to 1945 and attempts to explain how they survived.
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DeLucca, Claire. "Both Sides of the Barbed Wire: Lives of German Prisoners of War and African Americans in Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, 1944-1946." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2018. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2454.
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Located outside of Alexandria, Louisiana, Camp Claiborne was temporarily home to more than 500,000 U.S. servicemen and women during its short existence. Thousands of German prisoners of war also were held for more than two years in a section of the camp. Racial problems stemming from the policies of Jim Crow South and the blatant inequality eventually led to an African American mutiny within the camp. The events from 1944 to 1946 at Camp Claiborne provide insight into the mindsets of white Southerners and the generation of African Americans who would influence the major civil rights victories in the following decades.
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Garrett, Dave L. "The Power of One: Bonnie Singleton and American Prisoners of War in Vietnam." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1999. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc279240/.
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Bonnie Singleton, wife of United States Air Force helicopter rescue pilot Jerry Singleton, saw her world turned upside down when her husband was shot down while making a rescue in North Vietnam in 1965. At first, the United States government advised her to say very little publicly concerning her husband, and she complied. After the capture of the American spy ship, the U.S.S. Pueblo by North Korea, and the apparent success in freeing the naval prisoners when Mrs. Rose Bucher, the ship captain's wife, spoke out, Mrs. Singleton changed her opinion and embarked upon a campaign to raise public awareness about American prisoners of war held by the Communist forces in Southeast Asia. Mrs. Singleton, along with other Dallas-area family members, formed local grass-roots organizations to notify people around the world about the plight of American POWs. They enlisted the aid of influential congressmen, such as Olin "Tiger" Teague of College Station, Texas; President Richard M. Nixon and his administration; millionaire Dallas businessman Ross Perot; WFAA television in Dallas; and other news media outlets worldwide. In time, Bonnie Singleton, other family members, and the focus groups they helped start encouraged North Vietnam to release the names of prisoners, allow mail and packages to be sent to the POWs, and afford better treatment for prisoners of war.
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Donaho, Marlea S. "Belle Isle, Point Lookout, the Press and the Government: The Press and Reality of Civil War Prison Camps." VCU Scholars Compass, 2017. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/4736.
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The study of Civil War prisons is relatively new within the broader study of the Civil War. What little study there is tends to focus on bigger prison camps. It has been established in the historiography that prisoners suffered across the divided nation, but it has not been ascertained how the decisions and policies of the government, as well as the role of the press in those decisions, effected the daily lives of Civil War prisoners. Belle Isle, a Confederate Prison, and Point Lookout, a Union prison, will be analyzed for key differences to provide a fuller picture of life inside a Civil War prison camp, as well as how the press and government affected that daily life. It was discovered that the role of the government and the press was heavily influential in the lives of Civil War prisoners, leading to much suffering.
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Fischer, Ronald W. "A comparative study of two Civil War prisons : Old Capitol prison and Castle Thunder prison /." Thesis, This resource online This resource online, 1994. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-02092007-102017/.
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Seelinger, Matthew J. "Breaking ranks : veterans' opposition to universal military training, 1943-1948." Virtual Press, 1996. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1033637.
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From the colonial period to the present, Americans have debated the role of the military and its place in American society. One important part of this debate is the issue of compulsory military service and whether it is consistent with the ideals of a democratic state. Although Americans have generally accepted compulsory service in times of national emergency, they have often expressed great reservations to it in times of peace. In their view, compulsory military service raises fundamental questions about the responsibilities of citizens to the state.Following World War II, proponents of compulsory military service campaigned for implementation of Universal Military Training (UMT) as a method of insuring manpower for a potential national emergency. By stressing the universal aspect of the program, supporters hoped to demonstrate the democratic qualities of UMT and its compatibility with traditional American ideals. Ultimately, however, they were unable to convince Congress and the general public of the program's merits. Some opposed the program because of its questionable military value in the atomic age. Many others voiced their disapproval of UMT largely because of a longstanding American sentiment against peacetime compulsory service. As a result, UMT was never implemented.This thesis will explore a neglected aspect of the UMT debate and examine the opposition of veterans to UMT. Veterans generally, and veterans organizations in particular, have traditionally advocated military preparedness. Not surprisingly, the American Legion was the primary nongovernmental organization to spearhead the effort to adopt UMT. Yet significant opposition to UMT existed even within the Legion's ranks. Similarly, the American Veterans Committee (AVC), a newly formed organization comprised of World War II veterans, announced its opposition to military training. With uncertain support from a segment of American society that would normally be expected to back preparedness programs, the government's plan for military training had little chance for adoption. With the resumption of selective service in 1948, the importance of UMT to U.S. military policy greatly diminished, and UMT virtually disappeared from the political forefront.Through the use of archival sources at the American Legion National Headquarters, the records of the American Veterans Committee, congressional testimony by representatives of both organizations, and various secondary sources, this thesis demonstrates that some veterans, like many Americans, viewed peacetime compulsory military service with great ambivalence and not an obligation of citizenship in a democratic state.Department of History
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Croley, Pamela. "American Reeducation of German POWs, 1943-1946." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2006. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/2233.
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The United States held almost 500,000 enemy combatants within her borders during World War II. Out of those 500,000 men, 380,000 were from Nazi Germany. Nazi POWs were confined to camps built near small rural towns in almost every state. It was not something that was well known to the American public. Even less known was the American Military's effort, through reeducation, to introduce Hitler's soldiers to a new political ideology-democracy. This thesis will explore how the reeducation program was formed; examine the people, both German and American, who participated in it, and make a determination on whether or not it was successful. While Special Projects did not completely win over the majority of the German POWs, it was my finding that for the Americans to have done nothing when faced with such a situation would have been foolish.
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Young, Kelly M. "Nukespeak and psychic numbing metaphors in the academic texts of defense intellectuals." Virtual Press, 1997. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1048397.
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This study analyzed defense intellectuals' metaphors to determine if the metaphors minimize or ignore the negative effects of nuclear war. The study specifically analyzed 30 texts from Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy with the metaphorical criticism method. Once the texts were analyzed, the findings suggested that defense intellectuals' metaphors describe nuclear war as ordinary and non-threatening, as a game or relationship. In addition, the study found that the defense intellectuals used metaphors that deflected responsibility for building and using nuclear weapons away from world leaders. The findings also suggested that the defense intellectuals are not numb to the effects of nuclear war, as others claim. Instead, the defense intellectuals' metaphors acted as cognitive blinders that prevented them from discussing the effects of nuclear war. Finally, the study found that each journal's metaphors were aligned with a particular world view of international relations; Foreign Affairs belonged to the realist school of thought, while Foreign Policy belonged to the neo-liberal institutionalist school of thought.Department of Speech Communication
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Kilian, Clive Linton. "The status of the Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at Guantanamo bay." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/826.
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The United States of America has in its custody several hundred Taliban and Al Qaeda combatants who were captured after the September 11, 2001 attack and during the war in Afghanistan. These prisoners are incarcerated at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba. The treatment given to these detainees has elicited widespread criticism, as well as unprecedented intellectual and legal debates regarding prisoners of war. In order to fully understand the position of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, one has to be aware of the origins of the prisoner-of-war phenomenon. From biblical times, through the countless conflicts that were waged across the globe through the ages, the concept of “prisoner of war” gradually evolved. Growing concern for the plight of prisoners of war was paralleled by the development of the laws of war, which sought to regulate the conduct of combatants during an armed conflict. The laws of war that have bearing on modern day States are those documented in the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions regulate armed conflicts and set out the requirements for prisoners of war, as well as their trial rights. The United States, in declaring the Guantanamo Bay detainees “unlawful combatants” or “illegal enemy combatants”, terms which are undefined in International Law, have sought to evade the prescripts of the Geneva Conventions. In direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions, the Guantanamo Bay detainees are denied the right to humane treatment, a fair trial and due process of the law. Prior to Hamdan vs Rumsfeld, the United States’ position was challenged with very little success. The Supreme Court, in Hamdan vs Rumsfeld, directed the president to accord the detainees the protections of the Third Geneva Convention. The relief brought by this decision was very short lived. In September 2006 the United States Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. This Bill gives the president of the United States unfettered power in dealing with anyone suspected of being a threat to the State, as well as the authorisation to interpret and apply the Geneva Conventions according to his sole discretion.
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Jackson, Brian D. "Island of Tranquility: Rhetoric and Identification at Brigham Young University During the Vietnam Era." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2003. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/4819.
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The author argues that beyond religious beliefs and conservative politics, rhetorical identification played an important role in the relative calmness of the BYU campus during the turbulent Sixties. Using Bitzer's rhetorical situation theory and Burke's identification theory, the author shows that BYU's calm campus can be explained as a result of communal identification with a conservative ethos. He also shows that apparent epistemological shortcomings of Bitzer's model can be resolved by considering the power of identification to create salience and knowledge in rhetorical situations. During the Sixties, BYU administration developed policies on physical appearance that invited students to take on a conservative identity, and therefore a conservative behavior. Relationships of power and hierarchy at BYU can be understood not as quantitative and oppressive matrices, but as rhetorical choices of students to identify with the character of school president, Ernest Wilkinson, and the administration. Power, then, is as Foucault envisioned it—as a field wherein identity and discourse are negotiated. This thesis argues for a more broad understanding of identification, ethos, and power for explaining rhetorical behavior in communal situations.
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Tsukayama, John K. "By any means necessary : an interpretive phenomenological analysis study of post 9/11 American abusive violence in Iraq." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/4510.
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This study examines the phenomenon of abusive violence (AV) in the context of the American Post-9/11 Counter-terrorism and Counter-insurgency campaigns. Previous research into atrocities by states and their agents has largely come from examinations of totalitarian regimes with well-developed torture and assassination institutions. The mechanisms influencing willingness to do harm have been examined in experimental studies of obedience to authority and the influences of deindividuation, dehumanization, context and system. This study used Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to examine the lived experience of AV reported by fourteen American military and intelligence veterans. Participants were AV observers, objectors, or abusers. Subjects described why AV appeared sensible at the time, how methods of violence were selected, and what sense they made of their experiences after the fact. Accounts revealed the roles that frustration, fear, anger and mission pressure played to prompt acts of AV that ranged from the petty to heinous. Much of the AV was tied to a shift in mission view from macro strategic aims of CT and COIN to individual and small group survival. Routine hazing punishment soldiers received involving forced exercise and stress positions made similar acts inflicted on detainees unrecognizable as abusive. Overt and implied permissiveness from military superiors enabled AV extending to torture, and extra-judicial killings. Attempting to overcome feelings of vulnerability, powerlessness and rage, subjects enacted communal punishment through indiscriminate beatings and shooting. Participants committed AV to amuse themselves and humiliate their enemies; some killed detainees to force confessions from others, conceal misdeeds, and avoid routine paperwork. Participants realized that AV practices were unnecessary, counter-productive, and self-damaging. Several reduced or halted their AV as a result. The lived experience of AV left most respondents feeling guilt, shame, and inadequacy, whether they committed abuse or failed to stop it.
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Martin, Nicola. "The cultural paradigms of British imperialism in the militarisation of Scotland and North America, c.1745-1775." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/28516.
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This dissertation examines militarisation in Scotland and North America from the Jacobite Uprising of 1745-46 to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775. Employing a biographical, case study approach, it investigates the cultural paradigms guiding the actions and understandings of British Army officers as they waged war, pacified hostile peoples, and attempted to assimilate 'other' population groups within the British Empire. In doing so, it demonstrates the impact of the Jacobite Uprising on British imperialism in North America and the role of militarisation in affecting the imperial attitudes of military officers during a transformative period of imperial expansion, areas underexplored in the current historiography. It argues that militarisation caused several paradigm shifts that fundamentally altered how officers viewed imperial populations and implemented empire in geographical fringes. Changes in attitude led to the development of a markedly different understanding of imperial loyalty and identity. Civilising savages became less important as officers moved away from the assimilation of 'other' populations towards their accommodation within the empire. Concurrently, the status of colonial settlers as Britons was contested due to their perceived disloyalty during and after the French and Indian War. 'Othering' colonial settlers, officers questioned the sustainability of an 'empire of negotiation' and began advocating for imperial reform, including closer regulation of the thirteen colonies. And, as the colonies appeared to edge closer to rebellion, those officers drew upon prior experiences in Scotland and North America to urge the military pacification of a hostile population group to ensure imperial security. Militarisation, therefore, provides important insights into how cultural imperialism was implemented in Scotland and how it was transferred and adapted to North America. Further, it demonstrates the longer-term interactions and understandings that influenced transformations in eighteenth-century imperial policy.
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Phares, Matthew H. "Combating insurgency can lessons from the Huk Rebellion apply to Iraq? /." Quantico, VA : Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 2008. http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA490910.
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Villoen, Dewald Leonard. "Misguided attempts at justifying torture by United States officials in the war against terror." Thesis, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10210/9498.
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LL.M. (International Law)The attacks on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon on 11 September 2001 sent waves of disbelief and shock through the world. It was probably the worst terrorist attack on the United States ever. The horrific terrorist attacks led to a mixture of political, social and economic reaction around the world and also led to the creation of what is today known as the “The war on terror”. When acts of torture by United States officials came to light in 2004, as well as allegations that these acts were authorized by the United States executive as a way of obtaining information from terrorist suspects in the United States’ “War on Terror”, it led to the question – “How was it possible that acts of torture were committed by United States officials”? The purpose of this dissertation is to try to find an answer to this question and also tom establish which definition of torture should be utilized in the United States domestic laws for the establishment of acts of torture.
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Ruschau, Adam R. ""Fighting mit Sigel" or "running mit Howard" : attitudes towards German-Americans in the Civil War /." 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=miami1180542121.
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Hooker, Peter. "From ship to cell: American mariners in captivity and the contest of American identity during the era of 1812." Thesis, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1432671.
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Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)This thesis builds on the recent work of historians who have reappraised the experience of prisoners of war during the early history of the United States. Specifically, it examines the still largely neglected topic of American maritime prisoners during the War of 1812, the first officially declared war by the United States, and the second war against Britain. During the three years of fighting some 14,000 American mariners became prisoners of war under the British. The experience of these men has so far not been comprehensively explored within the historical literature, aside from singular chapters in broader narratives and a handful of scholarly articles and popular histories. Yet, as with the histories of the prisoners of war throughout the history of the United States, the experiences of prisoners of war provides a fresh and tantalising window into the development of American conceptions of identity and nationalism. This thesis examines imprisonment during the War of 1812, and considers the impact that captivity had upon the prisoners' understanding of, and contribution to, the development of American identity and culture.
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White, Steven. "For Democracy and a Caste System? World War II, Race, and Democratic Inclusion in the United States." Thesis, 2014. https://doi.org/10.7916/D88W3BVZ.
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Scholars of American politics often assume World War II liberalized white racial attitudes and prompted a liberal shift in the federal government's position on civil rights. This conjecture is generally premised on the existence of an ideological tension between a war against Nazism and the maintenance of white supremacy at home, particularly the southern system of Jim Crow. A possible relationship between the war and civil rights was also suggested by a range of contemporaneous voices, including academics like Gunnar Myrdal and civil rights activists like Walter White and A. Philip Randolph. However, while intuitively plausible, this relationship is generally not well-verified empirically.
Using both survey and archival evidence, I argue the war's impact on white racial attitudes is more limited than is often claimed, but that the war shaped and constrained the executive branch's civil rights agenda in ways institutional scholars have generally ignored. The evidence is presented in two parts: First, I demonstrate that for whites in the mass public, while there is some evidence of slight liberalization on issues of racial prejudice, this does not extend to policies addressing racial inequities. White opposition to federal anti-lynching legislation actually increased during the war, especially in the South. There is some evidence of racial moderation among white veterans, relative to their counterparts who did not serve. However, the range of issues is limited in scope. Second, the war had both compelling and constraining impacts on the Roosevelt and Truman administrations' actions on civil rights. The war increased the probability of any change at all occurring, but in doing so it focused the civil rights agenda on issues of military segregation and defense industry discrimination, rather than a more general anti-segregation and job discrimination agenda. In summary, World War II had myriad impacts on America's racial order. It did not broadly liberalize white attitudes, but its effect on the White House was a precursor to the form of "Cold War civil rights" that would emerge in the 1950s.
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Burns, Alexander S. "Honor, religion and reputation : the worldview of the German Subsidientruppen who fought in the American War of Independence." 2014. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1745604.
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Access to abstract permanently restricted to Ball State community only.A brief summary of wartime service -- To a man, fighting like heroes -- We are all made by the same God -- Prosecuted for honor.
Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only.
Department of History
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Davis, Amanda Jean 1980. "Unveiling the rhetoric of torture : Abu Ghraib and American national identity." Thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/3833.
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This dissertation is guided by three central questions: Why did the Abu Ghraib photographs fail to generate widespread opposition to the Iraq War among U.S. citizens? How did U.S. political leaders, news media, and entertainment media rhetorically manage the impact of the violence at Abu Ghraib? Finally, what can the tortures at Abu Ghraib tell us about commitment to national identity and justifications for violence? I argue that the primary rhetorical, ideological work of national violence against a foreign other is to create and protect national identification that deflects potential critique of national policy and discourages alternative allegiances (e.g., those of race and class). In support of this argument, I analyze four sets of texts surrounding the scandal. First, I analyze the Abu Ghraib photographs. These photographs, revealing torture of Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops, posed a serious challenge to American national identity and the prevailing rationale for war: namely, that the U.S. would liberate Iraqis from a torturous dictator and the threat of terrorism. The remaining types of discourse, then, can be seen as rhetorical attempts at damage control, containing and softening the edges of the visual records of violence against an enemy Other. For example, the second set of discourses I examine contains the legal memoranda outlining U.S. "coercive interrogation practices" dating back to September 2001. I compare these documents to the political speeches made by public officials during the 2004 presidential campaign. These texts, I argue, provide insight into the Abu Ghraib scandal's political context and illustrate how the scandal was ultimately managed by the Bush administration as a matter of private authority and prerogative rather than public accountability. Third, I explore mainstream media reports concerning Abu Ghraib in order to come to a better understanding of how violence is framed for public consumption. And finally, I analyze depictions of the torture within the popular television series 24. Because 24's plotline deals with issues of torture and terrorist threat, I argue that it can help us better understand both the social climate in which the Abu Ghraib scandal emerged and our current climate in which torture is still very much an issue.text