"Japan's World Heritage Miike Coal Mine - Where prisoners-of-war worked "like slaves

Mitsui's Miike Coal Mine is World Heritage listed by UNESCO as one of Japan's "Sites of the Industrial Revolution." The Japanese government, however, has failed to tell the full story of this mine, instead promoting bland tourism. In World War II, Miike was Japan's largest coal mine, but also the location of the largest Allied POW camp in Japan. Korean and Chinese forced laborers also were used by Mitsui in the mine. The use of prisoners was nothing new, as Mitsui and other Japanese companies used Japanese convicts as workers in the early decades of the Meiji era. The role of Australian POWs in particular reveals that there was resistance inside Miike even at the height of abuse by Japanese wartime authorities. Japan has a responsibility under its UNESCO World Heritage agreement to tell the full history of this and other "Meiji Industrial Revolution" sites

Ancient history · Archaeology · Coal · Mining engineering · Political science · Prisoners of war · World War II · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Engineering · History · Japanese History and Culture · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies