was a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

Mitsugi District was a district in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. As of 2003, the district had an estimated population of 29,682 and a density of 181.49 persons per km2. The total area was 163.55 km2. Former towns and villages * Kui * Mitsugi * Mukaishim ...

Hiroshima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Hiroshima Prefecture has a population of 2,811,410 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 8,479 km² (3,274 sq mi). Hiroshima Prefecture borders Okayama ...

, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 16,283 and a population density of 884.95 persons per km². The total area was 18.40 km², covering the majority of Mukaishima Island. On March 28, 2005, Mukaishima, along with the town of Mitsugi (also from

), was merged into the expanded city of

Onomichi is a city located in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, facing the Inland Sea. The city was founded on April 1, 1898. As of April 30, 2016, the city has an estimated population of 141,811 and a population density of 497.8 persons per km2. The total a ...

. From November 1942 until September 1945, 100 British

POWs A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...

who had been brought to Japan on the ''Dainichi Maru''

hell ship A hell ship is a ship with extremely inhumane living conditions or with a reputation for cruelty among the crew. It now generally refers to the ships used by the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army to transport Allied prisoners o ...

were imprisoned in Mukaishima and forced to work at the

Hitachi Zosen is a major Japanese industrial and engineering corporation. It produces waste treatment plants, industrial plants, precision machinery, industrial machinery, steel mill process equipment, steel structures, construction machinery, tunnel boring ma ...

shipyard. Twenty-three of these prisoners died due to a combination of disease, malnutrition and inadequate clothing for the harsh winter conditions. A further 116 American POWs were imprisoned in the same camp from September 1944 that were brought over from the Philippines on the hell ship ''Noto Maru''.

External links

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More details about the Mukaishima POW camp
Dissolved municipalities of Hiroshima Prefecture Japanese prisoner of war and internment camps {{Hiroshima-geo-stub