“As The Days Go By: Throbs of Grateful Hearts”: Reeducation Under the Japanese of Filipino POWs at Camp Del Pilar, Dau, Pampanga, 1942

Abstract

This research note presents samples of previously unpublished testimonial letters written by Filipino officer prisoners of war (POW) to their Japanese POW camp commander in 1942. A preface to these letters, 184 in all and kept in the US National Archives, provides a glimpse of the day-to-day activities of the reeducation propaganda conducted by the Japanese Propaganda Corps in Camp Del Pilar, Dau, Pampanga. The Filipino officers’ expressions of gratitude showered upon the Japanese show another dimension of the otherwise tumultuous occupation period.

Keywords: Second World War • Japanese occupation • wartime propaganda • documentary sources • Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere