Most worked seven days a week with minimal food. Those POWs who survived imprisonment in the Philippines and the hell ships were forced to work in mines and other locations in Japan. Often times, the unmarked ships were torpedoed by submarines. Prisoners of war suffered a brutal captivity and many were crowded into "hell ships" bound for Japan. Most of these men and women were captured after the fall of the Philippines and suffered some of the highest death rates in American history at nearly 40 percent. In the Pacific Theater, nearly 30,000 Americans were imprisoned by the Japanese. As American and Russian forces closed in from opposite directions, many American POWs were taken from camps and forced to march for weeks as the Germans tried to avoid the Allied forces. Malnutrition, overcrowding and lack of medical attention was common. Conditions for POWs worsened as the war drew to a close. Many of these had been shot down while flying missions over Germany or had fought in the Battle of the Bulge. In Europe, nearly 94,000 Americans were imprisoned as POWs. In the largest war of the Twentieth Century - World War II - thousands of Americans were held as prisoners of war. During the 14 months of its existence, Andersonville accounted for 43 percent of all Union deaths in Civil War prisones. By the end of the war, camps such as Andersonville suffered from a lack of supplies and experienced extremely high mortality rates, as well as death and desertion by many of its guards. Mismanagement, lack of adequate planning, retaliation and many other factors led to suffering by prisoners on each side. The number of prisoners of war increased and prison facilities on both sides became severely overcrowded. Soon an exchange system was accepted by both governments, but failed to work due to a variety of disagreements that arose. As prisoners were taken, commanders usually worked out exchanges among themselves. Since both sides predicted a short war, neither prepared for large numbers of POWs during the four years of conflict. Approximately 30,000 Union soldiers died in Confederate prisons while the death rate was almost as bad in the North with approximately 26,000 Confederate soldiers dying in Union prisoner of war camps. During the Civil War, an estimated 194,000 Union soldiers and 214,000 Confederate soldiers became prisoners of war, more than in any other conflict in the history of the country.
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