Armed Forces News

Standing before some of the men who were their victims during World War II, officials from Japan’s Mitsubishi corporation formally apologized for using U.S. prisoners of war to perform slave labor while they were held in captivity. Mitsubishi issued the apology during a July 19 ceremony in Los Angeles, marking the first such action issued by a company. The Japanese government had apologized for maltreatment of POWs in 2010. The company’s mining entity used some 500 U.S. POWs, along with Korean and Chinese prisoners, in its mines. The material they produced, under the harshest of conditions, was used to produce the legendary A6M1 and A6M2 Zero fighter plane, among other equipment and materiel.