Howard Hart
Committee Meeting Minutes from Los Banos Internment Camp
Gift in memory of Eleanor Marie Phillips (Hart), 2013.561
On February 23rd, 1945, Howard Hart was five years old when he was whisked away from Japanese captivity and carried to freedom under the arm of an American Paratrooper during the liberation of Los Banos Internment camp. The civilian prisoners were on a starvation diet of 800 calories per day, and lived under the threat of mass execution by the Japanese as the Americans closed in. The letter illustrates the internees' struggle to obtain more food from the Japanese Commandant.
