"Many aspects of Britain's involvement in World War Two only slowly emerged from beneath of the barrage of official secrets and popular misconception. One of the most controversial issues, the internment of 'enemy aliens' (and also British subjects) on the Isle of Man, received its first thorough examination in this account by Connery Chappell of life in the Manx camps between 1940 and 1945." "At the outbreak of war there were approximately 75,000 people of Germanic origin living in Britain, and Whitehall decided to set up Enemy Alien Tribunals to screen these 'potential security risks'. The entry of Italy into the war almost doubled the workload. The first tribunal in February 1940 considered only 569 cases as high enough risks to warrant internment. The Isle of Man was chosen as the one place sufficiently removed from areas of military importance, but by the end of the year the number of enemy aliens on the island had reached 14,000." "Even now, there remains the persistent question never settled satisfactorily. Were the internments ever justified or even consistent?"--BOOK JACKET.

At the start of the Second World War there were estimated to be 75,000 'enemy aliens' living in Britain, each a potential security risk. To screen these, Enemy Alien Tribunals were set up, with the first tribunal judging only 569 cases serious enough to warrant internment. The Isle of man was chosen as somewhere secure enough to hold them. But when Italy entered the war in 1940, the tribunals' workload grew and, by the end of the year, the number of enemy aliens on the island had risen to 14,000. Who were these internees? How did they cope with being interned? Did any try to escape? What was daily life like inside the camps? How great a risk did they really pose? With the use of diaries, newspapers and personal testimonies, Island of Barbed Wire looks at the selection, arrival, living conditions and, ultimately, repatriation, of the internees. Their lives and the live of the Manx people they came into contact with would never be the same when this popular holiday isle was transformed into an internment camp for the duration of the war. And even now the question remains - was the policy of internment ever justified? Island of Barbed Wire was the first thorough examination into one of the more controversial happenings of World War Two.

Barbed-Wire Matinee -- Five Shots -- Fire and Crystal -- The Rescuers -- Sunset Train -- The Basement and the Judge -- Spy Fever -- Nightmare Mill -- The Misted Isle -- The University of Barbed Wire -- The Vigil -- The Suicide Consultancy -- Into the Crucible -- The First Goodbyes -- Love and Paranoia -- The Heiress -- Art and Justice -- Home for Christmas? -- The Isle of Forgotten Men -- A Spy Cornered -- Return to the Mill -- The Final Trial.

Yasutaro Soga’s Life behind Barbed Wire (Tessaku seikatsu) is an exceptional firsthand account of the incarceration of a Hawai‘i Japanese during World War II. On the evening of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Soga, the editor of a Japanese-language newspaper, was arrested along with several hundred other prominent Issei ( Japanese immigrants) in Hawai‘i. After being held for six months on Sand Island, Soga was transferred to an Army camp in Lordsburg, New Mexico, and later to a Justice Department camp in Santa Fe. He would spend just under four years in custody before returning to Hawai‘i in the months following the end of the war. Most of what has been written about the detention of Japanese Americans focuses on the Nisei experience of mass internment on the West Coast—largely because of the language barrier immigrant writers faced. This translation, therefore, presents us with a rare Issei voice on internment, and Soga’s opinions challenge many commonly held assumptions about Japanese Americans during the war regarding race relations, patriotism, and loyalty. Although centered on one man’s experience, Life behind Barbed Wire benefits greatly from Soga’s trained eye and instincts as a professional journalist, which allowed him to paint a larger picture of those extraordinary times and his place in them. The Introduction by Tetsuden Kashima of the University of Washington and Foreword by Dennis Ogawa of the University of Hawai‘i provide context for Soga’s recollections based on the most current scholarship on the Japanese American internment.

Barbed Wire University tells the extraordinary tale of Winston Churchill’s internment of some of the most gifted Jewish refugee writers, professors, artists, and painters of their generation in a camp on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. These were men who had fled Hitler’s Germany, found refuge in Britain, and then, in the hysteria of 1940, were held in captivity as a perceived security threat. They turned the camp—Hutchinson Camp—into a school, concert hall, and artistic community. Using memoirs and diaries, some of which have only recently become available in archives, Dave Hannigan pieces together a richly detailed account of what these remarkable men did during their time in captivity. This is a forgotten corner of World War II, and the way these men constructed a Bohemian idyll in the middle of the Irish Sea, their freedom taken from them, is an extraordinary tale of grit and creativity.

What would happen if every creature on land and sea were free to be as rotten as possible? If every day was a free-for-all; if plants grew barbed wire; if the ocean were poison? That's life on Rotten Island. For creatures that slither, creep, and crawl, Rotten Island is paradise.

Where previous histories of Ireland in the war years have focused on high politics, That Neutral Island mines deeper layers of experience. Stories, letters, and diaries illuminate this small country as it suffered rationing, censorship, the threat of invasion, and a strange detachment from the war.