Hello and welcome to the History Extra Podcast from BBC History magazine,

Britain's best-selling history magazine. I'm a Likathon. In today's episode you'll be hearing from Sarah Kovna who's a historian based at Columbia University.

She's the author of the new book Prisoners of the Empire,

which explores the treatment of Allied prisoners of war

in Japanese camps during the Second World War and seeks to explain

why so many were neglected and abused. Sarah spoke to our editor Rob Attle.

Sarah quite a small percentage of servicemen actually ended up in Japanese captivity during the war.

So why do you feel this has become such a dominant part of narratives of the war?

That's a really good question. such a dominant part of narratives of the war.

That's a really good question.

I think that it has become such a dominant part

of narratives of the war because the people,

a very small percentage of people who are captured experienced horrific conditions,

and they were their people whose story was told.

So when we're talking about numbers, I know it said it was a relatively small proportion,

but do we know how many people ended up in Japanese captivity?

So unsurprisingly, it depends how you count, but about 50,000 British servicemen ended up in

Japanese hands but about more between 100,000 and 200,000 allied troops ended up in Japanese hounds.

And the reason why those numbers range is because it depends how you count.

Of course. And what about the Asian prisoners?

Do they fall into the same category?

So they don't fall into that category.

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