The Mushroom Years: A Story of Survival

If you think you’ve read every story there is about World War II, you’re in for a tremendous surprise. The Mushroom Years covers a little-known slice of history that, to this day, our government is trying to sweep under the carpet.

Back in the early 1930s, when Japan strode roughshod over many of the countries in the Far East under the guise of implementing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the West was too wrapped up in the Orient’s expanding market to question Japan’s true motives.

It wasn’t until Shanghai fell in ’37, followed by the Rape of Nanking in ’38, that the United States and Great Britain began worrying about their precarious position in the Orient and started to evacuate the members of their diplomatic corps.

Some civilians saw the handwriting on the wall and left, others, asked by their respective governments to stay on and protect their nation’s interests in the Orient and the Philippines, proudly did so, and ended up being sitting ducks when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and they were labeled enemy aliens.

This is the story of one such group of American, British, and Allied nationals who were caught in North China and imprisoned in Wei-Hsien (Way-shen) Prison Camp in Shandong Province.

Updated August 2011