Eighty years ago the world watched in astonishment as the empire of the rising sun quickly devoured the empire upon which the sun never set. The year 1942 started with a string of unmitigated military disasters. The key British strongholds of Hong Kong and Singapore, and the Americans at Bataan in the Philippines, all surrendered under intense Japanese attacks. It was the greatest change of power in the Pacific in a century.

For the Allies, it was the darkest days of the war. For the troops who had just surrendered, it was just the beginning of an unimaginable captivity. A total of 130,000 men had surrendered at Singapore, 11,000 at Hong Kong and 76,000 at Bataan. In a matter of months the Japanese found themselves the masters of Asia, with 200,000 prisoners of war (pow). Edwin Hoyt wrote in Japan’s War:

The day was not far off when the Anglo-Saxons would cease to dominate Asia, said Prof. Toshiyoshi Miyazawa of Imperial University. … “The Anglo-Saxon influence is rapidly waning and in its place a rapid rise is being witnessed in the Asiatic countries. The war of Greater East Asia will create a new and glorious age in the history of the world.”

This new glorious age began with a preview of what was to come. “The Japanese took Hong Kong on Christmas Day [1941],” wrote Hoyt. “Troops entered the St. Stephen’s College and systematically bayoneted to death all the wounded prisoners in their beds. … The nurses were taken into a small room, held there, and taken out one by one by Japanese soldiers, raped, and then returned to the room. The raping went on all Christmas Day and all Christmas night. The nurses could not remember how many times they had been raped.” This started such terrible atrocities in the conquered territories that by wars end hundreds of thousands of civilians had been systematically murdered.

The prisoners of war were forced to aid the Japanese war effort in conditions so inhumane and cruel it is hard to fathom. Only 80 years ago a generation of English-speaking men were slaves of the rising sun. Some of the survivors are still alive; you may even be related to them. Miraculously, the Allies won World War ii, and the world did not sink underneath the cruel tyranny of the Nazi and Japanese empires. But that history is a warning of what will shortly come to pass.

Bible prophecy foretells that soon the English-speaking peoples will be conquered by foreign powers and become slaves. The Bible calls this “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24).

The Death Railway

In 1942, the Japanese Army began to face logistic issues on multiple fronts. The solution from Tokyo was to use the prisoners of war as forced labor to fulfill the empire’s needs. Some were sent to the mainland to mine or work in factories on a starvation diet. Time magazine wrote: “More than 60 companies used pow labor during the war, usually paying Japan’s Imperial Army a fee for the privilege.” Some of the companies included, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi International Corporation, Mitsui and Company, Nippon Steel and Showa Denko.

The most infamous use of slave labor was the building of the Siam-Burma railway, which became known as the Death Railway. Field Marshal Terauchi was given the task of building a railway through Burma and Thailand in order to provide a shorter, overland route of resupply. He was given 18 months to complete the project. The railway would have to pass through 250 miles of thick jungle, rugged mountains, and raging rivers. The railway was completed on time, but on the bones and blood of the British and Commonwealth prisoners. Niall Ferguson writes in Empire:

The British had built railways across their empire with the labor of Asian “coolies.” Now, in one of the great symbolic reversals of world history, the Japanese forced 60,000 British and Australian pows—as well as Dutch prisoners and conscripted Indian labor—to construct 250 miles of railway through the mountainous jungle on the Thai-Burmese border. Since the mid-18th century, it had been one of the empire’s proudest boasts that “Britons never, never shall be slaves.” But that is exactly what the pows on the railway were.

Sixteen-thousand Allied prisoners and 60,000 Asian forced laborers died during the project. Men were given only a few grams of maggot-ridden rice each day and were subject to beatings with bamboo shoots and torture. Many bodies have been found crucified on the side of the railway. Men became living skeletons, with diseases such as cholera, dysentery, malaria and influenza raging throughout the camps. The Japanese deliberately sought to humiliate the English-speaking prisoners of war in front of the other Asian populations to promote inferiority of the British and Americans.

Jack Chalker, a Royal Artillery gunner, was an art student before the war. He secretly made sketches of the conditions of their captivity at the risk of being killed if discovered. He died in 2014 at the age of 96. His sketches convey what words fail to explain.

One method of torture was the “sweat box,” which was a hut made of bamboo shoots. It was made to allow limited ventilation and was too small for a man to stretch out fully in any direction. This was a form of solitary confinement. Prisoners of war would be left in the hut for more than 24 hours in extreme heat.

You can watch a documentary with firsthand accounts below. (Disclaimer: There is some graphic language and descriptions.)

The railway seemed to be planned as a straight line on a map, regardless of the terrain and no matter the conditions. The worst conditions were during the creation of a channel through a mountainside, nicknamed Hellfire Pass by the prisoners. They worked 24 hours a day to cut a 73-foot-long and 23-foot-tall channel through the rock face, using dynamite, chisels and, in some cases, their bare hands

These men were liberated when the Japanese were defeated. But World War ii was filled with atrocities and horrors we can barely comprehend. The concentration camps and industrialized murder in Nazi Germany is another instance where the conquered were treated worse than animals, made into slaves, and murdered at will. The Bible warns even worse is coming.

Time of the Gentiles

Since the 1800s, the world has been dominated by Britain and America. While not perfect, these nations brought human rights, education and prosperity to the world. This was the prophesied time of the birthright blessings to Israel, as the late Herbert W. Armstrong explained in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. The Bible warns, however, that the age of Pax Britannica and Americana will come to a violent end because of the sins of these nations.

“Britain and America will soon be replaced by empires and their rulers who act like wild, raging beasts!” wrote Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry in “After the English-Speaking Nations Fall—What Next?” “God calls these leaders beasts for a reason! Yet people don’t believe God. Somehow, the leaders of Israel think our modern world has evolved beyond such evil nature. … Yet even after the war and Holocaust that [Adolf Hitler] helped perpetrate in World War ii, we haven’t even seen the worst of these beasts. The worst ‘times of the Gentiles’ is yet ahead of us!” The history of World War ii is just a small taste of what is coming on the English-speaking peoples.

“The future is going to be dominated by leaders who act like wild, raging beasts!” Mr. Flurry warned.

In Matthew 24:21-22, Christ calls this period the Great Tribulation: three and a half years of war, nuclear attacks, and violent oppression. The Bible is very detailed explaining what will happen during the Great Tribulation, and it includes the people of the United States, Britain, and the commonwealth nations becoming slaves!

Ezekiel 5:12 shows that the punishment of these nations will be divided into three phases. The first punishment will be an economic siege with civil unrest, in which one third of the English-speaking peoples will die. Deuteronomy 28:52-57 shows cannibalism will be commonplace: Women will eat their newborns, and family members will prey on one another. The second punishment will be a nuclear attack and military invasion, in which a second third will die. Isaiah 10:5-7, Revelation 17:12, and Daniel 2:41-43 indicate that a German-led Holy Roman Empire will attack America, Britain and Israel. Ezekiel 24, Amos 6:9-10, and Matthew 24:22 reveal that nuclear weapons will be used.

The last phase is the survivors being taken as slaves by the Holy Roman Empire. Remember, at this point, over 200 million English-speaking people will have died. The remaining 100 million will be slaves to the European war machine, or sold to the other Gentile empires. Their lives will hang in doubt every day, and they will be scattered all over the Earth (Deuteronomy 28:62-68). Joel 3:3 shows that a boy slave will be traded for a harlot, and a girl slave for a bottle of wine—that is how little their lives will be valued.

Mr. Flurry writes in Isaiah’s End-Time Vision: “We have seen the bloodcurdling horrors of World War ii. That was mild compared to the nuclear holocaust that is fast approaching. Nothing has ever happened on this Earth to compare with it! Nothing!”

Do you think these prophecies are too far-fetched? Are you reading this article and thinking no such evils could ever happen to you? I am sure Jack Chalker and all of those young men who were living comfortably in Britain, the commonwealth and America in 1939 didn’t think that in three years they would be slaves. But it happened. Mr. Armstrong wrote in The United States and Britain in Prophecy:

Do you think so great a fall could not come to so great powers as Britain and America? Do you say, “It can’t happen here?” Do you think the great God who was able to give them such unprecedented world leadership and power and wealth is not able to take it away from them and throw them, like their ancient forefathers, back into slavery?

These are difficult prophecies to read, comprehend and accept. But you can act now before these terrible events come to pass. Even for those who do become slaves to the Gentile beasts, the Bible promises that Jesus Christ is going to return and liberate these humbled, repentant slaves and lead them to Jerusalem, where they will begin a new life of peace and prosperity. That is the new glorious age we can hope for!

Please read Mr. Flurry’s free book Ezekiel—The End-Time Prophet to learn more about these prophecies.