January 1951, the UNC decided to isolate captured personnel on Koje-do, an island off the southern coast of Korea.
Col. Hartley F. Dame, the first camp commander, had to build dams and store rain water to service the 118,000 natives, 100,000 refugees, and 150,000 prisoners.
by the end of the month over 50,000 POW's were moved from the mainland to Koje-do.
Four enclosures, each subdivided into eight compounds, were built.
Originally intended to hold 700-1,200 men apiece, the compounds were soon jammed to five times their capacity.
The space between the compounds soon had to be used to confine the prisoners too, with only barbed wire separating each compound from the next, permitting free communications between all the prisoners.
With the number of security personnel limited and usually of inferior caliber, proper control was difficult at the outset and later became impossible.
Outbreaks of dissension and open resistance were desultory until the negotiations at Kaesong got under way.
