I need to find some sources for a project i am doing on the prisoner of war that the Japanese held during WW2. I am wondering if these sources i have count as primary or secondary, The emperors Irish slaves by Robert Widders, the naked island by Russel Braddon and Druim Craig ridge of clay ( contains an article from a newspaper on James Patrick Belford a man who died during the sinking of the Lisbon Maru). Any help you could help would be appreciated.
Primary sources are the contemporary records that constitute evidence, whether they are newspaper articles, official documents, memoirs, etc. (in my field "primary" also includes the ancient historians that are often the earliest surviving evidence, even when the ancient historian wrote hundreds of years after the events described). Secondary sources collect and analyze the evidence.
The newspaper article and the memoir are primary. Widder's is secondary.