Japanese War Crimes

Discussions on the Holocaust and 20th Century War Crimes. Note that Holocaust denial is not allowed. Hosted by David Thompson.
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Peter H
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#121

Post by Peter H » 13 Jul 2011, 12:50

From ebay,seller narfrontrunners
...original press photo from 1948 featuring Major General Yoshitaka Kawane(left) and Col Kurartar Hirano were sentenced to be hanged for the 1942 Bataan death march
Kawane was the transportation officer delegated by Homma to organise the evacuation of the Bataan POWs.

http://www.chaplainsatwar.com/BataanDeathMarch.shtml
...Major General Kawane Yoshitake, the head transportation officer for the 14th Army in charge of planning for the movement of prisoners, initially made preparations for only 25,000 detainees.In fact, 78,000 troops surrendered to the Japanese.

The captors also were somewhat unaware of the physical condition of the prisoners. The Japanese remained ignorant of the impact disease, especially malaria, had made on the opposition. After the war, General Homma explained, "We were vaguely aware that [the] food situation in the defense force was not good, but we judged that [the Luzon Force] could hold out several months longer at least as far as food was concerned."This claim seems potentially dubious, as Homma sent a telegram demanding surrender on January 9 which read "The question is how long you will be able to resist. You have already cut rations by half. . . . Your prestige and honor have been upheld. However, in order to avoid needless bloodshed and save your . . . troops you are advised to surrender." That said, Homma defended his actions after the war with a plausible explanation. He asked why he would have launched an attack expected to bring heavy Japanese casualties on April 3 if he knew there was only a week's supply of rations left for the Americans and Filipinos? Homma claimed that he would "simply have sat back and waited for an offer of surrender."

Furthermore, Homma did not anticipate the rapid fall of Bataan after the Good Friday offensive. He had estimated that it would take until the end of April to secure surrender. It took less than a week. The Japanese had lost three weeks of preparation time to care for twice the anticipated number of prisoners, of which a large percentage too sick, weak, or wounded to make the trip out of Bataan on foot....
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Peter H
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#122

Post by Peter H » 29 Apr 2013, 10:13

Contrite Japanese veterans find Chinese war memorial gone
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/ ... orial-gone
A small group of Japanese veterans have trekked overseas to Jinan almost every year for a decade, visiting a war monument as repentance for their crimes during the second world war. But this year, they found it was gone.

The monument in eastern China's Shandong province - which commemorates the Pipa Mountain mass grave site nearby - had been buried as part of a redevelopment plan, according to Jinan Times.

“The land has been sold. And developers removed it because it does not look good,” said Xu Yuquan, former deputy director of a factory close to the site.

Pipa Mountain was the site of brutal killings of Chinese people by the Japanese military during the second world war. Villagers found the grave site and reported it to the authorities in 1954. Based on the accounts of Japanese war criminals, Japanese ideological criminals were also killed at the site, the newspaper said.

Since ties between China and Japan were re-establised in 1972, Jinan factory employees have noticed groups of Japanese elderly arriving every year to burn joss sticks and pay their respects at the monument.

“They were veteran Japanese soldiers conducting penance and asking for forgiveness from those who had died,” a Chinese guide once told factory employees.

Now developers are planning to build residential buildings and stores on the site, Xu said.....


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Peter H
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#123

Post by Peter H » 29 Apr 2013, 10:26

Book sheds light on Hong Kong's war tribunals
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/arti ... -tribunals
Despite her experience and past research, Linton was shocked at the scale of what happened in Hong Kong under Japanese occupation. In particular, she pointed to the forced displacement programme that removed a million people from the city, and the famine and starvation that preceded it.

She found it disturbing that sexual violence against civilians in Hong Kong, which is said to have been on a very large scale, was almost invisible in the tribunal reports, although they were pursued in a minor way in the cases arising from the invasion....

...The abuse in Hong Kong's police stations, for example, was textbook Japanese military police practice - it was not "hi tech" and is still used by some regimes to this day: "water torture", which equates to today's waterboarding, burning, beating, and forms of forced body contortions such as "aeroplane torture"....

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RadioSilence
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#124

Post by RadioSilence » 12 Jun 2013, 06:29

Hello all, this is my first post here at AHF.

Besides Unit 731, what were the extent of Japanese war crimes in Manchuria during the war? I imagine there wouldn't have been as much violence against civilians as compared with the actual warzones further south, but it certainly wasn't all roses either.

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Peter H
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#125

Post by Peter H » 12 Jun 2013, 10:04

From ebay,seller dixie_auctions

Hong Kong POW Commandant Colonel Tokunaga Isao.
Sentenced to Life Imprisonment
Trial details here: http://hkwctc.lib.hku.hk/exhibits/show/ ... ts/item/61
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ahk1.JPG


StefanSiverud
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#127

Post by StefanSiverud » 08 Oct 2013, 21:29

Peter H wrote:From ebay,seller dixie_auctions

Hong Kong POW Commandant Colonel Tokunaga Isao.
Sentenced to Life Imprisonment
Trial details here: http://hkwctc.lib.hku.hk/exhibits/show/ ... ts/item/61
Actually, he was sentenced to death by hanging, but this was immediately commuted to life imprisonment. As expected, "life imprisonment" is in fact a lot less, and by "the 1949 round of reviews, quantum of life sentence was set at 21 years’ imprisonment with no further reduction of sentence for Colonel Tokunaga" (Suzanna Linton's Rediscovering the War Crimes Trials in Hong Kong).

One is left wondering how long he actually spent behind bars, given "clemency and good behaviour", in a prison probably quite a bit more comfortable than the one he ran... I haven't been able to find out. Anyone?

LMA-17
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#128

Post by LMA-17 » 24 Oct 2013, 02:27

While in Indonesian history text-books Japanese depicted as very cruel during their's 3,5 years occupation than 350 years Dutch colonialism rule, people tend to choose remember Japanese occupation as an age where Indonesian nationalist got a chance to learn leadership in government ocuupation and youths got military training, which are important asset during Indonesian revolution (1945-9). Probably it is also an attempt to whitewash a fact that there are many Indonesian collaborators that later occupied important position in government, military, and bussiness institutions after independence--which ended only recently after the fall of Soeharto regime.

But, Indonesian also known as an easy going people. During these days, nobody care or hate about how cruel Japanese occupation or Dutch colonialism, but everbody hate Israel, which never killed any Indonesian, even while no Indonesian ever met those Zionist in Indonesia :lol:

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JKindred
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#129

Post by JKindred » 24 Oct 2013, 02:56

LMA-17 wrote:But, Indonesian also known as an easy going people. During these days, nobody care or hate about how cruel Japanese occupation or Dutch colonialism, but everbody hate Israel, which never killed any Indonesian, even while no Indonesian ever met those Zionist in Indonesia :lol:
Shows the value of having a very good propaganda program.
Books: The original search engine.

Interested in original M1918 BAR and M1917A1 BMG related items.

PF
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#130

Post by PF » 24 Oct 2013, 14:42


StefanSiverud
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#131

Post by StefanSiverud » 24 Oct 2013, 21:29

PF wrote:Postscript
a report Isao was executed 1947
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 28&start=0
HOwever that report is in error-death sentence commuited
http://hkwctc.lib.hku.hk/exhibits/show/ ... ts/item/61
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_o ... _Hong_Kong
Indeed. The question is how long did he really spend in prison? Looking at others sentenced by the western allies for the most horrible crimes, both in Germany and Japan, few served their full sentence even after having their sentence reduced a first time.

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LWD
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#132

Post by LWD » 24 Oct 2013, 22:05

Of almost 1,000 Japanese that were given death sentences over 900 were executed. That doesn't sound like "few" to me.

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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#133

Post by StefanSiverud » 25 Oct 2013, 22:07

LWD wrote:Of almost 1,000 Japanese that were given death sentences over 900 were executed. That doesn't sound like "few" to me.
Yes, but I did not limit my statement to death sentences, but all sentences in the post-war tribunals for the various crimes against humanity. Even "life imprisonment" did not mean more than 10-15 years for most, even if the original sentence had been death.
This is probably better discussed in a separate thread.

danjim
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#134

Post by danjim » 26 Oct 2013, 17:34

Here is a small video of the trial of Japnese criminals of war
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvVcUsAJDF4

Felix C
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#135

Post by Felix C » 18 Nov 2013, 18:25

After reading Iris Chang's book about the Nanking Massacre in 1937 I hope the units involved were sufficiently bloodied in the next few years of fighting thru 1945 that few of the original offenders were left standing.

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