Japanese War Crimes

[Peter H]

http://www.users.bigpond.com/battlefora ... _Navy.html

Downed American pilots and aircrew "rescued" by Japanese warships at the Battle of Midway were interrogated and then brutally murdered.

On the morning of 4 June 1942, Lieutenant Commander C. Wade McClusky led thirty Dauntless SBD dive-bombers from the carrier USS Enterprise in an attack that destroyed the Japanese fleet carriers Akagi and Kaga. After he had made his own attack, and despite the sky over the Japanese carrier fleet now swarming with Zero fighters whose angry pilots were desperate to avenge the loss of Japan's two best carriers, Lieutenant Charles R. Ware delayed his own departure from the burning carriers. His purpose was to rally to him the "rookie" pilots of his own division and any other inexperienced pilots who might need his experience and combats skills to lead them to safety. Despite heavy Zero attacks, Ware was able to collect and form up five SBDs into an ad hoc division.

Keeping his SBDs close to sea level to guard their unprotected bellies from the attacking Zeros, Ware led his pilots on a south-east course away from the Japanese fleet. Ware was able to ward off repeated attacks by the Japanese fighters by turning towards each Zero as it made a fast firing pass from the rear and creating an arc formation that enabled all of his rear gunners to concentrate the fire of their twin .30-calibers on the Zero. Because of Ware's skilled management of his division under sustained attack by the Zeros, the only significant damage suffered by the six planes of his division was to the fuel tanks of Ensign Frank W. O'Flaherty's SBD. The loss of fuel was a calamity for O'Flaherty and his radio-gunner Bruno P. Gaido because all of the SBDs involved in the attack on Akagi and Kaga had been a long time in the air and were already low on fuel.

Once clear of the Japanese fighter screen, Ware led his division on a north-east course where he hoped to find USS Enterprise. However, on this day misfortune was dogging Lieutenant Ware and his small band of pilots. They were sighted by a strike group of Aichi Val dive-bombers and six escorting Zeros from the surviving Japanese carrier Hiryu. The Japanese Zero pilots could not resist the temptation to attack what they believed was an easy target. Before the Zeros reached them, O'Flaherty's tanks ran dry and he was forced to ditch in the sea. O'Flaherty and Gaido were last seen by Ensign McCarthy inflating and then scrambling aboard their life raft, and then the Zeros were upon them. Once again, Ware initiated the successful defensive tactics used during the early Zero attack. The Zeros broke off the attack, and two limped back to Hiryu. The remaining four Zeros failed to catch up with the Aichi Val dive-bombers that they had been escorting, and only one Val survived an attack on the American carrier USS Yorktown.

With no clear idea where Enterprise was located, and with all SBDs running very low on fuel, Lieutenant Ware and Ensign McCarthy elected to take different courses. The other three pilots chose to follow Ware. Ware and these three pilots and their aircrews were never seen again. Their SBDs were swallowed up in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. McCarthy was almost out of fuel when he picked up USS Yorktown's homing signal. Within sight of Yorktown's task force, McCarthy's fuel tanks ran dry and he was forced to ditch in the sea. He and his radio-gunner Earl E. Howell were rescued by the destroyer USS Hammann.

Sadly, O'Flaherty and Gaido were spotted and fished from the sea by the crew of the Japanese destroyer Makigumo. After interrogation, and when it was clear that the Japanese had suffered a disastrous defeat in the Battle of Midway, O'Flaherty and Gaido were murdered by the angry and vindictive Japanese. The two unfortunate American airmen were bound with ropes, tied to weighted fuel cans, and then thrown overboard to drown. The Makigumo hit a mine off Guadalcanal in 1943 and sank.

Ensign Wesley Osmus suffered a similar barbaric fate at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Navy.

On the morning of 4 June 1942, Lieutenant Commander Lance E. Massey led a strike by twelve TBD torpedo bombers from USS Yorktown's VT-3 squadron against the Japanese fleet carrier Soryu. Ensign Wesley Osmus was the pilot of one of these torpedo bombers, and his radio-gunner was Benjamin R Dodson, Jnr. While still about 14 miles (22 km) from the Japanese carriers, VT-3 came under sustained attack from defending Japanese Zero fighters. The TBD of Ensign Osmus was the last aircraft in the American formation, and his aircraft was the first to be hit. When his fuel tank exploded in flames, Osmus bailed out. Dodson did not follow. The radio-gunner was either dead or badly wounded and went down with the blazing aircraft.

Ensign Osmus was plucked from the sea by the Japanese destroyer Arashi. After interrogating the pilot, the Japanese murdered him and dumped his body in the sea.

The murder of Ensign Osmus came to light after the Japanese surrender when the US Navy gained access to the Battle of Midway action report produced by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo after the battle. The circumstances of the young pilot's death while on board Arashi were then investigated as a possible war crime. The Japanese police produced to war crimes investigators the names of Japanese who had been serving in Arashi at the time of the Battle of Midway. American investigators then questioned these crew members who were still alive. This questioning confirmed that Ensign Osmus had been rescued from the sea by Arashi and interrogated. Later that same day, the commander of Arashi gave the order for Osmus to be executed. This order was passed to Chief Sato. Osmus was taken to the stern of the destroyer and thrown overboard, but he managed to grab the chain railing. A fire axe was then fetched and employed to complete the murder of the young pilot whose body fell into the sea.

[Peter H]

From Darkest Hour The True Story of Lark Force at Rabaul,Bruce Gamble,page 281:

At Rabaul, captured soldiers and airmen were subjected to some of the worst atrocities. John Gray, the engineering officer captured at Tol, was the victim of a particularly heinous crime committed by members of the 3rd Battalion. Taken to Vunapope rather than imprisoned at the Malaguna Road stockade, he was tied to a palm tree outside Lieutenant Colonel Kuwada’s residence and questioned for hours in the blazing sun. Periodically the Japanese slapped him with a length of rope, beat him with planking, or sprinkled biting ants on his body. When they grew tired of the interrogation, they took Gray to a distant hill where missionary students witnessed his execution. First, a doctor named Chikumi, whose reputation for malevolence had earned him the ironic nickname “Sunshine Sam,” administered an injection that rendered Gray semi-conscious. Next, Chikumi performed a vivisection and removed Gray’s still-beating heart, for no better reason than “to study his reactions".

[Peter H]

Interesting that Gray's method of execution was never established as fact.i.e vivisection.

The original story from This Crowd Beats us All:
Again there was the case of Captain Gray of the 2/22 Battalion who was taken prisoner on the way to freedom. We do not know all the details of what happened. However, some of our seminarians, who were not confined to their house but who were forced to do all kinds of small jobs for the Japanese soldiers and were thus able to move about more freely, reported to us that they witnessed the following incidents.

On the morning of a bright sunny day, Captain Gray was seen tied to a coconut tree some 50 yards from the Bishop’s House. He was ordered to disclose military information on the whereabouts of the Australian Army. He refused and was beaten. He was then left alone until the officers returned, repeated their questions, “beat him up” again, and for a second time tied to that tree in the blazing tropical sun. That procedure was repeated periodically till 4 p.m. Captain Gray remained adamant. They had a last request: that he should admit that Japanese officers were gentlemen. He refused, and probably gave them a very frank opinion as to what they actually were.

At 4 p.m. he was marched several hundred yards into the adjoining coconut plantation. Several soldiers with spades, some officers and Dr. Chikami escorted him. At the selected spot the callous doctor got busy. He cut out Captain Gray’s heart, ALIVE . . . in order to study the reactions!

With the Bishop stating “We do not know all the details of what happened,” it is at best hearsay evidence.

Review of Gamble's book from: http://www.montevideomaru.info/

[Peter H]

Hankow Bombing Raid,18th December 1944.

Fire bomb raid by B-29s on Japanese installations at Hankow,China.

Three airmen from a crash landed B-29 were captured and "dragged through the streets and then burned them alive".

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/PTO/IMTFE/IMTFE-8.html

Three American fliers, who had been forced down and captured sometime before, were paraded through the streets and subjected to ridicule, beating and torture by the populace. When they had been weakened by the beatings and torture, they were saturated with gasoline and burned alive. Permission for this atrocity was granted by the Commander of the 34th Japanese Army.

Fifteen Japanese soldiers were arrested for war crimes.Five were sentenced to death by hanging by the US Military Trial Commission in Shanghai, China,28th February 1946.

Tadayoshi Sano,the 34th Army Commander,escaped justice,dying in July 1945.

[Peter H]

Lt Colonel Arthur Key commanded the Australian 2/14th Battalion at Kokoda in 1942.

After the battle of Isurava Key and his Battalion HQ Staff were cut off and finally captured after 10 days of trying to escape the enemy.They were taken to Buna.

According to Paul Ham's Kokoda;

..'Captured Lt-Col K and four others,'noted one Japanese soldier.'Though questioned they stubbornly refused to speak.' ...his [later] fate,and that of his men,was decapitation,either in Buna or in Rabaul..

Photo of Key from the AWM

[Peter H]

The Alexandria Hospital Massacre,Singapore 1942

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stor ... 5460.shtml

"In 1942, the invading Japanese Army stormed the hospital and killed 200 people".

http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/ma ... cific.html

Directly in the path of the invading Japanese hordes lay the Princess Alexandria Hospital in Singapore. Guarded by a detachment of Ghurka troops they were ordered by a Japanese officer to lay down their arms. The Ghurka NCO replied that this was not a military target but a civilian hospital. Angered by their refusal to disarm, the Japanese officer ordered his men to seize and kill two dozen of the Ghurkha guards. This order was promptly carried out and the Nippon soldiers then entered the hospital. The wholesale slaughter which followed defies description, sick and dying patients being butchered in their beds. Some were just shot, others clubbed and bayoneted and not a few were beheaded by the sword. A number of the victims were survivors from the Prince of Wales and Repulse. The scene of carnage resembled an abattoir, disembowelled patients sprawled everywhere. Doctors and medical orderlies were then killed as were the nurses who were first raped in a most brutal fashion.

[Peter H]

Murder of German Priests at Kavieng March 1944.

http://www.jje.info/lostlives/exhib/pot ... asion.html

..of the 12 priests, 2 brothers and eleven sisters in New Ireland at the time of the Japanese invasion, most of whom were German and therefore allies of the Japanese, only 2 priests, and 9 sisters survived the war....

From http://www.jje.info/lostlives/exhib/potp/index.html

The seven priests killed at Kavieng Wharf.

KOHLSTETTE, Father Heinrich MSC of Komalu Catholic Mission west coast who probably was killed 17 March 1944 at Kavieng wharf

KRUTZENBICHLER, Father Josef MSC of Tanga Islands Catholic Mission who was abducted from Tanga and probably was killed at Kavieng wharf 17 March 1944

KUTSCHER, Father Paul MSC of Lamussong Catholic Mission who probably was killed 17 March 1944 at Kavieng wharf

LAKAFF, Father Josef MSC of Kavieng Catholic Mission who was probably killed 17 March 1944 at Kavieng wharf

SCHLUETTER, Father Karl MSC of Lihir Catholic Mission who most likely was killed 17 March 1944 at Kavieng wharf, although as with some others there are other stories

UTSCH Jr , Father Franz MSC of Lavongai Catholic Mission probably killed 17 March 1944 at Kavieng wharf but other stories say 1943. Not to be confused with Father Franz Utsch senior of Manus who was shot and thrown overboard from the Japanese destroyer Akikaze with 61 others on 17 March 1943

ZUMKLEY, Brother Heinrich MSC of Kavieng Catholic Mission probably killed 17 March 1944 at Kavieng wharf

Other deaths:

HEMIG, Father Johannes MSC of Lemakot Catholic Mission, most likely killed 17 March 1944 at Kavieng wharf
but latest research indicates he was dead before then

MARTIN, Father Karl MSC of Ulaputur Catholic Mission west coast Namatanai executed 1942 at Nago Island near Kavieng. Of 13 bodies recovered at Nago post war, his was one of 7 identified

NEUHAUS, Father Karl MSC of Namatanai Catholic Mission disappeared mid 1942 and there is no reliable evidence of what may have happened to him; perhaps executed at Rabaul. Long time priest in Namatanai district and first resident priest at Lihir 1931. Author of many papers and Beitrage zur Ethnographie der Pala, Mittel New Irland edited Laufer and Schmitz

HERICK, Sister Mary Climaka MSC of Namatanai Catholic Mission died at Lakuramau internment camp 16 September 1944

MUESCHNER, Sister Mary Ambrosia MSC of Catholic Mission Namatanai died 11 August 1945 at Lakuramau internment camp, four days before Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945. The Mass for Sr. Ambrosia used the last hosts and wine that had lasted until then.

[Peter H]

The Kavieng Wharf Massacre

http://www.jje.info/lostlives/exhib/pot ... wharf.html

The greatest single loss of civilians from New Ireland occurred on -. Well even that is not absolutely definite, nor the numbers who were killed that evening on the Kavieng wharf.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission roll of Civilian War Dead lists 25 of the 74 deaths in Papua New Guinea (the MV Montevideo Maru is listed separately) as dying on the 18th February 1944 at Kavieng. 24 of these were from New Ireland and one, Thomas Francis Haughey and not on the plaque, was from Aua in Manus.

An additional 9 or 10 persons who were not Australians or British, and therefore not recorded on the Commonwealth roll or included in the prosecution case at the War Crimes Trial in Hong Kong from 24th November to the 17th December 1947, also died. They bring the total who were killed that day, and the numbers admitted to by the Japanese, to 31 or 32, but it could be as many as 35.

That date, 18th February, was the one associated with the false story of the ship Kowa Maru and when the missing prisoners of war were allegedly put on board. It was subsequently sunk with great loss of life, 30 miles west of New Hanover on 21 February 1944. It was the date the men went missing, presumed dead, used by the Australian Government on the Certificates of Death issued after the war.

At war's end all those involved in the killing on Kavieng wharf conspired to tell the story of the Kowa Maru perhaps in the mistaken belief that there were no survivors. They were instructed that the story would be that the prisoners were sent by barge from Kavieng to Doi Island near where the ships were sheltering prior to making their run to Rabaul, and put on the ship to go to Rabaul.

In about June 1947 new evidence came to light in Japan when a survivor of the Kowa Maru, Otsu Yoshio, was interviewed. He said that no POWs had been embarked near Kavieng and sent to Rabaul, and that no POWs had been aboard when the ship departed Rabaul and was subsequently sunk. Corroborative evidence was also received from Toshio Ose, captain of the Kokai Maru which had sailed to and from Rabaul in convoy with the Kowa Maru and was sunk at the same time with a total of 420 crew and Japanese military personnel returning to Japan.

Investigators then recalled Japanese, who had been in Kavieng at the time, from all over Japan where they were then living for further interviews in Tokyo. One, Takada Kazue, OC of the Guard aboard the No.1 barge committed suicide en route to interrogation at the War Crimes Section Tokyo (MP375:WC41). Another Jitsukawa Kinjiro an engine hand on a barge, interviewed on 24 June 1947, had either forgotten the false story or had decided to tell the truth of what happened one day in March 1944.

Presented with this new information the principal Japanese officers involved realised that their story was no longer credible and admitted their involvement based on the need to obey orders or, in Tamura's case, operational necessity.


Record Of Military Court
ACCUSED
Rear Admiral TAMURA Ryukichi
Commander YOSHINO Shozo
Lt.Commander MORI Kyoji
Lt.MOCHIZUKI Hichitaro
Lt.SUZUKI Shozo
CPO HORIGUCHI Yoshio
CHARGE
COMMITTING A WAR CRIME in that they at or near KAVIENG in NEW IRELAND in or about the month of March 1944 were, in violation of the laws and usages of war, together concerned in the MASSACRE of approximately twenty three Australian Civilian internees, then held in the custody of the Japanese Armed Forces
PRECIS OF EVIDENCE
The evidence shows that during the latter half of 1942 the Japanese Forces in New Britain interned approximately 32 civilians of whom approximately 23 were Australian nationals, in an internment camp at Kavieng. During February and early March 1944 Kavieng was subject to heavy Allied bombings which the Japanese believed to be a prelude to an Allied landing. Sometime in March 1944 after a particularly heavy air raid on Kavieng, the accused V/Admiral TAMURA Ryukichi who commanded 14 Naval Base Force and 83 Naval Garrison Unit gave a verbal order to his senior staff officer, the accused Commander YOSHINO Shozo, that 'in the event of a landing by the enemy you will have the foreign internees at Kavieng executed'. A day or so later YOSHINO transmitted the order to the accused Lt.Comdr.MORI Kyoji, Executive Officer, 83 Naval Garrison Unit. Subsequently, still in the month of March, MORI instructed his subordinate, the accused LT.MOCHIZUKI Hichitaro, Commander Security Detachment 83 Naval Garrison Unit, to have the civilian internees executed. The same day MOCHIZUKI at a conference of his platoon commanders ordered his senior platoon commander, the accused LT.SUZUKI Shozo to carry out the execution order. From his platoon SUZUKI selected the accused P/0 HORIGUCHI Yoshio as a member of the execution party. Other Japanese were selected and participated in the execution but their names are not known and/or they have never been located. At about 1700 hours on the same day as the above mentioned conference the execution party commanded by SUZUKI went to the internment camp where SUZUKI told the internees to pack up for a move to Rabaul. The internees were then moved to a spot about 50 metres distant from Kavieng south wharf where, in accordance with previous arrangements made by MORI, were two barges loaded with cement sinkers and lengths of wire. The victims were then taken one by one, blindfolded at a spot between the roadway and the wharf, then lead to the edge of the wharf by HORIGUCHI. When each victim arrived at the edge of the wharf he was told to sit down. Sailors then placed a noose of rope over the victim's head and strangled him. The bodies were then thrown into one of two barges and cement sinkers were secured to the bodies by wire cable. During the executions SUZUKI moved between the wharf and the roadway supervising the execution party. When the executions were completed the barges moved to the vicinity of Edmargo and Nago Islands and the bodies were thrown overboard. SUZUKI then reported to his Headquarters that the executions had been carried out, and in due course MORI so reported to TAMURA and YOSHINO. TAMURA pleaded operational necessity in his defence. Each of the others accused pleaded that they were acting in obedience to the orders of a superior officer.
Sentence and Date 17/12/1947
Rear Adm TAMURA Ryukichi - Death by hanging
Comd YOSHINO Shozo - 15 years imprisonment
Lt Comd MORI Kyoji - 20 years imprisonment
Lt MOCHIZUKI Hichitaro - 7 years imprisonment
Lt SUZUKI Shozo - 12 years imprisonment
CPO HORIGUCHI Yoshio - 4 years imprisonment
The above is a copy of the Record of Military Court (Japanese War Criminals) at the Melbourne office of the National Archives of Australia MP742/1 336/1/1951. The accused, who had all pleaded not guilty, submitted a petition on 29 December 1947 against the finding and sentence of the Court, and in Tamura's case his daughter Oosawa Reiko also wrote seeking leniency, but all petitions were dismissed and sentences were confirmed on 20 February 1942(sic), presumably 1948, by Major-General W.M. Anderson (Adjutant General). In opposing the petition against the finding and sentence of the Court, the prosecution, Lt. Col. J.W. Flannagan had said: 'As evidence of the guilt of all accused, and their knowledge that the whole plan was utterly illegal, the Japanese held a conference at Kavieng at the Headquarters of the Naval Garrison Unit soon after the surrender. MORI, YOSHINO, SUZUKI and TAKATO were present. It was decided at this conference to tell Allied investigating officers that after the aerial bombardment of Kavieng in February 1944, the internees had been sent in a barge to Doi island, where they were transshipped to the Kowa Maru, which was sunk by Allied action. This concocted story was planned to mislead Allied investigators should any enquiry be made as to the fate of these missing civilians. Orders were given that all men under command were to tell the same story if they were asked any questions concerning these people.' The final result was promulgated to all the accused on 9 March 1948. The accused Rear Admiral TAMURA Ryukichi was executed at Stanley Gaol, Hong Kong on 16 March 1948, four years, almost to the day, of the Kavieng wharf massacre on 17 March 1944. This date was stated by the 3 most senior officers as the date of the massacre in their appeal petition dated 2 December 1947 (MP742/1 336/1/1951). Jim Ridges P.0 Box 86 Kavieng 26 June 2002..

Photo of TAMURA Ryukichi,hanged in 1948,from Raden Dunbar's The Kavieng Massacre.

[Peter H]

The German-Jew who broke the Kievang Massacre case,Albert Klestadt(1913-2006).

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/t ... 1149434647

ALBERT KLESTADT was a German-born businessman who turned the tables on his
homeland and Japan in what became a seafaring adventure across the Pacific
during World War II.

Klestadt was working in Japan when war broke out. He provided the British
with valuable intelligence on the Japanese navy before fleeing to Australia.
On reaching Darwin, he was recruited by Australian intelligence services. He
served with the Australian army in New Guinea and after the war helped to
prosecute Japanese war criminals.

He settled in Melbourne, where he became commodore of the Royal Yacht Club
of Victoria, was regarded by his sailing colleagues as a great adventurer,
and has died at 92.

Born in Hamburg, Klestadt's mother taught him to sail on the Alster River.
In 1935, aged 22, he left Germany to work for a German trading company in
Tokyo.

However, in the early 1940s, with war preparations in Japan building,
Klestadt turned his sailing and photography skills to good use by passing
information on Japanese navy activities to British contacts.

In November 1941, he reported that all the Japanese ships in Kobe Harbour
were painting out their distinctive markings with grey paint. It was a month
before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour.

Realising that war was imminent, he headed for Australia. He had made it to
Manila when the Japanese invaded and interred him.

Klestadt tricked his way out of captivity by producing his German passport,
then bought an old trading boat, which he sailed solo through the southern
Philippines, avoiding Japanese patrols.

The island people helped him by supplying food and directions. He also used
charts torn from a Dutch atlas. He landed at Croker Island in December 1942,
wearing his worldly possessions - a pair of torn shorts and an old shirt.
Klestadt later wrote a book, The Sea was Kind, about his voyage.

With war raging in the Pacific, Klestadt, who could read, write and speak
fluent Japanese and German, was snapped up by the Australian Army's Far East
Liaison Organisation. Alfred Brookes, the founding director of the
Australian Secret Intelligence Service, inducted him into the world of
intelligence and became a friend.

Promoted to lieutenant, he was sent to the front line in New Guinea to
deliver propaganda broadcasts over a public address system. The broadcasts
proved very unpopular with his fellow troops - every time he got on the
microphone, his broadcast would draw fire and mortar rounds.

He turned his intelligence skills to interpreting reams of Japanese battle
plans and documents that were being captured every day.

He often said how pleased he was to have served as a digger and that he
considered the Australian slouch hat the finest military headgear in the
world.

After the war, Klestadt returned to Tokyo as an investigator and prosecutor
with the Australian War Crimes Commission. There he met Edna, a young
American working with the US War Crimes Commission. They married in 1948,
settled in Melbourne and he opened his company, Scrivenor-Klestadt, which
specialised in exporting Australian minerals, metals and chemicals to
Indonesia and South-East Asia.....

Photo of Klestadt from Dunbar's book.Sitting in back seat,New Guinea 1945.

[Peter H]

Double Tenth Massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Tenth_Incident

The "Double Tenth Incident" or "Double Tenth Massacre" occurred on 10 October 1943, during the Second World War Japanese occupation of Singapore. The Kempeitai – Japanese Military Police – arrested and tortured fifty-seven civilians and civilian internees on suspicion of their involvement in a raid on Singapore Harbour that had been carried out by Anglo–Australian commandos from Operation Jaywick. Six Japanese ships were sunk, but none of those arrested and tortured had participated in the raid, nor had any knowledge of it. Fifteen of them died in Singapore's Changi Prison.

After the war ended, twenty-one of the Kempeitai involved were charged with war crimes. Eight received the death sentence, seven were acquitted, and the remainder were given prison sentences varying from one year to life.

Sumida Haruzo,the Kempeitai commander,was hanged.

[Peter H]

Operation Rimau Executions:

http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/about_ ... story.html

In the ensuing battles with the Japanese, 13 Rimau men were killed including Lyon. Ten were captured. The ten were brought to Singapore and imprisoned at Outram Road Prison. On 3 Jul 45, they were put on trial for espionage, found guilty and executed. The ten men were beheaded on 7 Jul 45 - barely a month before the war came to an end. These ten men, Lyon and four others are buried at Kranji War Memorial.

Those that died:

Lt Col Ivan Lyon DSO MBE, Gordon Highlanders, 16 Oct 1944, 29 years.
Maj Reginald Ingleton, Royal Marines, 7th July 1945, 35 years. Executed.
Capt Robert Page DSO, Australian Imperial Force, 7 Jul 1945, 24 years.
Lt Walter Carey, AIF, 7 Jul 1945, 31 years. Executed.
Lt Bruno Reymond, RANR, 21 Dec 1945, 31 years.
Lt H.Robert Ross, British Army, 16 Oct 1944, 27 years.
Lt Albert Sargent, AIF, 7 Jul 1945, 26 years. Executed.
Sub Lt J.Gregor Riggs, RNVR, 5 Nov 1944, 21 years.
WO2 Alfred Warren, AIF, 7 Jul 1945, 32 years. Executed.
WO2 Jeffrey Willersdorf, Feb 1945, 22 years.
Sgt Colin Cameron, AIF, 5 Nov 1944, 21 years.
Sgt David Gooley, AIF, 5 Nov 1944, 26 years.
Cpl Archibald Campbell, AIF, 18 Oct 1944, 24 years.
Cpl Colin Craft, AIF, 21 Dec 1944, 25 years.
Cpl Roland Fletcher, AIF, 7 Jul 1945,29 years. Executed.
Cpl Clair Stewart, AIF, 7 July 1945, 35 years. Executed.
AB Walter Falls DSM, RANR, 7 July 1945. Executed.
AB Andrew Huston DSM, RANR, 16 Dec 1944, 20 years.
AB Frederick Marsh, RANR, 11 Jan 1945, 20 years.
LCpl John Hardy, AIF, 7 July 1945, 23 years. Executed.
LCpl Hugo Pace, AIF, Jun 1945, 32 years.
Pte Douglas Warne, AIF, Apr 1945, 24 years.

Also executed during rescue operations:
Lt Clifford Perske, AIF, 30 Mar 1945, Executed.
Lt John Sachs, AIF, 30 Mar 1945, Executed.

[Peter H]

EXECUTION BY JAPANESE OF FLEET AIR ARM OFFICERS

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Navy-a5.html

Sub-lieutenant (A) J. K. Haberfield, RNZNVR, of HMS Indomitable, and Sub-Lieutenant (A) E. J. Baxter, RNZNVR, of HMS Illustrious, were shot down on 26 January 1945 during an attack on the oil refineries at Palembang, Sumatra. They were captured by the Japanese and, in February 1945, sent to Singapore where they were placed in Outram Road gaol. At the end of July 1945 they were executed, together with seven other Fleet Air Arm pilots...

There was no trial before the execution of the prisoners. The two Japanese particularly concerned were Captain Toshio Kataoka, who was the senior officer, and a Captain Ikeda. These men committed suicide.

Kataoka, in a will made before his suicide, said:

We took nine prisoners from Outram Road in a lorry to the beach at the northernmost end of Changi and executed them with Japanese swords. The bodies were put in a boat prepared beforehand and sunk in the sea with weights attached. Now that the responsibility must be borne out publicly, I hereby pay for my deeds with suicide.

Seven US Airmen were also executed/beheaded at Singapore on the 4th August 1945.

[Sewer King]

VIVISECTION AND MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS ON CAPTURED US B-29 BOMBER CREWMEN were performed by Japanese physicians at Kyushu Imperial University in mid-1945.

These have been indirectly connected to the notorious biological warfare (BW) program of General Ishii Shiro. His Unit 731's human experiments in Manchuria are well-enough known. But the BW organization Ishii built across occupied China and Asia is less well-known by comparison. So too is his implication in BW of a great part of Japan's civilian medical establishment at the time.

The latter comes up in a book about this one war crime against a B-29 crew:

• Marc Landas' The Fallen: a True Story of American PoWs and Japanese Wartime Atrocities (John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2004).

The book is uneven and sometimes mires itself in ambiguities of the evidence and war crimes trial -- something which is avoided in Chester G. Hearn's similar book about other Japanese atrocities against US airmen, Sorties into Hell: The Hidden War on Chichi Jima (Praeger Publishers, 2003). Hearn looked at some of these ambiguities expected of soldiers on trial for their lives. So does Landas, but it does not seem so clear that the fate of these civilian war criminals (including one woman, a nurse) was directly tied to the implicit immunity of BW war criminals. Despite its slower reading, Landas' book is well-researched and might be a good source among others for Pacific War crimes and their implications.

Although not mentioned by Landas, the first link above shows a monument raised by a local Japanese (who witnessed this crime) to the crew of the lost B-29 in Taketa city, Oita, Japan, with a formal letter from the one surviving crewman in 1981. This is comparable to another Japanese who made his own memoriam for an American PoW he had known at Chichi Jima, and who was executed there as told in John Bradley's book Flyboys (2004), as well as Hearn's. The deaths of the PoWs seem to be quietly remembered in both places. It gives a sense of the penitence of some individual Japanese for these things -- despite any pressures at home against publicizing them, and any popular picture abroad that Japan does not acknowledge them.

What is more, this one atrocity became a partial basis of a Japanese novel:

• Shusaku Endo's The Sea and Poison (English translation by Michael Gallagher: New Directions Publishing, 1992).

What might be even more remarkable to some, the novel was filmed as Kei Kumai's The Sea and Poison (1987). [Caution: spoilers there.] This film stars Ken Watanabe, who might be best known to Americans for his portrayal of the famous General Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), and other roles in Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), and Batman Begins (2005).

-- Alan

[Peter H]

From the Australian Archives.

CHIBA Korin-tortured POWs over several days,Long Thanh Camp,French Indo-China,1945.Prisoners were subjected to boiling water from a kettle being poured down their throats using a funnel.Then stomped on."As a result of these assaults 5 PWs died".Death by hanging.

[Bill Woerlee]

Mates

As I read all the names, the greatest crime is to deprive families of their grandparents. I feel all of the stories intensely but in terms of today rather than in terms of the day. It becomes less academic when it is part of a person's family history. My grandfather survived incarceration in a Japanese camp but his health never recovered so I never had the privilege to meet him. He died 3 months before I was born. Basically, his incarceration robbed me of this part of family, something that I share with many other people who share similar stories. Millions of people of my age suffer from this same circumstance.

To personalise it, I have posted my grandfather's first letter he sent to his family after liberation. This was his first letter to reach his family for over five years as my grandmother and her children who included my mother, were sent to Holland in 1939 in anticipation of him finishing his contract in Indonesia.

The letter:

P714011_letter_22Sept1945_1qaa1.jpg (90.6 KiB) Viewed 13322 times

The translation:

Kamp Baros near Tjimahi
22/9/1945

My darling Wife and Children,

For starters I will tell you that I am still healthy but have weakened much. It will take me a fairly long time to recover and I will not be able to work for the moment. From my normal weight of 70 kg, only 41 kg is left. Hunger and the 'Preanger' stomach (cold and cold again). Well, I will write later about my experiences under Jap rule. On the 11th of May 1942 the rounded me up from the street and interned me. Of course I lost everything inclusive all my papers and certificates. The doctors here want to send me for three months to the mountains and then to Nederland. So that is not too bad. We will see. But I am very keen to hear something from you people. Tell me all. I have to be very short, as we have nothing here that looks like civilisation. (1 small bottle of ink and 1 pen in a stick of bamboo for 120 people). Spijkertje is also here together with vander Pol and Klein who are also alive somewhere in Sumatra or Malaya.

Lots of love from your S.


S = Siebe

It has taken decades before sharing the intense grief that this episode has brought our family. I still find it difficult to read this letter. The understated stories abound. The round up. The weight loss. The writing facilities. The list of surviving friends. Five years of stored up anxiety flowing out in almost check-list form.

Whenever we read a name off a list, this is what the name really means to a family.

Since this is a very difficult subject for me emotionally, I suspect that I will not be able to contribute very much. I hope that this contribution opens up the pathway for others.

Cheers

Bill

Australian Light Horse Studies Centre
http://alh-research.tripod.com/