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

#76

Post by Peter H » 23 Apr 2009, 13:38

Update on the Rimau Executions mentioned on page 3 on this topic.

http://www.anzacday.org.au/education/ac ... _force.pdf
The official Japanese record claims that the captured Rimau
commandos were now treated well out of respect for their brave
resistance to capture. The authors of the most recent detailed study of
the situation claim that is a lie. The men, they say, were brutally
tortured—several had now died of untreated disease, bashing and
torture, and possibly as a result of medical experiments. The others
lived on in a situation in which jailers regularly beat them, where their
cells were crawling with vermin and contaminated with filth. Disease
was rampant, with cases of beriberi, scabies, malaria and dysentery.
Food consisted of a starvation diet of five hundred grams of rice per
day, less for prisoners on the sick list.
The prisoners’ best hope now became the state of the war—Japan
was clearly being defeated everywhere, and it was only time before
they would have to surrender or be defeated in the home islands of
Japan itself.

On 3 July 1945 the men were put on trial for ‘perfidy and espionage’
and found guilty.
On 7 July they were executed. The Japanese record stresses the
‘honour’ bestowed on the men by being beheaded—witnesses,
however, later gave evidence that the executions were brutal and
horribly mangled. It took guards more than half an hour to execute
the ten men, and one of the guards had required ‘two or three’ blows
each time to complete the beheading. The bodies were dumped in
three unmarked graves, with nothing left to identify the men. On 6
August the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and
on 9 August on Nagasaki, and on 15 August the Japanese
surrendered.
As Peter Thompson relates in his Kill The Tiger the executions were carried out by NCO prison guards,using their sub-standard,faulty NCO swords.The executions were botched and inhumane.

Australian officials did not prosecute the case as a war crime.A "spy" trial had been conducted by the Japanese but the Australians had no defence attorney and were convicted on the premise that as they did not wear rank badges on their uniforms(and some were in native dress) at the time of their capture,that they were spies.Thompson questions why the war crime charge was not followed up.It appears Australian policy was to conduct war crime trials only when "there was very strong prima facie evidence that they would be convicted on evidence which could be clearly seen to be irrefutable.."

But according to Thompson,page 281:
Ironically the heroes of Rimau were avenged,although none of the Japanese responsible for their execution was charged with that atrocity,justice caught up with most of them for other war crimes.Four of the main offenders went to the scaffold:General Itagaki,Commander-in-Chief of the Seventh Area Army who had insisted on the death penalty,Major-General Otsuka,who had been in charge of the Rimaus' prosecution:and the military and civilian commandants of Outram Road Jail,Major Kobayashi and Mikizawa..

Major Kamiya,the prosecutor who had manipulated the evidence to make a guilty verdict inevitable,was sentenced to life imprisonment.One of the executioners,Corporal Hirata,had comitted suicide..but his four comrades(Nibara,Tsukudu,Okamura,Shimoi) received from five to ten years imprisonments for other offences..

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Peter H
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#77

Post by Peter H » 15 Jun 2009, 13:17

Well known Bataan Death March photo,from Time-Life The Rising Sun,1977.

L to R:
Hands behind their backs,captives Samuel Stenzler,Frank Spear and James Gallagher,rest briefly...
Their fates:

PFC Stenzler,31st Inf,died in captivity 26th May 1942.

PFC Spear,31st Inf,died in captivity,Japan 18th July 1945.

Captain Gallagher,31st Inf,was killed soon after this photo was taken,9th April 1942.Listed as Missing as a consequence,as never recorded by the Japanese as a prisoner of war.
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#78

Post by David Thompson » 15 Jun 2009, 20:05

Twenty-nine of the regiment's members earned the Distinguished Service Cross and one was recommended for the Medal of Honor, but the entire chain of command died in captivity before the medal recommendation could be formally submitted. Roughly half of the 1600 members of the 31st Infantry who surrendered at Bataan perished while prisoners of the Japanese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/31st_Infan ... ed_States)

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Peter H
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#79

Post by Peter H » 16 Jun 2009, 11:32

Thanks David.

The Pig Basket Atrocities
http://www.dutch-east-indies.com/story/page85.php
In revenge to the fact that a few hundred Australian, Dutch, British and American troops did not capitulate after the Japanese invasion of East Java in March 1942, those subsequently captured were horrendously tortured and punished by the infamous Japanese Military Police, the Kempetai. Incarcerated in small bamboo pig baskets (approx. 100 cm long, 50 cm across), these prisoners were, after a long suffering transport, thrown into the sea as helpless food for hungry sharks.
One day, however, around noon,the hottest time of the day, a convoy of about four or five Army trucks passed the street where we were playing, loaded with so-called “pig baskets”, which were normally used to stack pigs during transport to the slaughterhouse or the market.Indonesia being a Moslem country, pigs were only for European and Chinese customers in the market. Moslems (Javanese) were not allowed to eat them and considered pigs (same as dogs) as “dirty animals”, from which contact should be avoided. In other words: any connection with pigs and dogs was shameful. To our astonishment the pig baskets were crammed with Australian soldiers, some of them still wearing parts of their uniform, a few even their special hat. They were tied in pairs, two to each other, facing each other, and stacked, like pigs, in the baskets, lying down. Some were in a terrible state, crying for water, I saw one of the Japanese guards opening his fly and urinate on them. I remember being terrified and I can never forget this picture in my mind. Later my father told me the trucks were driven through the town as a show to the Indonesians for utter humiliation of the white race, finally being dumped into the harbour to drown.
One estimate states 1,390 POWs died this way.

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Peter H
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#80

Post by Peter H » 24 Jun 2009, 00:51

New book on the Bataan Death March
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/books/17garner.html

Tears in the Darkness:The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman

http://www.tearsinthedarkness.com/

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Peter H
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#81

Post by Peter H » 07 Jul 2009, 04:22

From youtube,Robert H. Jackson Center
http://www.youtube.com/user/RobertHJacksonCenter

Yamashita Trial 1945



Homma Verdict 1945



Tokyo Trial Opens May 1946

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alexWong
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#82

Post by alexWong » 16 Jul 2009, 06:04

Very good account on Japanese atrocities in China including the Naking Massacare in English from Chinese source with pictures

http://www.ngensis.com/jap4-e.htm

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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#83

Post by AlifRafikKhan » 20 Aug 2009, 17:59

THIS IS THE FUNNIEST VIDEO OF JAPANESE WAR CRIMES TRIAL I'VE EVER SEEN!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Shūmei Ōkawa was a Japanese nationalist. He is behaving erratically hitting the bald head of the former prime minister Hideki Tojo, shouting "Inder! Kommen Sie!" (Come, Indian!) in German. That happened during Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal 1946...


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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#84

Post by MichaelandElizabethNormansb » 20 Aug 2009, 21:36

"Tears in the Darkness: the Story of the Bataan Death March and its Aftermath" documents the Japanese atrocities against prisoners of war in the Philippines, on the Hell Ships to Japan and in POW camps in Japan.

http://www.tearsinthedarkness.com/


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#85

Post by Xalloro23 » 25 Aug 2009, 21:25

Wm. Harris wrote:A well-researched and footnoted account of Japanese abuses against Indian PoWs:

http://www.awm.gov.au/journal/j37/indians.htm
Wow, so they actually used swords for executions even then??

crazy

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Peter H
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#86

Post by Peter H » 14 Sep 2009, 02:29

Extracts from Russell Braddon's The Naked Island,he was captured in the Malayan campaign:

Page 90
At midday we passed a large formation of bicycle troops..we were severley manhandled and each of us was punched and kicked a hundred times

Page 93
The new prisoners were all either English troops or Malay volunteers...during the night quite a few men were chosen by torchlight for questioning--mainly on the use of gas,about which none of us knew anything.They were taken outside and then,in the semi-gloom..stabbed and bashed to death.They died shouting defiance.
Page 93
The driver had noticed an pld Chinaman standing on the edge of the road--the driver leapt out and with two other Japs battered him viciously.His cries brought more Nipponese troops to the scene..They set fire to the old man's head.As his hair blazed and he screamed..they offered him water with which to extinguish the flames..[but] it was boiling water..Petrol was poured on the roasted scalp..It was quite some time after he expired that the Japanese laughter and excitement died down.Rather like an English crowd at the conclusion of a closely fought football match..
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#87

Post by Peter H » 20 Sep 2009, 01:54

After being captured Braddon was imprisoned at an old goal in Kuala Lumpur.He describes(on page 109) the fate "of political prisoners--mainly Chinese--seized by the Japanese for alleged British symphaties or rebel activities'":
..they questioned,tortured and murdered them.The process was noisy since the last thing any Oriental ever does is endure physical pain or mental anguish in silence of the impassive nature invariably ascribed to them by writers who have never been to the east..thus,in the course of their questioning,when they were whipped on the goal whipping triangle,or filled with water and jumped on,or made to stand for hours with a heavy stone held above their heads,or suspended by their ankles while urine was poured down their nostrils..the air was rent with their shrill screams.And when at last an entire cell of six natives was informed that at dawn one of the six,any one,would be taken out and executed,then they really went to town...then in the morning another head would appear on a pole in the streets and the surviving five would elapse into ecstatic silence..

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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#88

Post by Peter H » 22 Sep 2009, 15:04

Tinian Massacre June/July 1944
A forgotten crime?

http://www.esinc.cc/newsletter/tinian.html
In June 1944 the Japanese had 5,000 Koreans and native Chamarroans as slaves on Tinian. Before the US Marines invaded Tinian in June 1944 the Japanese killed the Koreans and Chamarroans. It is believed this oven was used to disposed of the bodies.
Image


Pacific Legacy,Rex Smith and Gerald Meehl,page 294:
...some atrocities were more obscure like the case of the roughly five thousand Korean laborers on Tinian the Japanese executed shortly before the American invasion.There is a memorial on the island to those little known victims of war,whose bodies were burned in brick furnaces near where the memorial,now almost completely overgrown with thick jungle vegetation,was erected..

This Japanese link mentions the Korean Memorial :
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hayashi/love/trip_to_tinian.htm
On the right side of the crematory, a noble Korean Monument is raised and the origin is written in both Korean and English languages. Besides Japanese peoples, Okinawans and Koreans were engaged in plantation of sugarcane in Tinian. They civilians were involved in the combat contrary to their expectation and had to meet their death.
Because of advanced weathering, the characters engraved on the monument are not easy to read:

"Here lie five thousand nameless souls, beloved sons and daughters of white-clad forks. There are of, once, a homeless race suffered by chars of ruthless imperial Japanese Army, by whom they were deprived of their rights, and were taken to the islands here and there like innocent sheep, and then were fallen to this ground leaving behind them an eternal grudge.

Remember! A month of July 1944 our brothers and sisters, so young like a fresh flower were stubbed by the sabers or were killed by the manslaughtering armament here in Saipan and Tinian island.

Hark Ye, blue surfs of Pacific Ocean. Now, Ye tell passers-by what was the significance of their bitter grief, the massacre of those innocents.

Now, your motherland, the Republics of Korea, is evolving a new era to brighten the world with torches of peace and prosperity for human races and consequently to have your long cherished hopes fulfilled.

With the self-sacrificing efforts of R.V.Young Shik Rhee, the founder of Korea Social Work Collage, those souls deserted under the skies of strange countries have been enshrined on the hillside of the Homeland, Man Hyang Don San. And now a pure and simple stones from their Motherland is stood here to cherish the memory of the deceased.
O heaven, have mercy on those war-dead fellow Koreans, and give peace to their eternal world.
You passers by, stop here for a moment and pray for the repose of those souls.
May their souls rest in peace!"

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Peter H
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#89

Post by Peter H » 02 Oct 2009, 13:33

Execution of Doolittle Raiders

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid
After the war, the complete story of the two missing crews was uncovered in a war crimes trial held in Shanghai. The trial opened in February 1946 to try four Japanese officers for mistreatment of the eight captured crewmen. Two of the missing crewmen, Sgt. William J. Dieter and Cpl. Donald E. Fitzmaurice, had died when their B-25 crashed off the coast of China. The other eight, Lieutenants Dean E. Hallmark, Robert J. Meder, Chase Nielsen, William G. Farrow, Robert L. Hite, and George Barr; and Corporals Harold A. Spatz and Jacob DeShazer were captured. In addition to being tortured and starved, these men contracted dysentery and beriberi as a result of the poor conditions under which they were confined. On 28 August 1942, pilot Hallmark, pilot Farrow and gunner Spatz were given a mock trial by the Japanese, although the airmen were never told the charges against them. On 14 October 1942, these three crewmen were advised that they were to be executed the next day. At 16:30 on 15 October 1942, the three were taken by truck to Public Cemetery Number 1 outside of Shanghai and executed by a firing squad.

The other five captured airmen remained in military confinement on a starvation diet, their health rapidly deteriorating. In April 1943, they were moved to Nanking where, on 1 December 1943, Meder died. The remaining four men (Nielsen, Hite, Barr and DeShazer) eventually began receiving slightly better treatment from their captors and were even given a copy of the Bible and a few other books. They survived until they were freed by American troops in August 1945. The four Japanese officers who were tried for war crimes against the eight Doolittle Raiders were all found guilty. Three of them were sentenced to hard labor for five years and the fourth to a nine-year sentence.
From: http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/wgfarrow.htm
Hallmark, Farrow, and Spatz were executed on 15 Oct. 1942 in accordance with Japanese military custom. They were placed on their knees with their arms tied and blindfolded with black ink marks on the white cloth directly over the center of their foreheads. All three were shot simultaneously by three soldiers with rifles and were promptly cremated.
Photo taken in Shanghai:

"The crew of Farrow's plane after being captured.In front, L to R, were Cpl. Jacob DeShazer, and Sgt. Harold A. Spatz;
in rear, L to R, Lt. William G. Farrow, Lt. Robert L. Hite, and Lt. George Barr.Farrow and Spatz were two of those executed on Oct. 15, 1942".
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Peter H
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Re: Japanese War Crimes

#90

Post by Peter H » 02 Oct 2009, 13:36

Dean Edward Hallmark
http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txcoke/mi ... iders.html
Born January 20, 1914, Robert Lee, Coke County, Texas.
Executed by Japanese firing squad, October 15, 1942.

Executed at Kiangwan Cemetery, Shanghai, China.
Cremated and remains taken to the International Funeral Home in Shanghai, China.
Discovered after the war stored under the name "J. Smith".
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