Japanese War Crimes

Japan did not and does not today admit the full extent of its responsibility for launching World War II. Many Japanese attempt to hide the extent of their country's war crimes and prefer to view their country as a victim of the War. The list of Japanese attrocities and war is very long, involving the deaths of millions, mostly innocent civilians. The list in its entirity is too long to list here, but we need to mention some of the most grevious attrocities committed by the Imperial armed forces. The primary war crime is the launching of aggerssive war first against China (1937) and then the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands (1941). Specific examples include the terror bombing of undefended Chinese cities (Shanghai); mascres of Chinese civilians (the Rape of Nanking), use of biologcal and chenical weapons, mistreatment and massacres of Allied POWs (the Batan Death March), abuse of civilain internees, use of slave labor, conscription of civilian women for prostitution (Korean comfort women).

Previous Wars

One interesting note here is that the brutal behavior of the Japanese troops during World War II is not how the Japanes behave in earlier conflicts. Japanese behavior toward captured enemy soldiers and civilian populations was correct in both the Russo-Japanese War (1905) and World War I (1914-18). I have less information on the seizure of Formosa from China (1895) and the colonization of Korea after the war with Russia.

World War II

Japan did not and does not today admit the full extent of its responsibility for launching World War II. Many Japanese attempt to hide the extent of their country's war crimes and prefer to view their country as a victim of the War. The list of Japanese attrocities and war is very long, involving the deaths of millions, mostly innocent civilians. The list in its entirity is too long to list here, but we need to mention some of the most grevious attrocities committed by the Imperial armed forces.

Aggressive War

The primary war crime is the launching of aggerssive war first against China (1937) and then the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands (1941). Japan decided in 1939 to intensify its naval armaments program with a 6-year naval building plan. New battleships were ordered. Still inproven were the air craft carriers. By 1941 Japan had 13 carriers, three times as many as the American Navy. Japanese carrier pilots wee superbly trained and flew the Mitsubishi zero, superior tio any fighter available to the United States.

Terror bombing

The Japanese routinely engaged in the terror bombing of civilian populations, mostly undefended Chinese cities such as Shanghai. The first major terror bombing raid was Shanghai in 1937. Raids escalated as Japan expanded its air force amd military assault in China. The Japanese began an expanded effort crush Chinese resistance by sustained bombing of every major city in Natioanlist hands. One estimate indicated that about 20,000 civilians were killed in the first 9 months of 1939 alone. [Gilbert, p. 239.] The Japanese bombing was virtually unopposed. The Chinese asked for American assistance and President Roosevelt approved plans for the American Volunteer Group or Flying Tigers. The Flying Tigers reached China in 1941, a few months before Pearl Harbor.

Massacres of Chinese Civilians

Killing of Chinese civilians was routien. Often they occurred after taking a city or as reprisals for gureilla activity. Japanese soldiers as a reward for taking a cHinese town were normally given 3 days to do as they please, including rape and pillage. The most notorious incident was the Rape of Nanking (1937-38). Another major incident was wide-scale killings after the Doolittle Raid (1942). There is a long list of other terrible incidents. The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and Chinese war historians estimate that the Japanese killed outright or were indirectly responsible for 10-30 million deaths in China--mostly innocent civilians. Some even belive the total was higher. These deaths resulted from massacre by the Jpanese army, bombing of civilian populations, mistreatment of slave labor, starvation and germ and chemical warfare. The single most horendous incident was the Rape of Nanking where close to 0.3 million Chinese were killed. [Chang] Many other Chinese cities suffered greviously.

The Three Alls

The Japanese in China after occupying large areas of the country, but failing to decisesly defeat the Chinese Army, adopted the "Three Alls" (sankô sakusen) policy to subgegate the country. The Japanese policy was most agressively implemented in northeastern China. Details on the Japanese effort only emerged after the War as a result of a book published by a Japanese POW. The effort was initiated by Ryûkichi Tanaka (1940). The fullest implementation was in north China by Yasuji Okamura. He divided occupied northern China into pacified, semi-pacified and unpacified areas. The Imperial Army Headquarters issued order number 575 (December 2, 1941). Okamura as part of the strategy burned villages, confiscating grain to deny food to insurgents, and used Chinese peasants as alave work force to construct concentration hamlets. Other projects included trench lines, containment walls, moats, watchtowers and roads. These construction projects were conducted on a vast scale. The brutal treament of these Chinese workers resulted in deaths on a vast scale.

Use of Biologcal and Chemical Weapons

Japanese medical units in Manchuria experimented with biological warfare. More than 400 villagers died of bubonic plague in China's eastern Zhejiang province during September 1942. Japanese planes with bombs prepared by medical Unit 731 dropped germ bombs. Unit 731 was stationed on the outskirts of Harbin--the capital of the rich agricultural and coal region of Hailongjiang Province in what was known as Manchuria. The unit was active until August 1945 when the Soviet Union entered the war by invading Japanese-occupied Manchuria. The unit is known to have introduced typhus into the water supply flowing into Manchuria.

Mistreatment of Allied POWs

The mistreatment and massacres of Allied POWs are too numerous to list. Here we are not referring to incidents committed by individual soldiers and field commanders. The Pacific War was fought with unprecedented savegery. There arenumerous incidents. One example is the nine naval airmen shot down in the fighting around Iwo Jima. One was rescued (George H.W. Bush). The other eight were tortured horribly, beheaded, and devoured by the Japanese. [Bradely] There were incidents of barbarity by the Americans as well. American submarines machine gunning survivors or GIs pulling gold teeth out of living Japanese. More important is how POWs were treated once in the hands of competent authorities. The Batan Death March is the best known incident involving Americans and Philippinos. The building of the Eastern Railroad is the best known incident involving English and Commonwealth troops. I am not sure how the Japanese handeled Chinese POWs. Chinese POWs were normally killed outright were killed outright, but this needs to be confirmed. There is achuge body of edivence from the reports of Allied POWs. An estimated 40 percent of Allied POWs died in the Japanese camps. This compared to the 2 percent of American and British POWs who died in German camps. It also campares to the American POW camps where POWs lived under the same conditions as American service men. While the treatment od Allied POWs by the Japanese was demonstrably horrendous, less clear is the responsibility for these condiions. Individual camp commanders were clearly responsible, but the conditions in the Japanese camps was s uniformely brutal, there must have been guidelines issued by higher authorities. Here we have only limited evidence. One important piece of evidence that surfaced at the War Crimes Trial of the major Japanese officials in Tokyo. The Japanese Vice Minister of War ordered camp commanders to execute POWs if a camp was about to fall into Allied hands [document 2015]. While this document was entered into the officil reord, it was never discussed by the Allied procecutors. Some historians speculate that this was bdecause MacArthur feared that the paper trail might extend to Emperor Hirohito.

Mistreatment of Civilian Internees

With the occupation of the Philippines, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Mayausia, and the Dutch East Indies, large number of civilians from combatant nations were interned by the Japanese under horific conditions. The death rates were apuling, especially among the children. One British boy later described his experiences, The Empire of the Sun. There were about 70,000 Dutch women and children interened by the Japanese in early 1942. One Dutch girl remembers at age 10 reporting to the church in Bogor where the Japanese processed them for different camps. She was in five different camps before being liberated. Her father had already been taken by the Japanese to a mens' camp. Only the younger boys stayed with the women. Her mother had a terrible choice. Should she hold on to Rob the youngest boy or let him go with Will hoping that together they would have a better change of surviving. She finally decided to let him go and agonized about it afterwards. When the British got to her camp after the war, her foot was rotting off. Somehow they all survived, but were forever changed. [Halewijn Brown]

Sandakan Death March
Hong Kong

There was a mass slaughter of hospital medical staff following the fall of Hong Kong.

Attu

The Japanese conducted a mass slaughter of American wounded at a field hospital at Attu in the Aleutians.

Bangka

The Japanese slaughtered Australian nurses on Bangka Island,

Australian POWs

The Japanese killed Australian POWs on New Britain, Ambon and Timor.

New Guinea

The Japanese landing at Buna in New Guinea killed the Australian missionary sisters.

Slave Labor

Indonesia

The Japanese in a proaganda gesture offered independence to the Indonesia people. Indonesia had been the Dutch colony of Sutch East Indies. The Japanese released indonesian politicians that had been jailed by the Dutch. In fact they turned no real power to the Indonesians. The Japanese occupation was a disaster for the Indonesian people. Large numbers were conscripted for forced labor and because of the brutal treatment and poor conditions, many died. Even worse, the Japanese seized food supplies and their occupation disrupted farming. In all about 4 million Indonesians died during the Japanese occupation.

Comfort women

The Japnese Army conscripted civilian women to serve as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers. Women from Korea, the Philippines and other countries were used. The Army sourced many of these women in Korea, Japan's second important colony. Korean women were not the only victims. The Japanee Army also used Dutch, Eurasian, and Indonesian women beginning in 1943. Dutch military authorities strenously procecutes the cases involving Dutch women, but cases involving the other women were laregly ignored. [Tanaka] Amazingly many Japanese today claim these women volunteered for this work.

Sources

Bradley, James. Flyboys: A True Story of Courage (Little Brown, 2003), 398p.

Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Firgotten Holocaust of World War II (Basic Books: New York, 1997).

Gilbert, Martin. A History of the Twentieth Century Vol. 2 1933-54 (William Morrow and Company, Inc.: New York, 1998), 1050p.

Halewijn Brown, Emilie. "The Agonies of internment," The Washington Post May 29, 2005, p. W11.

Tanaka, Yuki. Japan's Comfort Women: The Military and Involuntary Prostitution during War and Occupationaperback 2002).
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