Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II

351 Pages·2017·4.472 MB·English

by  Yuki Tanaka

Hidden Horrors
Japanese War Crimes
in World War II
Second Edition
Yuki Tanaka
Foreword by John W. Dower
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
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Copyright © 2018 by Rowman & Littlefield
First edition 1996
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Tanaka, Toshiyuki, 1949–
Title: Hidden horrors : Japanese war crimes in World War II / Yuki Tanaka ;
foreword by John W. Dower.
Other titles: Shirarezaru sensō hanzai. English
Description: Second edition. | Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
| Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017029696 (print) | LCCN 2017032919 (ebook) | ISBN
9781538102701 (electronic) | ISBN 9781538102688 (cloth : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781538102695 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939–1945—Indonesia—Prisoners and prisons,
Japanese. | Australians—Crimes against—Indonesia. | Japan—Armed
Forces—Southeast Asia—Attitude.
Classification: LCC D805.I55 (ebook) | LCC D805.I55 T3613 2018 (print) | DDC
940.54/05—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029696
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
For the late Tom Uren, an Australian POW who became a remarkable
statesman and good friend of the Japanese people after the war,
who says: There’s no progress in hate.

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Foreword by John W. Dower xi
Preface to the Second Edition: Crime and Responsibility: War,
the State, and Japanese Society xv
Acknowledgments xxix
Author’s Note xxxiii
Introduction: The War Crimes Tribunals and POWs 1
Japanese Atrocities in the Broader Context of the
Asia-Pacific War 3
The Aim of This Book 9
1 The Sandakan POW Camp and the Geneva Convention 13
The Forgotten POW Camp 13
Establishment of the Camp and the Labor Issue 14
Escapes and Non-Escape Contracts 21
The Sandakan Incident and the Kempeitai 26
The System and Purpose of Gunritsu Kaigi 33
Mistreatment of POWs and the Formosan Guards 38
2 The Sandakan Death Marches and the Elimination of POWs 49
The First Death March 49
The Second Death March 57
v
vi Contents
The Elimination and Crucifixion of POWs 64
Responsibility for Maltreatment and Massacre of POWs 72
Japanese POW Policy 76
The Psychology of Cruelty 80
3 Rape and War: The Japanese Experience 87
Rape and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal 87
The Massacre of Nurses at Banka Island 90
The Threat of Military Sex Slavery 98
The Establishment of Comfort Stations 101
The Universality of Rape in War 111
War, Rape, and Patriarchy 117
4 Judge Webb and Japanese Cannibalism 123
The Tokyo Tribunal and Cannibalism 123
Evidence of Japanese Cannibalism 124
Allied Victims of Cannibalism 128
Cannibalism of Asian POWs 132
Cannibalism of the Indigenous Population 137
Starvation and Group Psychosis 139
Responsibility and Reaction 142
Aftermath of the Tribunal 145
5 Japanese Biological Warfare Plans and Experiments on POWs 149
Unit 731 and Biological Warfare Plans 149
Biological Warfare Plans in the Southwest Pacific 153
POWs in Rabaul and Medical Experiments 158
Australian Responses to Experiments on POWs 172
The Ethics of Japanese Military Doctors and “Doubling” 175
6 Japanese Atrocities on Nauru during the Pacific War:
The Murder of Australians, the Massacre of Lepers,
and the Ethnocide of Nauruans 181
Japanese War Crimes Committed on Small Islands 181
The Capture and Occupation of Nauru by the Japanese 182
The Murder of the Australians 184
The Massacre of the Lepers 187
The Ethnocide of Nauruans 194
Appendix: An Appeal of Nauruan Natives to the
Japanese Government 198
Contents vii
7 Massacre of Civilians at Kavieng 201
The Japanese Invasion of Kavieng 201
Discovery of the Akikaze Massacre 205
Responsibility under the Australian War Crimes Act 213
A Clue to the Discovery of the Kavieng Massacre 216
Reconstruction of Events at Kavieng 219
Japanese Soldiers, International Law, and Gyokusai 228
Conclusion: Japanese Atrocities in the Asia-Pacific War 233
The Japanese Concept of Basic Human Rights 233
Japanese Moral Concepts and the Emperor Ideology 237
The Structure of the Japanese Imperial Forces, Bushidō, and the
Brutalization of Soldiers 242
Other Factors Contributing to the Cruelty of Japanese Soldiers 249
The Double Standards Inherent in Japan’s POW Policy 251
Japan’s Lack of Awareness about Its Collective Responsibility
for Its Wartime Atrocities 256
Notes 263
Index 301
About the Author 313

Illustrations
MAPS
1.1. Borneo 16
2.1. Sandakan-to-Ranau route 51
3.1. Location of Banka Island 94
4.1. New Guinea 125
5.1. Distribution of the Epidemic Prevention and Water
Purification Department (or Water Purification Unit—W.P.U.) 160
5.2. Location of Tunnel Hill POW camp 162
7.1. Courses taken by the ships Akikaze and Kowa Maru 206
FIGURES
Colonel Suga Tatsuji, head of the POW camps in Borneo 19
Captain Hoshijima Susumu, commandant of Sandakan POW camp 25
Captain Lionel Matthews, leader of an underground
intelligence organization at Sandakan POW camp 29
The grave of an Australian victim of the Japanese forces on the
Death March track between Sandakan and Ranau 60
Three survivors of the death marches between Sandakan and Ranau 67
ix