We all know about the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. The bad Nazis were brought to justice. And the evil Japanese faced the same thing, right? Well not exactly. The trials occurred but the justice meted out was a sick joke.
TRIALS
Books and the cinema have depicted the trials of the top Nazis after the war. Many were hanged and some received prison sentences. The longest punishments went decades in Spandau Prison. Speer, the armament chief and von Schirach of the Hitler Youth got the longest- twenty-year terms. They served every last day. The mentally unbalanced Hess surprisingly got life. The War Crimes Trials commenced in 1946 when the outrage was very fresh on everyone’s minds. By 1948 a prime contributor to the war effort in aviation, Willy Messerschmitt, received a small fine. Perhaps forgiveness was in vogue by then.
It wasn’t until November 12, 1948 that the Japanese trials ended. By then the war was somewhat receding in some people’s minds. It was a time of prosperity and looking ahead for the victors.
When it was concluded the prisoners filed into the court for the announcement of sentences by Australian judge, Sir William Webb. There were just twenty-two of them. Twenty-two men responsible for all the evil their empire produced for over a decade. They donned their earphones and listened to the translator as their fates were pronounced alphabetically.
General Sadao Araki former War and Education Minister got his first. “Life imprisonment!” retorted Judge Webb.
Former General Kenji Doihara was next. “Death by hanging!” snapped Webb.
Hideki Tojo was last. He was visibly nervous and shaken as he faced the court rubbing his moist hands on his trousers. He jerked as the sentence, “death by hanging,” was translated.
In all with other smaller, earlier trials a combined total of fifteen men were sentenced to hang. That’s it. Only fifteen men were responsible for the atrocities committed upon the world by the Japanese nation?
By contrast in Europe, even after Nuremberg, Nazi hunters relentlessly pursued those accused of atrocities and still do today. They didn’t buy the defense that generals and ministers were the only individuals responsible. Even enlisted German men who carried out murder and atrocities on unarmed civilians and POWs were sought. Why not so the Japanese?
During the thirty-one month trial the Allied tribunal’s prosecution and defense called 419 witnesses, presented 77 affidavits, offered 4,336 exhibits and put nine million words into the record all with a cost of $10 million.
The prosecutions indictments were that Japan repeatedly violated treaty obligations and waged an aggressive war with no regard for non-combatant status of POWs and civilians. Such power was impossible to oppose by any individual or group of civilians. Even the much more moderate Imperial Navy had no say in the policy of disregard forged by the Army and government.
THE EMPEROR AND THE GENERAL
The thinking of the time was also that Emperor Hirohito was some kind of ivory tower pawn cut off from his generals who he supposedly warned not to execute aggressive war schemes.
Today we know this is not true. Hirohito had close input and collaborated fully with his military leaders. We have General MacArthur to thank for his forceful intervention of cultural philosophy that allowed the emperor to remain on his bloody throne as an icon to the people. To Pacific WW II veterans this was a slap in the face.
MacArthur clashed with President Truman well before the Korean War when in 1947 he proposed a peace treaty with Japan since, he reasoned, the military phase of occupation was accomplished and it was time to let bygones be bygones.
Truman responded with a resounding “No!” Knowing Harry’s persona it was probably “HELL NO!!” He felt most Americans were still bitter because of their losses of relatives in combat and the torture of prisoners. In 1947 he was correct.
Tojo had to die. He was almost the entire evil of the empire personified to the Allied public with his bald skull and spectacles. He had lost face in Japan as well. He failed. Nothing is worse than failure there. So he hung.
THE OTHER PLAYERS
Araki was instrumental in the conditioning of the Japanese legions, as well as children, to hate and treat any non-Japanese with barbarism. Since he never gave direct orders to kill, his life sentence seemed just. He helped construct the myth of Japanese superiority over all other people who should be regarded as sub-human. Just because he indoctrinated troops that committed the heinous 370,000-soul massacre in 1937 Nanking, it wasn’t his fault, right?
So with that chapter closed in world history everyone moved on giving little thought to the brutal animals that would be locked up for decades or life inside Sugamo Prison in payment for their crimes against humanity. Besides, Korea was becoming a situation and Soviet Communism was the new threat to the planet.
Once again MacArthur, as pro-consul, came to the rescue. Since soldiers were needed to fight, guarding prisoners should be secondary and signed over the criminals in Sugamo to Japanese jurisdiction. There were ten Class A inmates serving life with a number of others with twenty-year terms. By contrast, Spandau was perpetually staffed by personnel from all the Allied nations including the Russians.
Among the Class A inmates was Shinske Kishi, the wartime Minister of Commerce of Tojo’s cabinet. Under his orders all the gold and valuable that could be looted from Asia filled Japan’s war chest. He personally supervised the busting of the Manila bank vaults removing gold and securities valued at $2 billion! He forced slave labor to run Malaysian rubber plantations. In conjunction with Finance Minister, Okinori Kaya, they ran rampant through Asia like Bonnie and Clyde robbing banks.
The propaganda machine, run by Abe Shoriki the publisher of the newspaper Yomuri and linked to the Zaibatsu ruling class, made the citizens believe that heavy casualties were due to the Allied murdering of Japanese POWs.
Etsusaburo Shiina worked with Tojo in strategic intelligence advising the best ways to launch campaigns at specific target and inflict the most casualties. Others included former general Jiro Minami who was War Minister during the Rape of Nanking, Koichi Kido who was Hirohito’s closest advisor, Col. Kingoro Hashimoto whose order sank the US gunboat Panay in the Yangtze in 1937, Shumei Okawa who instigated a bombing of Japanese officials in Manchuria to set off hostilities there in 1931 and Baron Kiichiro Hatanuma, Prime Minister in the 1930s.
SHHH!
But one of the best kept secrets of the 20th century is yet to come. The Class A prison cells were appointed with comfortable furnishings and affluent décor. General Araki wrote friends,” It’s like a hotel. Please come and visit me any time.” Not only were they surrounded in luxury, they got furloughs to the outside!
By 1951 older hands among the press corps in the Far East began recognizing some of these thugs being driven around Tokyo in limousines. Kishi was even spotted in Geisha house by a knowledgeable Australian correspondent.
Requests for information on these guys was met with silence from prison officials and forwarded to MacArthur’s H.Q. where they were ignored. MacArthur press chief, General Echols, denied receipt of the queries and when press further he replied, “These matters are not my province. Beside we have a war (Korea) to fight. That’s more important,” wrapping himself in the flag.
MacArthur believed that Japanese industry had to be run by qualified Japanese since no one else could, he said. Again, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Yasuda and Suzuki had taken hold of Japan’s industrial complex. This time American aid dollars built their new empires. Certainly if MacArthur was favorable to this the Congress and Senate would pass the legislation for assistance. They did and the rest is history. In the U.S. and other Allied nations private companies were manufacturing goods with generally 1920-era machinery while Japan had new, complete state-of-the-art industrial complexes built.
But the outrage of Sugamo’s inmates continues. Besides the chauffeured limo furloughs, authorities finally reasoned that these criminals be permitted to leave on the condition that the return for a monthly roll call! This happened for about six months until the chauffeurs began showing up with letters to the warden saying that the named individual was too busy with business responsibilities to make an appearance.
The fact was that these degenerates were now at the wheel of Japan’s industry and government…again.
Sugamo was closed in 1953 without the knowledge of the citizens of the Allied nations. What about all those twenty year and life sentences? With a heavy-weight like MacArthur on their side the Japanese government made pardons like so many cherry blossoms.
Men, who fought with valor, like Navy ace Saburo Sakai and his contemporaries, nearly starved in post-war times and were categorized as “minor war criminals” by the occupational authorities. They got no breaks or assistance while big shots and former war industry moguls did.
This shameful legacy perpetuated with the cooperation and blessing of people like MacArthur unfold yet further. Not only did these once incarcerated miscreants go free they prospered and rose to the highest ranks in the land. MacArthur permitted the formation of dubious political parties and all sorts of unpedigreed characters jumped in.
THE LIST
Ichiro Hatoyama, one time associate of General Tanaka, who helped forge the conquest of Asia, organized the Liberal Party. His close association with Tojo and the Zaibatsu was discovered and he put a puppet in front of the party while he called the shots.
This puppet was not as close to Tojo. His name was Shigeru Yoshida, who later became Prime Minister of Japan.
Shumei Okawa who also ran the Manchurian railroads where thousands of prisoners died under his jurisdiction played insane during the trials and received a twenty-year sentence instead of death, which translated to freedom in a couple years. He soon got back into industry.
Looter Shineke Kishi also became Prime Minister.
Finance Minister Okinori Kaya, bankroller of the Nippon war machine for Tojo, later became a member of Japanese congress and Minister of Justice.
Advisor to Tojo Etsusaburo Shiina became Foreign Minister under Kishi.
The perpetrator of evil propaganda, Sadao Arika became a high-ranking industrialist.
Fusanosuke Kuhara was the leader of the newly-emerging Zaibatsu faction of Seiyukal (Political Friends Society).
Yoshisuke Ayukawa was as worn-brother of Fusanosuke Kuhara, founder of Japan Industrial Corporation; having gone to Manchuria after the "September 18" Incident, where he founded the Manchurian Heavy Industry Development Company to dominate industry and mining of Manchuria.
Toshizo Nishio was Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, Commander-in-Chief of China Expeditionary Army, 1939-41; and Minister of Education.
Kichiburo Ando was the Garrison Commander of Port Arthur and Minister of Interior in Tojo's cabinet.
Yoshio Kodama was once a radical nationalist behind many coups and assassinations in the 1930s; setting up the Kodama special organ in occupied China engaged in exploiting Chinese resources and after the war, remaining a major leader of Japanese Yakuza underworld organized crime syndicate.
Kazuo Aoki was the Administrator of Manchurian affairs; Minister of Treasury in Nobuyoki Abe's cabinet and then following Abe to China as advisor; Minister of Greater East-Asian Ministry under Tojo.
Masayoki Tani became Ambassador to Manchukuo, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Concurrently Director of Intelligence Bureau; Ambassador to the Nanking puppet government; and after the war Ambassador to the United States.
Eiji Amo was the Chief of Intelligence Section of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Amo issued the "Amo Statement" in 1934, calling upon Western powers not to render assistance to China as the East Asian order was very much the Japanese responsibility; Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs; and Director of Intelligence Bureau in Tojo's cabinet.
Yakijiro Suma, as Consul General at Nanking, was well known to the Chinese owing to his concocting of many intrigues, particularly on the eve of the war; in 1938, where he served as counselor at the Japanese Embassy at Washington; and after 1941, Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain.
Ryoichi Sasakawa was leading Fascists and Militarists in Japan and organized his private army of 15,000 men equipped with twenty warplanes and dressed in black shirts to emulate Mussolini fascists, after the "September 18, 1931 Manchurian Incident.” Following the outbreak of the Pacific War, his army massacred thousands of innocent Chinese and Malayans for which he earned the name of "Tiger of Malaya." After the war, he kept his Yakuza business in Japan involving drug trafficking, pornographic enterprises, gambling, and usury that made him the super rich, with which he had become the leading philanthropist of the world; he showered handsome donations to the United Nations, President Carter's Library, and one million dollars each to the leading universities of America.
One fellow, Tomoya Kawakita was an American-born interrogator and interpreter who permitted brutal POW treatment. He was put behind bars in the USA for the longest- sixteen years. President Kennedy pardoned him when Alcatraz was closed.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Besides the image of the remains of Unit 731 I purposefully did not use any photos to illustrate this sordid chapter in history simply to decrease the prurient interest in vivisection, severed heads and disemboweled victims.
During WW II the West painted the Japanese as sub-humans for propaganda purposes. The actions of, at least the men of the Imperial Army in Asia, confirms that depiction. The horrible acts described here are but a minuscule narrative that was multiplied a million-fold in reality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Brackman, Arnold
The Other Nuremberg
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Chang, Iris
The Rape of Nanking
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Harris, Sheldon H.
Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-45 and the American Cover-Up, Routledge, NY 1994
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Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II
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Vaughn, Kurt
Nip War Criminals Who Run Japan Today
Bluebook July1965
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Unit 731- Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II
Free Press Publications 1989
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