Knights of Bushido: A Short History of Japanese War Crimes (1958)

Hakko Ichiu means making the world one family. Kodo means that Hakko Ichiu can only be obtained through loyalty to the Emperor.

There was a person named Dr. Okawa who published a book in 1924, saying that Japan was the first state in the world and it's Divine Mission was to rule the world.

”The International Military Tribunal at Tokyo said this in its judgment. 'During a period of several months the Tribunal heard evidence from witnesses who testified in detail to atrocities committed in all theatres of war on a scale so fvast, yet following so common a pattern, that only one conclusion is possible. The atrocities were either secretly ordered, or willfully permitted by the Japanese Government, or individual members thereof, and by the leaders of the armed forces.'”

Japan and China

”There is overwhelming evidence that the Mukden Incident was carefully planned by officers of the Army General Staff, officers of the Kwantung Army, members of the Cherry Society and others, with the object of affording a pretext for the occupation of Manchuria by the army and the setting up of a new State as a satellite of Japan.”

The book says that Japan did not call the Sino-Japanese conflict a war, but an incident. The Chinese troops were labeled bandits, which meant that when they were taken prisoner they were not prisoners-of-war and thus did not fall under any of the protections of that title. The book says “many of them were massacred, tortured, or drafted into Japanese labor camps.” It cites one camp where half of the prisoners died of starvation or torture.

The author also says that the Japanese fought the war with a purposeful barbarity, thinking it would break the will of the Chinese people.

The book refers to various massacres, including one in three towns in the vicinity of Fushun where 2,00 men, women and children were murdered.

Referring to the Rape of Nanking, the author says that neither the commander nor the officers made any attempt to discipline the troops as they “looted, then burned, they raped and they murdered....They went on killing until the gutters ran with blood and the streets were littered with the bodies of their victims.”

Specifically, there were about twenty thousand cases of rape in the first month of Japanese occupation. They raping, killing, looting and burning went on for six weeks, and the lowest estimate of the number of Chinese soldiers and civilians killed was around two hundred thousand, according to the author.

There were also atrocities committed in the Shanghai area. Hankow was much the same. In 1941, all the members of 300 families were killed in a village in the province of Jehol. Over 600 civilians were massacred in Wei-Yang.

Treatment of Prisoners of War

There was a Treaty of Friendship between Prussia and the US in 1985 relating to prisoners of war, saying it was not legal to keep them in convict prisoners or to manacle them. Much later, in 1907, there was the Fourth Hague Convention, to which Japan was a signatory. So, even though Japan was not a party to the Geneva Convention, she was still bound under the principles of the Fourth Hague Convention to treat prisoners of war decently.

In talking about the prisoners of war under the Japanese, the author says “They were murdered, they were bayoneted, they were tortured, they were beaten. They were robbed of their possessions. They worked night and day in appalling conditions and on prohibited tasks. They were kept in filth and squalor and many of them were starved to death or reduced to living skeletons.”

He adds: “Prisoners of war were murdered by shooting, decapitation, drowning, and other methods. They died during death marches on which prisoners of war who were sick and quite unfit for any form of exertion were forced to march for long distances in conditions that even fit troops could not have been expected to stand. Many of those who fell out of the column were shot or bayoneted to death by the escort.”

Further: “Prisoners of war, recaptured after escaping, were shot, and captured aviators beheaded, in the usual Japanese method by sword. Even cannibalism was not unknown.”

In the European theater, around 4% of the British and American prisoners of war died; in the Pacific theater, that number was around 27%.

The book also talks about how the prisoners of war were punished for crimes or imagined crimes. Sometimes the entire group of prisoners would be punished for the action of one or two of their number.

The book says that the Japanese tried to hide the conditions in the prisoner-of-war camps, and they put out propaganda saying the prisoners were being taken very well care of.

Next follows an entire chapter on the murder of crews of American planes that were shot down. It doesn't make pleasant reading.

The next chapter is on the Burma-Siam railway. Again, it doesn't make pleasant reading, noting that at least 60,000 native died during the building of the railway, and 16,000 Allied prisoners died.

There is an entire chapter on “The massacre and murder of Prisoners of War.” Again, it's not a chapter for the faint of heart.

A chapter on “The Prison Hulks” refers to boats on which prisoners were shipped, and details the deplorable conditions on the boats. Some prisoners were given a book entitled “Regulations for Prisoners” and the death penalty was the punishment for any of a number of offenses.

The next chapter is on “The Death Marches.” It includes the Bataan death march, a 1942 march of Dutch prisoners which was similar, and other information. This is followed by a chapter on the Prison Camps. It goes into what happened at a dozen specific camps and general groups of camps. In the middle of this is the book's section of pictures.

Chapter X is on the Civilian Internment Camps. The book says that the conditions in those camps weren't any better than the ones for the prisoners-of-war. Thousands died in the camps.

”War Crimes on the High Seas” is next and starts off talking about how survivors of torpedoed ships were murdered by submarines using machine guns and other weapons. Very specific instances are noted by the author.

Now, if all this hadn't been enough to upset a person, the next chapter certainly should be. It's title is “Cannibalism, Vivisection and Mutilation.” It should give you a good idea of what it's about. There is even a paper reproduced that is titled “Order Regarding Eating Flesh of American Flyers.”

The next chapter goes into how the Japanese treated the civilian populations of countries they overran. As in other chapters, very specific instances are described.

The Japanese thought police/secret police, also known as the Kempai Tai, is the subject of the next chapter. They were experts in torture, and thousands of Allied prisoners of war were tortured by them. Eight separate forms of torture are described.

The final chapter, and the Appendix, deal with the war crimes and specific individuals.

Main Index
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Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
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