War Criminals of Renault Island (Amazing Stories, December 1944)

Mars had the weapons-but they needed Hitler's murderous skill in making war!

This is a story in which Hirohito plays a fairly major role, along with Hitler.

Hitler and Hirohito are held captives on Renault Island. (In reality, of course, Hitler committed suicide and Hirohito stayed on the throne but was stripped of power). Someone named Captain Lester is worried that they might have escaped.

A woman named Jonice talks to Lester (he's out of the military now) about Hitler and Hirohito.

Jonice admits that she is from the planet Uranus (1). She adds that the two war criminals are now on Mars. She says Mars is inhabited by a war-mongering race and they plan to take over the entire solar system. (2) She says they needed Hitler and Hirohito for their strategic abilities (3). She offers him the command of what military forces there are on Uranus (4).

She takes him to her spaceship.

He gets into a fight with some guy from Uranus who is really nasty. Jonice gets mad at Lester, but he points out that since he is technically in command, hitting him, as the other guy did, is an act of mutiny, and he could have the guy executed for doing that.

Uranus apparently hopes to start commercial relations with the Earth. Meanwhile, Lester puts the gun crews on drills. They are surrounded by Martian ships. Relvon, the guy who hit Lester, could be a traitor.

The space battle continues, and Hirohito's name comes up. (1) He's referred to as “that yellow-skinned rat.” (2)

Hirohito makes an appearance, that “scrawny, yellow Jap.” (1) Lester manages to stage a surprise, and takes Hirohito captive.

Hirohito manages to get loose and Lester is hit. (1) Lester gets his revenge, though, and kills Hirohito (2).

The most significant part of the description comes when the princess gets mad at Lester for killing Hirohito. Lester responds: “Kill? Kill? What did I kill? A beast, I tell you, a stinking scavenger who never should have been born.”

“You've never seen the men who returned from Bataan. You've never seen the men out of his concentration camps. You've never seen wounded, helpless men, women, children massacred by his hordes of savages.”

Lester says the only hope Uranus has is to attack first, but he says they would use commando tactics, destroying strategic points only.

Relvon supposedly has had an accident and will not be part of the invasion force, a rather transparent note that he's really the traitor and has betrayed the attacking fleet to the Martians.

As expected, their fleet is met with “unexpected” resistance.

Lester finds out his former general had been replaced by a look-alike Martian. Others in the battle finally realize that Relvon is a traitor and needs to be killed.

Hitler makes an appearance. Later, Lester and other replaced U.S. military men make an attempt to escape.

A lot of the group of survivors, and the U.S. military men that were replaced, get out of the jail and steal a Uranian ship, but one of the leaders of the Uranus group has to be left behind.

Lester is setting into place some kind of plan to reveal Relvon for the traitor that he is.

Lester talks about launching another invasion, and that Relvon would be the leader of the attack force.

Relvon tries to kill Lester, but is killed in the process. Lester then launches the attack.

The battle goes well. Hitler commits suicide.

Lester is going to return to Earth, and Uranus will not have any relations with Earth after all. They are afraid of other madmen pulling the same kind of stunt Hitler and Hirohito tried to pull.

Lester gets his reward.



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