Russell of Liverpool - The Knights of Bushido: A History of Japanese War Crimes During World War II

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Russell of Liverpool, Edward Frederick Langley Russell, Baron, 1895-1981.
The knights of Bushido : a history of Japanese war crimes during World War II / Lord Russell of Liverpool.
p. cm.
Subtitle of the previous edition: A short history of Japanese war crimes.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-60239-145-1 (alk. paper)
1. World War, 1939-1945AtrocitiesAsia. 2. Sino-Japanese War,
1937-1945Atrocities. 3. War crimesJapan. 4. JapanArmed Forces
History. I. Title.

D804.J3R8 2008
940.54050952dc22

2007052801

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Printed in the United States of America

EVER since my short history of Nazi war crimes, The Scourge of The Swastika, was published I have Keen approached by many people to write a companion volume on Japanese war crimes.

This book is the result of those requests.

Like its predecessor, it has been compiled from evidence given and documents produced at various war crimes trials, and from affidavits and statements made by eyewitnesses of such crimes to war crime investigation commissions set up after the War by the Allies to bring the criminals to justice.

I regret that it has been necessary to include so much that is unpleasant, but it would have been impossible to have done otherwise without, at the same time, failing to achieve the whole aim of the book, namely to give a concise but comprehensive account of Japanese war crimes. Nevertheless, for every revolting incident which has been described, a hundred have been omitted.

I SHOULD like to express my thanks to the following:

To the Rt. Hon. Antony Head, CBE, MC, MP, formerly Secretary of State for War, for arranging for me to have access to the proceedings of Japanese war crime trials:

To Sir Frederick Gentle, QC, Judge Advocate General of the Forces, and his Registrar, for placing these proceedings at my disposal.

To Sir Arthur Comyns Carr, QC, Mr. C. S. A. Dobson, Librarian to the House of Lords, and his Assistants, and Mr. A. D. Wilson, Librarian to the Foreign Office, for providing me with copies of the shorthand transcript of the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal, Far East.

To the Director of the Imperial War Museum for placing a number of photographs at my disposal.

To Leo Rawlings, for allowing me to reproduce some of the graphic paintings he produced while a prisoner of war in Japanese hands.

To the Editor, Picture Post, for access to his files; and to the following, who have placed at my disposal the proceedings of war crime trials, diaries, reports and other documents: Major-General E.C.O. Morphy, Major-General F. N. Tottenham, Colonel L. R. S. MacFarlane, OBE, MD, Colonel C. W. Maisey, OBE, Lieutenant-Colonel M. B. Allsebrook, DSO, MC, Lieutenant-Colonel H. S. Flower, OBE, Wing Commander C. Pitts, Major E. N. Hebden, Major R. Lucas, Major B. Peacock, Squadron Leader M. C. Mainprice. Mesdames Carvell, Deacon, and Wemyss and Messrs. I. T A. Atkins, MBE, K. A. Attiwill, MC, G. Gordon Barnes, P. Bartram, L. Beswick, J. B. Charlton, H. R. Cheeseman, CMG, A. Chettle, E. J. Coffey, L. G. Coleman, C. E. Collinge, CBE, R.T. Cooke, G. Craig, E. Davies, F. G. Davis, J. P. Fisher, F Alistair Forbes, MB, Ch.B, J. A. Foster, F W. Fox, R. L. N. Harward, K. E. W. Hislop, N. D. Kerr, H E. Kingdon, R. A. Lever, L. S. Millsom, A. J. Neville, R. Plummer, P. E. F. Routhey, J. C. Sharp, A. H. Taylor, V. G. Underwood, Frederick W. Ward, R. J. M. Watson, Graham Williams, J. H. Woodbridge, A. R. H. Wooster.

Between pages 144 and 145

Sikh prisoners used as live targets for rifle practice (Imperial War Museum and U.S. Army Photograph)

Chinese prisoners used for bayonet practice after the fall of Nanking (Keystone)

Chinese prisoners buried alive (Keystone)

The effects of deliberate malnutrition and mistreatment (A.P. Photo)

John Sharp of Leicester, one of the worst-treated prisoners to survive (Illustrated)

An occupant of the Japanese Labour Camp at Seletar, Singapore Island (Imperial War Museum)

The last Will and message of James M. Kim (Imperial War Museum)

The Nippon Golden Arrow

Co-Prosperity (Imperial War Museum and U.S. Army Photograph)

Fourteen illustrations from the contemporary record kept by Leo Rawlings

The meaning of Japanese occupation (A.P. Photo)

Mrs. Elena Maldonadobayoneted and machine-gunned (U S. Army Photograph)

Musebio linatokbayoneted (U.S. Army Photograph)

Street-scenes in Japanese-occupied Singapore

Japanesekilled by Japanese (U.S. Army Photograph)

Javanese labourers bayoneted by the retreating Japanese (U.S. Army Photograph)

Cave No. 3 in Tuba, Benguet, Philippines (U.S. Army Photograph)

Mr. A. Raven, at seventy the oldest prisoner in Stanley Gaol, Hong Kong (Admiralty Photograph)

General Hideki Tojo (Exclusive News Agency)

The seven accused at the Chinese Massacre Trial

Prisoner of war Christmas card

WHEN I was a schoolboy in 1950s Glasgow, the manager of the Western Baths, where I swam, was a taciturn chap called Jamieson. We often wondered why he was so sour, and someone said that he had been a prisoner of the Japanese during the war; they had knocked out his teeth, but he himself never talked about it. There were, as this classic book shows, tens of thousands of such men.

In 1942, 90,000 British Indian and Australian soldiers had surrendered at Singapore, after their commander, Sir A. E. Percival, had been outwitted (the authorities had not expected a Japanese attack from the land; many Japanese even arrived by bicycle). There were thousands of others, taken when a nearly defenceless Hong Kong fell, and when the Japanese swept into the Dutch East Indies and the American-run Philippines. A horrible few years followed. The meneven generals and former governorswere humiliated, beaten, starved. They were even forced to work on Japanese military projects (Canadians worked in the shipyards, and, at the very end, even in the mines) and on the notorious killer-railway projects through the jungles of South-East Asia.

No doubt there were some romantic episodes of collaboration, as in The Bridge over the River Kwai, but such episodes seem to have been few and far between, as the mens memories of Japanese captivity are hellish. Another old ex-prisoner in my boyhood years just said that when they all heard that The Bomb had been dropped, they cheered: it was retribution for what so many tens of thousands had suffered under the Japanese occupation of South-East Asia, Indonesia, and a large part of China. Even now, bitter old men note, in rage, the prosperity of post-war Japan.