Ships from Hell: Japanese War Crimes on the High Seas
224
Ships from Hell: Japanese War Crimes on the High Seas
224eBook
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| ISBN-13: | 9780752494838 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 01/28/2002 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 638 KB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
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Ships From Hell
Japanese War Crimes on the High Seas
By Raymond Lamont-Brown
The History Press
Copyright © 2013 Raymond Lamont-BrownAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-9483-8
CHAPTER 1
Early Shipments of the Damned
'A day which will live in infamy' was how US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt described the events that began at 07.55hrs on 7 December 1941 – when Pearl Harbor Striking Force Commander Chujo Chuichi Nagumo launched Japan's sudden and devastating attack on Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii. In all, 31 vessels and 432 planes took part in the attack. Back in Japan the government of Taisho Sori-Daijin Hideki Tojo hailed the event as Shinjuwan Kogeki. A total of 2,403 US Forces personnel and civilians were killed, half of them when the battleship USS Arizona blew up. The Japanese losses were logged by the Rikugunsho (Ministry of War) in Tokyo at around 60 personnel.
Because of the time zones Japan's Dai ni-ji Sekai Taisen (Second World War) had already begun elsewhere. At 02.15hrs on the morning of 8 December 1941 advance troops of the Japanese 25th Army, led by Taisho Hirofumi Yamashita, landed at Kota Bharu on the east coast of Malay Peninsula, bent on seizing Singapore. This was more than an hour before the attack on Pearl Harbor Pacific Time. The landing was the next vital step in Japan's grand plan of Hakko Ichiu ('The World under One Roof'), and provided the means to make Japan an independent Dai Nippon Teikoku ('Empire of Great Japan').
When these attacks took place Japan had already been at war for four years on the mainland of China. Following the amputation of Manchuria from China in 1932 and the formation of the puppet state of Manchuquo under the quisling monarch Henry Pu Yi (the former Emperor of China), the Imperial Japanese Forces had conducted a large-scale rape, pillage and annexation of China proper. By 1941 a Japanese army in excess of a million strong occupied China's largest cities and huge swathes of the interior. Despite this the Chinese National Government of General Chiang Kai-Shek (1887–1975) refused to sue for peace, so Japan was forced to keep pouring manpower and supplies into what was a bottomless pit.
Then as now, Japan was very heavily dependent on sources of minerals, petroleum and other raw materials outside its homeland. So Japan's Hakko Ichiu programme was intended to make China into an economic milch-cow, one of a whole herd of South-east Asian states keeping Dai Toa Teikoku alive and its satellites of the proposed Dai Toa Kyozonken in good health. Japan needed coal from Sakhalin, China, Korea and Manchuquo; oil from Borneo, Sumatra, Java and Burma; rubber from the Philippines, French Indo-China and Timor; and tin from Malaya and Siam (Thailand). To tap these resources, and exploit what coal and oil reserves could be found in the homeland, the Japanese needed a new work-force. This was to be drawn from the myriad prisoners who were surrendering to the Imperial Japanese Forces every day, and it would be a work-force based on dorei-seido (slavery). And so a new phase of administration began along the eastern edges of the 1920s Mandated Territories.
Wake Island is a 2,600-acre V-shaped atoll consisting of three islands, and it lies some 700 miles north of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. American territory since 1899, it played an important part in US military plans as a way station for aircraft en route to the Philippines. It was also an important reconnaissance base for monitoring the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.
Japan had been drawn into international affairs from the days of the First World War, when they fought on the Allied side against the Germany of Kaiser Wilhelm II. As a consequence of this cooperation Japan had won a permanent seat on the new League of Nations, established by the Treaty of Versailles on 29 June 1919. From that point, though, the Japanese had swerved away from peaceful expansion through trade and friendly diplomacy to outright military aggression. By the late 1930s confrontation with the West was growing and America in particular was aiming to keep one step ahead. Hence the importance of Wake Island.
Since early 1941 more than a thousand construction workers had grafted on gruelling shifts to transform the atoll into a military base. On Wake itself, the longest of the islands, the Americans constructed a 5,000ft-long runway. Meanwhile on Peale Island a seaplane base was scheduled, and on Wilkes Island there was to be a submarine base.
In the days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the Wake theatre was commanded by US Navy Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham, with a defence force of 450 men of the 1st Marine Defense Battalion under Major James P.S. Devereux, and a marine fighter squadron, VMF-211, under Major Paul A. Putnam. The whole command was seriously under strength. They possessed only a dozen anti-aircraft guns and had no radar for either fire-power control or warning systems. Their dozen FWF-3 Wildcat fighters were obsolete, and their pilots only desultorily trained to fly them.
The Japanese plan for the invasion of Wake was assigned to the Imperial Japanese Navy's 4th Mandates Fleet under the command of Chujo Shigeyoshi Inouye. His forces were responsible for defending Japan's possessions in the south-west and central Pacific. Chujo Inouye had a base at Kwajalein, the world's largest atoll, in the Ralik Chain, some 280 miles north-west of Majuro in the Marshall Islands. From this base Japanese bombers had already set out to 'soften up' the Wake defences at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
As the Japanese bombers approached Wake, some of the US Wildcats were out on patrol. The aircraft missed one another because of the weather, but the remaining Wildcats were destroyed on the ground along with vital fuel supplies. Air raid followed air raid to destroy Wake's hospital and the fire control systems of some of the coastal defence guns. However, these remained substantially intact until the Japanese land invasion.
The Japanese commander of the 450-man Wake Island Invasion Force was Shosho Sadamichi Kajioka. His flagship, the 2,890-ton light cruiser Yubari, built in 1923, was escorted by a destroyer force and invasion transports. The first attempt to land was made on 11 December. When the Japanese fleet was only 500 yards from the shore, Wake's 5-inch batteries opened fire. Yubari was forced to retreat in the blistering barrage as the 1925-built 1,270-ton destroyer Hayate was blown out of the water. This was the first Japanese surface warship to be lost in the Second World War. Shosho Kajioka ordered a withdrawal to Kwajalein under sustained fire from the four surviving Wildcats.
A second attack on Wake was now attempted with Kajioka's fleet reinforced by Shosho Hiroaki Abe's 8th Cruiser Squadron, ripe from its success in the Pearl Harbor attack. This time the Wake invasion was successful and on Tuesday 23 December 1941 Major J.P.S. Devereux surrendered the command to Shosho Kajioka.
In all, 1,600 Americans fell foul of the Imperial Japanese forces for the first time. It seems that the senior army officer leading the occupying force at Wake wanted a mass execution of survivors; Shosho Kajioka opposed him. He had orders to take the new prisoners to Japan. Naked and bound, the American prisoners sat it out in their own filth as the Japanese built a barbed-wire pound for them on Wake airfield.
At last, when secured within the compound, the new PoWs were untied and left without food, shelter or water for 24 hours. On 25 December they were given water in 55-gallon drums and a little later some mouldy bread with a hint of jam from what had been the base kitchens was handed round. Groups were formed among the prisoners to bury the rotting dead, and those who worked were able to salvage a few small items which the looting Japanese soldiers had left behind in the old living quarters.
Testimony about the conditions on the first prisoner sea transports to Japan was given by Harry Jeffries and Oklahoma Atkinson. Both were ne'er-do-well building labourers who had worked on the base at Wake.
Some 1,300 of the American prisoners were given one hour's notice, on 11 January, that they were to move to the shore to be shipped out of Wake. Rumour spread like wildfire that their destination was mainland Japan. As they waited, the men were handed out copies of the Kisoku no furyo (Regulations for PoWs). Shikei (the death penalty) was promised for a dozen or so offences, ranging from disobeying orders to talking without permission, and from raising the voice to Japanese personnel to walking about restricted areas. The Regulations went on to promise 'good treatment' to all who obeyed the rules of the Imperial Japanese Navy, or cooperated in constructing any part of the Dai Toa Kyozonken.
As the men gathered on the beach the Japanese guards searched each prisoner individually, confiscating anything that had been retained. All the best pickings, from Rolex watches to Parker pens, had long since been filched, now pathetically guarded combs, pencils, photographs and coins were all removed. The prisoners were then taken by lighter over the choppy seas to a navy vessel standing offshore. Jostled, kicked, beaten and bayoneted, the prisoners painfully scrambled up the rope ladders leading to the heaving deck. Once on board they were searched once more by the Japanese suifu (seamen). When the new guards found that the prisoners had already been picked clean there were more beatings to endure. The shuffling line of prisoners was pushed between rows of ratings who beat them with heavy 4ft-long bamboo staves as they moved along. Blows rained down on them as the prisoners were hustled into forward cargo holds until all 1,300 men were battened down.
The prisoners' new home was a 1939-built Japanese liner, the 17,830-ton Nitta Maru of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha (Japan Mail Steamship Company) shipping line. Her log-book recorded that she had won, and still held, the trans-Pacific speed record. But for the prisoners it was to be no luxury cruise. They were packed in to suffocation point and anyone caught moving was beaten. At last their transport got under way, but the air remained foul and the heat unbearable.
Drinking water was refused, but the thirsty prisoners nearest the ship's metal sides were able to lick the moisture condensing on the metal from sweating bodies and foetid breath. Every 24 hours buckets of thin misoshiru (in this case a poor soup made with inferior rice), infrequently with slivers of tsukemono (pickled vegetables), were lowered into the hold. Occasionally too, rotting tai (sea bream) was added. Many prisoners had developed dysentery while still on Wake, and as conditions aboard the Nitta Maru worsened so did the dysentery and other ailments. Many prisoners too weak to move lay in their own filth. There was an eiseitai (medical unit) aboard the ship but the Kaigun Shikan Itakuteki (Navy Medical Officer) refused to treat prisoners whether they were wounded or sick.
Slowly the hot conditions in the ship's holds cooled as the vessel moved across the North Pacific deep into Japanese waters. After a week or so the Nitta Maru and her helpless cargo arrived at the Japanese main island of Honshu to dock at the snow-covered port of Yokohama. Here at the chinjufu (naval district) of the 1st Naval District of the Japanese Empire, the vessel tied up for coaling and supplies. To celebrate their return to the sacred soil of Japan, the ratings opened the hatches and pelted the freezing prisoners with snowballs.
The Nitta Maru left Yokohama the following morning, and a few days later a new form of horror was introduced. Already the prisoners had got used to a selected few of their number being taken from the hold to be interrogated, while others had judo throws practised on them by the ratings. The more observant among the prisoners noticed how the chosen men always seemed to include red-headed victims. There is something about red hair that triggers both fear and loathing in the Japanese psyche; when the Japanese think of demons and hobgoblins they always picture them with red hair. So those with red, or golden, hair always seemed to suffer the worst in Japanese camps and hellships. Even so, this time the selections were to be different.
On this particular occasion five men were picked out. They were taken on deck and lined up in front of a crowd of Japanese naval personnel. The commander of the prisoner detail stepped forward, while a group of kashikan (petty officers) fell in behind him, swords in hand. The commander, Chu-i Toshio Saito, pulled a paper from his pocket and recited in Japanese a terrifying dirge that was to be repeated to prisoners wherever they were captured in the Japanese Empire: You have murdered many Japanese soldiers.
For what you have done you will now suffer death. It is the just recompense of the Japanese people. You are here as representatives of the [US Navy] and will die. You can now pray to be happy in the next world.
To which he added: 'When you are born again I hope you will become peace-loving citizens.'
Finishing, Chu-i Saito bowed and the kashikan stepped forward. Tokumu socho (Warrant Officer) Yoshimura was selected to behead the first prisoner, who was blindfolded and forced to his knees on a small tatami (straw mat). It took three blows for Yoshimura to sever the American's head. Next to step forward was Kashikan Takamura, who severed his prisoner's head with one blow. He was followed by Chief Kashikan Kohara, who left this record of his actions:
[Chu-i Saito] called out 'Gocho'. I answered 'Hai' [yes]. I was scared and shaking. I stepped forward to where the third American prisoner of war was kneeling on the deck. I raised my sword to strike him. Being unable to bring myself to deliver the stroke, I lowered my sword. I opened my eyes, and I saw the red hair above the eye bandage. As Chu-i Saito was standing right beside me and had ordered me to do this duty I raised my sword again and attempted to strike. A second time I could not, so I lowered my sword once more.
Then realising that I was acting on orders from the Tenno [Emperor], I closed my eyes, raised my sword and brought it down ... When I opened my eyes the body of the American prisoner was lying at my feet. His head severed from his body. I had carried out Chui Saito's orders.
The assembled navy and army personnel applauded as each head hit the deck. Following the last execution the corpses were used for bayonet practice. In the officers' mess that evening, Chu-i Saito celebrated with libations of sake (rice wine) to salute the Emperor and rewarded the executioners with watches and jewellery taken from the prisoners.
On 23 January 1942 the Nitta Maru docked at the Chinese port of Shanghai. When Japan had declared war, this former International City, secured for them earlier by Shireichokan of the Central China Area Army Chujo Iwane Matsui – the infamous 'Butcher of Nanking' – was sealed off. The port was to have been the scene of a triumphal march of defeated western PoWs to show the Chinese that their Japanese neighbours were omnipotent. The winter of 1941/2, however, had been savage and the Japanese garrison commanders at Shanghai could not guarantee that the Chinese would turn out to see the spectacle. Instead the Nitta Maru steamed up the Huangpu Jiang (then known to westerners as the Whangpoo River) to Woosung. Under naval armed guard the freezing prisoners were marched the 5 miles to the Shanghai War Prisoners Camp. The first slave-labour gangs had been safely delivered, courtesy of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
From the beginning of 1942 a definite policy of slave-labour recruitment among PoWs was in place. For instance, on 6 July 1942 Shokan Maraharu Yamada was sent from Kuching HQ, Borneo, to Changi prison, Singapore, to select likely workers. From Lieutenant-Colonel A.W. Walsh's Australian 2/10 Battalion he selected 1,500 personnel and boarded them on the 5,859-ton (coal) cargo vessel Ume Maru, built at Kawasaki in 1919. In three cramped holds they began a slow journey via Miri to Sandakan in Borneo. There the PoWs were set to work on the airfield and road system of Sandakan port. The hellship Ume Maru was subsequently torpedoed by USS Seahorse on 3 November 1943.
The Japanese Government also saw the propaganda value of these early shipments of PoWs. On 4 March 1942 Taisho Seishiro Itagaki, Commander of the Chosen Army, sent this telegram to the Rikugunsho:
As it would be very effective in stamping out the respect and admiration of the Korean people for Britain and America, and also in establishing in them a strong faith in [our] victory, and as the Governor-General [Taisho Jiro Minami] and the Army are both strongly desirous of it, we wish you would intern 1,000 British and 1,000 American prisoners of war in Korea. Yoko kangaete kudasai ... Kindly give this matter special attention.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Ships From Hell by Raymond Lamont-Brown. Copyright © 2013 Raymond Lamont-Brown. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Chronology,Acknowledgements,
Preface,
Prologue: Samurai of the Sea,
Introduction,
1 Early Shipments of the Damned,
2 Workers for the Divine Emperor,
3 Kwai PoWs Survive Hell at Sea,
4 A Quartet of Naval Massacres,
5 Sensuikan Targets: the Killer Submarines,
6 Death by Surface Raider,
7 The Last Hellship Transports, 1944–5,
8 Japanese Navy Involvement in Biological Warfare,
9 The Japanese Navy and the Comfort Women,
10 Kendari: Tokkeitai Killing Fields,
Epilogue: Betrayal of the Damned,
Appendix: Known Japanese Hellships, 1942–5,
Memorials to the War Dead: Japanese Naval Atrocities on Land and Sea,
Notes,
Glossary,
Bibliography,