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Japanese War Crimes

Tokyo Trials

Charges Pressed

Class A trials Jan. 1946-Nov. 12, 1948

  • 27 major Japanese leaders, esp. Tojo, Matsuoka, Hirota (PM 1937), Hiranuma
  • no acquittals - 7 given death (6 generals: Tojo, Itagaki, Doihara, Matsui, Muto, Kimura and 1 civilian: Hirota) - executed Dec. 23 by hanging
  • question of emperor's responsibility - Henry Pu-yi had testified - was last "emperor" of China
    • Russian rep on 11-judge tribunal wanted Hirohito to testify
    • but MacA. refused - needed coop of emperor
  • no industrialists tried
  • most of 210,000 other trial figures simply purged, ff SCAP order No. 550
    • no "militarist" allowed to hold public office

Tokyo Rose:

  • actually a dozen women, most Nisei from U.S. who had returned to Japan
  • Iva Toguri - convicted
    • visiting Japan 1941 - unable to get ship home after PH
    • job in Radio Tokyo typing pool
    • married Italian D'Aquino
    • 3 Allied POWs did program Zero Hour
    • she only read the propaganda they wrote, starting Nov. 1943
    • after Leyte Gulf: "how will you orphans of Pacific get home now"
    • this statement caused her conviction on one count of treason
  • Hearst story Sept. 4, 1945 - arrested Sept 5 - released
  • 1948 application for passport for LA with husband - Walter Winchell broadcast
  • arrested in San Fran Sept. 25, 1948
  • trial in San Fran July-Oct. 1949 - sentenced to 10 years beg. Nov. 15
    • U.S. Occupation Police pressured 2 Radio Tokyo officials testimony
  • paroled after 6 years and 2 mos. - to Chicago w/ father (interned until 1943)
  • pardoned by Gerald Ford last day in office Jan 1977

Unit 731:

  • Gen. Ishii's bacteriological warfare unit in Manchuria
  • killed at least 3000 Chinese
  • 20 members captured by Russians 1945 - prison until repatriation to Japan 1956
  • Allied coverup, acc to book Unit 731 by Peter Williams and David Wallace in 1989

japan_war_trial.jpg

All Japanese Class A war criminals were tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) in Tokyo. The prosecution team was made up of justices from eleven Allied nations: Australia, Canada, China, France, Great Britain, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, the Soviet Union and the United States. The Tokyo trial lasted two and a half years, from May 1946 to November 1948. Other war criminals were tried in the victim countries. War crime trials were held at ten different locations in China.

Scott

Final Exhibition