Perpetrators:

Hideki Tojo

Hideki Tojo (December 30, 1884 – December 23, 1948) was a General in the Imperial Japanese Army and the 27th Prime Minister of Japan during much of World War II, from October 18, 1941 to July 22, 1944.  Tojo was born in Tokyo in 1884. He was a member of the military clique that pushed Japan into war in the late 1930s. He was also Chief of Staff of the Kwangtung Army and Chief of the Kempeitai. As War Minister in 1940 he was instrumental in leading Japan into the Axis Alliance with Germany and Italy. By 1941 he was appointed prime minister by Emperor Hirohito and took command of the entire Japanese military. Though Hirohito remained nominally in charge, the dominance of the Japanese military at the time ensured that Tojo was the nation's effective dictator.  During World War II he led Japanese forces in the Pacific War, but was forced to resign on July 18, 1944 following a series of military disasters. He left government and went into seclusion.  After the war, he shot himself in the chest as a suicide attempt. He survived and was arrested a He then was tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for war crimes. He was found guilty of count 1 (waging wars of aggression, and war or wars in violation of international law), count 27 (waging unprovoked war against China), count 29 (waging aggressive war against the United States), count 31 (waging aggressive war against the British Commonwealth), count 32 (waging aggressive war against the Netherlands (Indonesia)), count 33 (waging aggressive war against France (Indochina)), and count 54 (ordering, authorizing, and permitting inhumane treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) and others). He was sentenced to death on November 12, 1948 and executed by hanging.  Because of the crimes committed under his authority, Tojo is considered responsible for the murder of almost four million Chinese. Tojo approved government-sanctioned biological experiments on POWs.  Hideki Tojo's nickname was "the razor (kamisori)". His commemorating tomb is located in a shrine in Hazu, Aichi.  short time later. He recovered from his injuries at a hospital.

General Masaharu Homma

Masaharu Homma also known as the Poet General, was the Japanese General in charge of the Bataan death march in the Philippines during 1942.  The USAFFE had just surrendered Manila to the Japanese forces under Homma.  It is not clear whether Homma was responsible for the atrocities that occurred during the Bataan Death March. He seemed remarkably tranquil and oblivious about the events that affected American POWs under him. It is thought that he was kind himself.  Homma was removed from command shortly after the fall of Corrigedor because of the high cost and long delay in overrunning the American forces. He retired from the military and lived in semi-seclusion in Japan until the end of the war.  After the surrender of the Japanese, Homma was convicted by a U.S. military commission in the Phillipines of war crimes, including the atrocities of the death march out of Bataan, and the atrocities at O'Donnell and Cabanatuan that followed, and executed on April 3, 1946 outside Manila.  Criticism of the court-martial has not abated over the years due to the fact that General Douglas MacArthur had Homma removed from Japan to the Phillipines so that his court-martial panel there would try him rather than the Allied War Crimes Commission who were trying War Criminals in Japan. MacArthur was overheard to be extremely annoyed with Homma's lawyers who were giving Homma a proper and spirited defense, giving credence to the accusation that this court-martial was to be more like a drumhead/kangaroo court.

Tomoyuki Yamashita

General Tomoyuki Yamashita was a general of the Japanese Army during the WWII era.

Yamashita was born in Kochi Prefecture on 8 November 1885. After passing the Cadet's Academy in 1905, he attended to the military staff college between 1913 and 1916. In the War Ministry, he promoted an unsuccessful military reduction plan.  Despite his ability, Yamashita got cold treatment in his army. He fell into disfavor with the Showa Emperor when he took compassion on the rebel officers of the February 26 Incident in 1936. He also clashed with Hideki Tojo and his faction. Yamashita insisted that Japan should end the conflict with China and keep peaceful relations with the United States and Great Britain, but he was put to an unimportant post in the Kwantung Army. In 1941 he was placed in the command of the Twenty-Fifth Army. In the Malayan campaign, his 30,000 soldiers took 80,000 Allied soldiers prisoner in the Fall of Singapore. For this, he was known as the "Tiger of Malaya", as the sweeping invasion from a Japanese base in Thailand down the Malayan peninsula to Singapore only took two months. About 130,000 Indian, Australian and British troops became prisoners of war in the Battle of Singapore, the largest surrender of British military personnel in history. The campaign hero was, however, sent to far-away Manchuria again and was effectively sidelined for a major part of the Pacific war. It is thought that Prime Minister Tojo was responsible for his banishment, taking advantage of Yamashita's gaffe during a speech made to Singaporean civilian leaders in early 1942, where he referred to the local populace as "citizens of imperial Japan". This was considered embarrassing for the Japanese government, who had other plans for the nationality and citizen status of occupied countries.  In 1944 when the war situation was critical for Japan, General Yamashita assumed the command of the Fourteenth Area Army to defend the Philippines. The U.S. Army landed on Leyte only ten days after his arrival at Manila. He tried to rebuild his army but was forced to retreat from Manila to the mountains of northern Luzon. He used delaying tactics to maintain his army until Japan surrendered in September 1945.  An American military commission tried General Yamashita and sentenced him to death. He was hanged on February 23, 1946. The hasty trial is said to be questioned about legitimacy. He was said to be accused for his soldiers' crimes that he had never ordered or did not even know about, mainly because of communication disruption by the U.S. army. It is believed that the "scheduled" judgement was General Douglas MacArthur's private revenge for the occupier of "his" Philippines. During his trial, the dedicated defense attorneys who challenged MacArthur, deeply impressed General Yamashita and demonstrated American diversity.

Victims:

Fushun citizens in the Liaoning Province were killed by the Japanese intrusion in 1932.  More than 3,000 Chinese were massacred during the intrusion.  Japanese soldiers burnt over 800 houses in the village.  District court of Tokyo acknowledged that the tragedy was caused by intruding Japanese, but the Japanese turned down the suit in June, 2002.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-05/16/content_2964072.htm

The Nanjing people were also victims of the Japanese.  The Chinese call it a war crime, but the Japanese call it an incident.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=631168

The Nanking Massacre is more proof of Japanese victimization.  The Yangtze river massacre was apart of it.  Refugees tried to escape the Japanese by trying to cross the Yangtze river, but they were trapped because they didn’t have any transportation.  The Japanese showed up and shot the ones on the shore and in the river.  A Japanese soldier said there was about 50,000 women and children in the river that day.

http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/NanjingMassacre/NMNJ.html

Rescuers:

General Claire Lee Chennault – Maj. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault was a World War II leader of the famed Flying Tigers in China, for whom Chennault Air Force Base, Lake Charles, La., is named. He was born Commerce, Texas, 1890; died New Orleans, La., July 27, 1958.

Claire Chennault, legendary hero of the air war against the Japanese, grew up in Louisiana. He attended Louisiana State University and Louisiana State Normal College prior to being commissioned a first lieutenant in the Infantry Reserve in November 1917. He transferred immediately to the Signal Corps Aviation Section and served in World War I. Chennault was on duty at Langley Field, Va., and Kelly Field, Texas, after the war, learning to fly there and getting his wings in 1919.

He studied aeronautical engineering at Kelly; performed squadron duties at Gerstner Field, La., and Ellington Field and Fort Bliss, Texas, until September 1923, when he went to Hawaii for three years at Luke Field as commanding officer of the 19th Pursuit Squadron. He came home to instruct for two years at Brooks Field, Texas, where he was promoted to captain in April 1929 and named director of flying. He next attended the Air Corps Tactical School at Langley Field, Va., graduating in June 1931 and remaining there as an instructor.

Chennault was promoted to major in June 1936 at Maxwell Field where he was chief of Pursuit Training. He went to China shortly after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War to train pursuit units of the Chinese Air Force. In the summer of 1941 he was made a brigadier general in the Chinese Air Force and put in charge of recruiting pursuit pilots for the American Volunteer Group who became famed as the Flying Tigers.

Chennault was recalled to active duty by the Army Air Force April 15, 1942 as a colonel and was promoted to brigadier general a week later. In July he became commanding general of the U.S. Air Force in China and in March 1943 was promoted to major general and named to command the 14th Air Force in China. He spent the rest of World War II in this key combat role. He came home in July 1945 for a brief assignment to Headquarters Army Air Force and he retired from the service Oct. 31, 1945.

Chennault went back to China in 1946 and stayed there until 1950 as president of Civil Air Transports. On July 18, 1958, the U.S. Air Force gave him the honorary grade of lieutenant general. He died nine days later, on July 27, at New Orleans.

"Flying Tigers" - Flying Tigers. The unit consisted of approximately 100 pilots and 200 groundcrew personnel (most of whom had been released from the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines to volunteer for the A.V.G.) and was equipped with obsolescent P-40B airplanes. It began training at Rangoon in Sep. 1941.

Two of the three squadrons moved to Kunming, China to protect the Burma Road, the only ground route into China, and on Dec. 20, 1941, the Flying Tigers received their "baptism under fire" when they inflicted heavy losses on Japanese bombers attempting to attack Kunming.

Months of combat followed and the A.V.G., greatly outnumbered in the air and operating under adverse conditions (such as no replacement pilots and practically no spare parts for repairing aircraft), scored a very impressive record against the enemy, 286 Japanese planes shot down at a cost of 12 A.V.G. pilots killed or missing in action. In May 1942, pilots of the 23rd Fighter Group, selected to replace the Flying Tigers, began to arrive in China and the A.V.G. was dissolved on Jul. 4, 1942 when the 23rd Group was officially activated.

John Rabe - Rabe was born in Hamburg, Germany, to a father who was a sailor. Rabe was apprenticed with a merchant and then assigned to a post in Africa. In his mid-20s, he went to China and then, from 1910, was employed by Siemens in its Beijing office. When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the foreign community and much of the Chinese population, including the government, were evacuated from Nanjing, where Rabe was living. Although Siemens ordered him to leave too, he declined (although his family did leave). With other foreign nationals, Rabe established a temporary safety zone for Chinese refugees. Subsequently, he was made head of an international committee to administer the zone. During what became known as the Rape of Nanjing, the committee and its efforts managed to save many lives, possibly hundreds of thousands. In 1938, Rabe travelled to Germany, where he undertook a series of lectures, using photos and an amateur film, on the extent of Japanese violence in China. At one point he was arrested by the Gestapo, and only released (under censorship) after an intervention by Siemens. He was posted to Afghanistan briefly. After the Second World War, as a member of the Nazi party, he was obliged to go through denazification procedures. He appears to have left Siemens employ in 1945, and, thereafter, lived in poverty until his death. Rabe's detailed diaries (all 1,200 pages) only surfaced in the 1990s, and their publication has shed new light on the Nanjing story.