Book Review - The Tokyo Trial by Higurashi Yoshinobu

 The Tokyo Trial: War Criminals and Japan's Postwar International Relations by Higurashi Yoshinobu

Tokyo: Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture, 2022   (First Japanese edition 2008)

                                                                                                                   ISBN 9784866582306 

Those of us with an interest in World War Two history, it would be fair to say, have some sort of understanding of the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi Leaders that took place after the War - who was tried, what the charges were, and the sentences handed out. Knowledge of the Tokyo Trial of "Class A" war criminals is much less common - people might know that it happened, and that Tojo was executed, but that might be the limit of what people know.

Higurashi has written a comprehensive history of not only the Tokyo Trial, but the strategic and political factors that weighed on its staging, who was charged, and what happened to the prisoners after the Trial finished. A Professor in the Faculty of Law at Tokyo University; Higurashi cannot himself be charged with being a great stylist (the translation by the Japan Institute of International Affairs may not have helped his cause here), with the text being quite dry and legalistic, and the book sometimes back-tracking on itself. These issues can lead the reader to get lost occasionally, but are minor impediments to working through the text.

The book is comprehensive: in eight chapters, Higurashi covers viewpoints on the Trial, the framework of the Trial, what charges were brought, the Japanese response, how the Judgement was written, why there were no further trials, and how and why the surviving Class A prisoners were released. He describes how the Trial became problematic almost from the start. The Allies had already begun the process of developing charges in Nuremberg, and tried to translate that process to the Japanese sphere, which didn't really work. There was no all-governing party such as the Nazis, and no SS, so the charges for the "Class A" criminals were confined more to waging aggressive war and conspiracy (war crimes such as atrocities and murder of prisoners etc. were "Class B" and "Class C" trials, and so are not covered by Higurashi).

Conspiracy was not a concept in Japanese law, and there was much discussion about ex-post-facto law. However, the trial moved forward, with general approval of the Japanese populace, who were looking for someone to blame for their predicament. How the Emperor escaped getting any of the blame for the War is well-explained in this book - a combination of politics and loyalty meant that he was never brought to trial, despite many of the nations participating in the proceedings wishing to do so. In this case, as in many others, the wishes of the United States were granted, as they felt that lenient treatment of the Emperor was key to controlling Japan during the Occupation.

Higurashi describes in great detail the progress of the Trial, the conflicts between the various Allied powers, how the verdicts were reached, and the dissenting judgement of Judge Pal from India. He notes that by the time the Trial was nearing its end, not only the Japanese population, but also the peoples of the Allied nations were less interested in the outcome (the full transcript of the Trial has never been published, according to Higurashi). The Allied populations were more interested in the trial and conviction of the "Class B" and "Class C" criminals.

At the end of the Occupation, Japan began lobbying for the surviving "Class A" criminals to be released. The onset of the Cold War meant that Japan was a vital strategic asset to the Western Powers, and so quickly and quietly, about ten years after conviction, the surviving prisoners were paroled - many went on to careers in politics in the New Japan.

Higurashi briefly describes the development of the idea in Japan that the trial was merely "Victor's Justice", and how it came to be that war criminals were inducted at the Yakasuni Shrine, but that is not the focus of this work.

This is not really a book for sitting down and reading in front of the fire: it is however a highly detailed and solid reference work on the Trials. While the translation may be workmanlike, the apparatus is very good - a good index, and useful bibliography.

If you are at all interested in the Tokyo Trial, this is worth hunting out.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Hidden Horrors by Yuki Tanaka

Hidden Horrors : Japanese War Crimes in World War II by Yuki Tanaka, with a foreword by John W. Dower

Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 1996                 ISBN 0813327180


This is an interesting book with much food for thought, which endeavours to map out a new path for academic study of Japanese war crimes. Tanaka looks at some specific war crimes committed by Japanese soldiers and sailors, and tries to show how such things could have occurred through looking at the structure, training and beliefs of Japanese society and the Armed Forces in particular.

The first crime he examines in detail is the Sandakan Death Marches, where he notes how the Japanese mostly used Koreans and Formosans (Taiwanese) as guards for Prisoners of War. The brutal treatment handed out to these guards by their Japanese masters, they passed on to the Prisoners under their control. Tanaka also looks at the way Japan did and did not abide by the Geneva Convention, using prisoners for war work, and progressively starving them as Japan's position in the War became more perilous. While not excusing individual acts by Japanese soldiers and sailors, Tanaka shows the reader how the culture of the Japanese Armed Forces and the pressure of war led to such outcomes. It is interesting to note that in the first of the Sandakan Marches many Japanese also died. The horrific logic of war crimes came into play at Sandakan as well, with earlier outrages driving the Japanese to ensure that they left no witnesses alive.

Tanaka then moves on to the topic of rape and "Comfort Women" (a topic he has written on at some length subsequent to this book). He draws parallels here with both the Russians in Germany and the Allied occupation of Japan. The treatment of women in war is often horrific and Tanaka has some ideas on the transgressive nature of women in uniform, and how male bonding in war can lead to such outrages; ideas that others have written on in more detail.

Tanaka's next subject is Japanese cannibalism, on many levels perhaps the most troubling crime. This practice was quite widespread, and was not always the result of hunger. Sometimes dead Japanese were eaten, and sometimes even shot for food. Tanaka can give no real reason for the cannibalism that makes sense, except where is was obviously driven by hunger... certainly it was something that the Japanese wanted to hide when they could, with Allied discoveries of this practice usually occurring after they surprised groups of Japanese, or made sudden advances on the battlefield. The Allied attitude to reports and evidence of these crimes is interesting as well. While the Americans thought that such things should be publicised in aid of the war effort, the Australians were against the idea because of the distress it may have caused on the home front. That there were so few prosecutions for the crime after the war is put down by Tanaka to the reason that it would have caused distress to families of the victims, and the problem of providing evidence that would stand up in a court-room (i.e. of eye-witnesses to the consumption of the flesh, rather than evidence of cooking etc.).

The next chapter, on Unit 731, investigates the concept of "doubling": how doctors could experiment on live people, and how they justify it. Tanaka also here begins to look at Japanese acknowledgement that what they were doing was wrong, at least to the extent that they wanted to avoid punishment. The members of Unit 731 captured by the US were given immunity from prosecution on the basis that they handed over their research, after the US were assured that no Prisoners were used in experiments. The Soviets later showed that these assurances were lies.

Which brings the reader to the last crime that Tanaka looks at, the massacre of civilians at Kavieng. Tanka uses this incident to look at several things: how the Japanese concept of Gyokusai ("glorious self-annihilation") led to the "strategic necessity" of eliminating civilians, and how the soldiers involved knew they were doing something wrong, as they were ordered not to speak of the killings and rehearsed a cover story to explain the deaths away. What is also interesting in this example is that senior officers ensured the massacre happened in such a way that they could avoid blame. The readiness of such officers to blame conveniently dead colleagues for crimes was also much in evidence after the War.

In his conclusion, Tanaka shows how the Japanese Military moved from being a force that was compassionate to its prisoners and its own members who had been taken prisoner (in the early 20th century), to one where it was better to die than be taken prisoner. This certainly had an effect on how the Japanese treated Allied captives. The Japanese belief in themselves as the chosen race, and in their Emperor as a god, had a malignant effect on their treatment of conquered peoples. Tanaka calls in this book for a new historiography of Japanese war crimes, whereby Japanese - in a similar manner to the Germans - look at the whole of the wartime era, and how as a country they could have come to a point where such horrors were allowed to happen. This new historiography has yet to happen in Japan in any major way, although this book is now over 20 years old.

One for the serious students of the Pacific War, this book is worth reading, although in lacking a bibliography it leaves limited options for further study.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The path of infinite sorrow by Craig Collie & Hajime Marutani

The path of infinite sorrow : the Japanese on the Kokoda Track by Craig Collie & Hajime Marutani

Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2009            ISBN 9781741758399

The campaign along the Kokoda Track (or Trail, as my Father’s generation would have it), is an icon of Australian military achievement. Pushed back over the Owen Stanleys by a superior Japanese force, the militia forces of Australia eventually halted the attack at Ioribaiwa and Imita Ridge, and then with the help of AIF forces returned from North Africa, they pushed the Japanese back to the Northern coast of New Guinea and destroyed them in the battles around Buna, Gona and Sanananda. There have been many Australian treatments of the campaign, with Peter Brune’s Those ragged bloody heroes one of the best, along with the Official History.

The path of infinite sorrow is that altogether rarer thing, a history of the Kokoda campaign from the Japanese viewpoint. Collie and Marutani have written the Japanese side of the story using, as a base, interviews conducted in the early 2000s with some Japanese survivors of the campaign. The result is an interesting and enlightening book.

Many Australian accounts of the campaign emphasise the terrible conditions and the fear of an unseen enemy, portraying the Japanese as supermen, with the jungle being their natural habitat. It is enlightening to read that the Japanese struggled just as much with the conditions, and saw the Australians as dangerous enemies, who were rarely seen owing to their natural ability to fight in the jungle – and brave beyond compare because they wore hats rather than helmets in battle!

The authors give a good account of the leadup to Kokoda, describing Japanese attempts to reach Port Moresby by ship failing after the Battle of the Coral Sea. When a force was landed on the coast, its task was not to reach Moresby, but merely to reconnoitre the track leading to Kokoda to see if it was suitable for an army to campaign along. Instilled with martial spirit, the over-enthusiastic officers of the South Seas Detachment turned their reconnoitring mission into a full-scale assault, and soon overwhelmed the Australian force holding Kokoda.

As the Australians dropped back, the problem of supplying an attacking force over a precipitous walking track became more acute, and by the time the Japanese reached Ioribaiwa they were at the end of their tether logistically and physically. The troops could see the lights of Moresby at night, but neither had the strength or the numbers to take the next ridge, let alone face the Allied troops that would have awaited them closer to the town. Supply was not only a problem along the Track itself, but also to the rear bases at Buna and Gona, as the combination of Allied air attacks and the prioritising by the Japanese of the assault on Guadalcanal meant that few supplies were getting onshore in New Guinea.

The Japanese withdrawal back to the Northern coast became a rout, with troops falling out of line with disease or hunger, to be left to die or make a futile final stand when the Australians came down the track. When the retreat had been completed, the coastal beach-heads were defended by a force that consisted of some infantry, engineering and other non-combatant forces, and those ill or wounded troops that could hold a rifle.

Despite an ingenious and deadly system of interlocking bunkers, it was only a matter of time before the Allied troops (the U.S. Army had now joined the fray) over-ran the Japanese defences, leaving only a few able to escape death or imprisonment. It was a complete defeat for the South Seas Detachment

.

This book is a well-written account, easy to follow for those unfamiliar with the battles of the campaign and - by using interviews as the basis for the narrative – brings the reader right into the misery and pain of soldiering in New Guinea in 1942. There is some discussion of grander strategy, but as this book is focusing on the soldier’s experience, it is always in the background.

 While there is an acknowledgement in the text of the brutality and cannibalism of the Japanese soldiers during the campaign, it is rather lightly brushed over, perhaps in deference to the feelings of the Japanese who were interviewed. While there can be some argument that the instances of cannibalism were driven by the extreme circumstances of the Japanese troops, who were literally dying of hunger by the end of the campaign, to excuse the bayoneting of bound prisoners in cold blood with the lines “This is not inconsistent with Japanese military training….Military training is not for the squeamish; he who hesitates in hand-to-hand fighting is lost.” is a very cheap way out of looking at the issue. It’s clear in the book that the Australians were just as proficient in hand-to-hand fighting as the Japanese, and yet their superiors didn’t find it necessary to make them kill defenceless people. A greater insight into why the Japanese felt the need to kill like this would have been a welcome addition to the book. Not many prisoners were taken by the Australians, as most of the Japanese fought to the death, and after a few instances of Australians being killed by wounded Japanese, they “took no chances.” The New Guinea Campaign was war at its cruelest, of that there is little doubt.

While there is no doubt of the courage of the soldiers on both sides of this campaign, we can question the strategic and tactical nous of the officers on both sides. That the Japanese could have ever thought they could attack Moresby in any sensible way via the track was wrong thinking, and each step beyond Kokoda made the idea more absurd – they were just wasting men and material for no good purpose. The Allied tactics of island fighting had yet to be perfected, and the continued frontal assaults of the bunkers at Buna and Gona without adequate artillery or tank support were for the most part futile and wasteful as well.

In the end it was the overwhelming technological and numerical advantage of Allied ‘planes, artillery and tanks that ensured not only the end of the New Guinea campaigns, but the defeat of the Japanese Empire. After the war, veterans of Kokoda from both sides struggled to make sense of their experiences: those few Japanese veterans who made it back to Japan mostly did not want to relive what had been a terrifyingly traumatic experience. My great-uncles who fought with the AIF in the campaign also suffered for the rest of their lives, but at least they were on the winning side.

Given this is an Australian trade publication, the apparatus of the book is good – useful maps and notes, and a reasonable bibliography and index. For the student of the Pacific War, especially of the New Guinea Campaigns, The path of infinite sorrow is required reading.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

  

Book Review - The German trauma : experiences and reflections 1938-2000 by Gitta Sereny

The German trauma : experiences and reflections 1938-2000 by Gitta Sereny

London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000   ISBN 0713994568

Gitta Sereny has been writing about the Third Reich and The Holocaust ever since the War. As a young volunteer nurse in France in World War II, she was nearly arrested by the Gestapo for resistance activities; ironically, given her hatred for Germany and Germans, she was tipped off about her impending arrest by a German Officer, and successfully made it to the USA via Spain.

After the war she returned to Europe, working for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), which was engaged in the melancholy duty of trying to repatriate children to their birth parents where possible (especially children "stolen" by the Nazis and given to Aryan parents). This experience, and the loss of her homeland and childhood to Nazism, has led to a life-long quest to try and find meaning and answers from participants in the most horrendous crimes committed in Europe during the War.

The German trauma is a collection of many of the articles written by Sereny over the years on the German response to their history. Most of the articles have been re-written for inclusion in this book, and are headed by reflections and responses by Sereny. She begins with a little of her own history, her work with UNRRA, and the responses of Germans to her when she was representing the "victors". She moves from that experience to the youth of Germany in the post-war period, who were caught between their parent's generation, who were trying to forget or block out the past, and the truth of history and their place in it. One article discusses the work of the German prosecutors who worked on the trials that took place in Germany for decades, trying servants of the Nazis. These committed men and women, many driven beyond their capacity to cope, are some of the few Germans who clear-headedly faced up to the nations crimes. These trials were always extremely well reported by the German press, and even attended by schoolchildren as part of their education. However, as Sereny notes, the reaction of many Germans was to switch off, unable to face such horrible facts (a thing that happens in many countries with nasty episodes in their past).

One of the biggest trials held under this process was of Franz Stangl, who was Commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp, and for a time, of Sobibor. Sereny spent several months talking with Stangl after he began serving his life sentence. As with her major work Albert Speer : his battle with the truth, Sereny is interested mainly in how Stangl lived with the knowledge of what he'd done. Unlike some of the other Nazis involved in the extermination camps, Stangl was an intelligent and thoughtful man. His justifications under the relentless blowtorch of Sereny's questions is painful to read, and his partial realisation of his guilt preceeded his death by heart attack by nineteen hours. In fact many of the people Sereny talks to over the years point out that one could not live with the idea that such horrors occurred, let alone having a direct part in them, which is perhaps one of the more compelling reasons perpetrators go to such lengths to avoid taking responsibility. Her piece on the trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of being "Ivan the Terrible" of Treblinka, being a case in point. Demjanjuk preferred to be sentenced to hang than admit he was a guard at one of the other camps (Sobibor), which would have seen him acquitted from the charges laid against him. Of course to admit that would have given the lie to his entire life since the war, as a well-loved father and husband and pillar of his local church. Eventually, the truth saved his life, while at the same time destroying it.

The apologists for the Nazis also appear in these pages, and get short shrift from Sereny. From people who are merely treasure-hunters, to those with more sinister motives; her articles about the Hitler Diaries hoax and the life and death of Odilo Globocnik (head of Aktion Reinhard, the creation and use of extermination camps which killed over 2 million Jews in 1942-43) revealing how deep the threads of Neo-Nazim still run in our society.

The book ends, however, on an optimistic note, pointing out that the Young Germans of today (2000, when the book was written), seem to be more interested than ever in discovering and talking about the past, and are not weighed down by some of the taboos of previous generations. Ironically, given the books release not long before 9/11, Sereny's final message is a plea against racism and xenophobia, and the "categorization" of peoples and races. Something humankind still has to learn.

The German trauma is well worth a read - you will learn something, and as always with Gitta Sereny, you will be reading well-shaped prose. Try and find it at your local library.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell