War Crimes

 Australian Officer being  beheaded by Japanese Soldier.

 

105th Congress - House Concurrent Resolution 126

 [Japanese War Crimes]

HCON 126 IH

105th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 126

Expressing the sense of Congress concerning the war crimes committed by the Japanese military during World War II.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. LIPINSKI (for himself, Mr. STUMP, Mrs. MORELLA, Ms. LOFGREN, Mr. SKEEN, Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma, Mr. CAMPBELL, Mrs. MALONEY of New York, Mr. UNDERWOOD, Mr. TOWNS, Mr. ROHRABACHER, Mr. GREEN, Mr. HILL, Mr. ETHERIDGE, Mr. ACKERMAN, and Mr. YATES) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on International Relations

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of Congress concerning the war crimes committed by the Japanese military during World War II.

Whereas during World War II the Government of Japan deliberately ignored and flagrantly violated the Geneva and Hague Conventions and committed atrocious crimes against humanity;

Whereas 33,587 members of the United States Armed Forces and 13,966 United States civilians were captured by the Japanese military in the Pacific Theater during World War II, confined in brutal prison camps, and subjected to severe shortages of food, medicine, and other basic necessities;

Whereas many of the United States military and civilian prisoners of the Japanese military during World War II were subjected to forced labor, starved and beaten to death, or summarily executed by beheading, firing squads, or immolation;

Whereas almost all of the United States military and civilian prisoners who were rescued from the Japanese military at the end of World War II were afflicted with diseases caused by malnutrition and deprivation and have suffered from life-long illnesses, psychological and emotional trauma, and financial hardships as a result of their experience during the war;

Whereas, of the United States prisoners held by the German military during World War II, 1.1 percent of the military prisoners and 3.5 percent of the civilian prisoners died during their imprisonment, but of the United States prisoners held by the Japanese military, 37.3 percent of the military prisoners and 11 percent of the civilian prisoners died during their imprisonment;

Whereas on December 8, 1941, the Japanese military bombed and invaded the island of Guam and occupied the island until the liberation of Guam by the United States Armed Forces on July 21, 1944;

Whereas the people of Guam were subjected to death, beheadings, rape and other violent acts, forced labor and marches, and imprisonment by the Japanese military during the occupation of Guam during World War II;

Whereas at the Japanese biochemical warfare detachment in Mukden, Manchuria, commanded by Dr. Shiro Ishii, experiments were conducted on living prisoners of war that included infecting prisoners with deadly toxins, including plague, anthrax, typhoid, and cholera;

Whereas at least 260 of the 1,500 United States prisoners believed to have been held at Mukden died during the first winter of their imprisonment and many of the 300 living survivors of Mukden claim to suffer from physical ailments resulting from their subjection to chemical and biological experiments;

Whereas the Japanese military invaded Nanjing, China, from December, 1937, until February, 1938, during the period known as the `Rape of Nanjing', and brutally and systematically slaughtered more than 300,000 Chinese men, women, and children and raped more than 20,000 women;

Whereas the Japanese military enslaved millions of Koreans during World War II and forced hundreds of thousands of women into sexual slavery for Japanese troops;

Whereas international jurists in Geneva, Switzerland ruled in 1993 that women who were forced to be sexual slaves of the Japanese military during World War II (known by the Japanese military as comfort women) deserve at least $40,000 each as compensation for their `extreme pain and suffering';

Whereas the Government of Germany has formally apologized to the victims of the Holocaust and gone to great lengths to provide financial compensation to the victims and to provide for their needs and recovery; and

Whereas by contrast the Government of Japan has refused to fully acknowledge the crimes it committed during World War II and to provide reparations to its victims: Now, therefore, be it

 Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that the Government of Japan should--

(1) formally issue a clear and unambiguous apology for the atrocious war crimes committed by the Japanese military during World War II; and

(2) immediately pay reparations to the victims of those crimes, including United States military and civilian prisoners of war, people of Guam who were subjected to violence and imprisonment, survivors of the `Rape of Nanjing' from December, 1937, until February, 1938, and the women who were forced into sexual slavery and known by the Japanese military as "comfort women".

 
 

 

Japan Admits Dissecting WW II American POW's
 
By Thomas Easton
The Baltimore Sun

UKUOKA, Japan "I could never again wear a white smock," says Dr. Toshio Tono, dressed in a white running jacket at his hospital and recalling events of 50 years ago. "It's because the prisoners thought that we were doctors, since they could see the white smocks, that they didn't struggle.  They  never dreamed they would be dissected."

The prisoners were eight American airmen, knocked out of the sky over southern Japan during the waning months of World War U, and then torn apart organ by organ while they were still alive.

 What occurred here 50 years ago this month, at the anatomy department of Kyushu University, has been largely forgotten in Japan and is virtually unknown in the United States. American prisoners of war were subjected to horrific medical experiments. All of the prisoners died. Most of the physicians and assistants then did their best to hide the evidence of what they had done. Fukuoka is midway between Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cities that are planning elaborate ceremonies to mark the devastation caused by the United States dropping the first atomic bombs. But neither Fukuoka nor the university plans to mark its own moment of infamy.

The gruesome experiments performed at the university were variations on research programs Japan conducted in territories it occupied during the war. In the most notorious of these efforts, the Japanese Imperial Army's Unit 731 killed thousands of Chinese and Russians held prisoner in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, in experiments to develop chemical and biological weapons.

 Ken Yuasa, now a frail, 70-year-old physician in Tokyo, belonged to a military company stationed just south of Unit 731's base at Harbin, Manchuria. He recalls joining other doctors to watch as a prisoner was shot in the stomach, to give Japanese surgeons practice at extracting bullets. While the victim was still alive, the doctors also practiced amputations. "It wasn't just my experience," Yuasa says. "It was done everywhere."

Kyushu University stands out as the only site where Americans were incontrovertibly used in dissections and the only known site where experiments were done in Japan.

On May 5, 1945, an American B-29 bomber was flying with a dozen other aircraft after bombing Tachiaral Air Base in southwestern Japan and beginning the return flight to the island fortress of Guam. Kinzou Kasuya, a 19-year-old Japanese pilot flying one of the Japanese fighters in pursuit of the Americans, rammed his aircraft into the fuselage of the B-29, destroying both planes.

 No one knows for certain how many Americans were in the B-29; its crew had been hastily assembled on Guam. But villagers in Japan who witnessed the collision in the air saw about a dozen parachutes blossom. One of the Americans died when the cords of his, parachute were severed by another Japanese plane. A second was alive when he reached the ground. He shot all but his last bullet at the villagers coming toward him, then used the last on himself. Two others were quickly stabbed or shot to death.

At least nine were taken into custody. B-29 crews were despised for the grim results of their raids. So some of the captives were beaten. The local authorities assumed that the Captain Marvin Meyers  was the most knowledgeable. He was sent to Tokyo for interrogation, where was tortured but nonetheless survived the war.

Every available account asserts that a military physician and a colonel in a local regiment were the two key figures in what happened next. What happened cannot be easily explained. Perhaps caring for the Americans was an impossible burden, especially because some were injured. Perhaps food was scarce. Whatever the reason, the colonel and doctor decided to make the prisoners available for medical experiments, and Kyushu University became a willing participant.

Teddy Ponczka was the first to be handed over to the doctors and their assistants. He had already been stabbed, in either his right shoulder or his chest. According to Tono, the American assumed he was about to be treated for the wound when he was taken to an operating room.

 But the incision went far deeper. A doctor wanted to test surgery's effects on the respiratory system, so one lung was removed. The wound was stitched closed.  How Teddy Ponczka died is in dispute. According to U.S. military records, he was anesthetized during the operation, and then the gas mask was removed from his face. A surgeon, Taro Torisu, reopened the incision and reached into Ponczka's chest. In the bland words of the military report, Torisu "stopped the heart action. "

Tono remembers events differently. The first experiment was followed by a second, he says. Ponczka was given intravenous injections of sea water, to determine if sea water could be used as a substitute for sterile saline solution, used to increase blood volume in the wounded or those in shock.  Tono held the bottle of sea water. He says Ponczka bled to death.

 Then it was the turn of the others. The Japanese wanted to learn whether a patient could survive the partial loss of his liver. They wanted to learn if epilepsy could be controlled by removing part of the brain. According to U.S. military records, physicians also operated on -the prisoners' stomachs and necks. All the Americans died.

 "There was no debate among the doctors about whether to do the operations - that is what made it so strange," Tono says. Word of the experiments eventually leaked out.

Thirty  people were brought to trial by an Allied war crimes tribunal in Yokohama, Japan, on March 11, 1948. Charges included vivisection, wrongful removal of body parts and cannibalism - based on reports that the experimenters had eaten the livers of the Americans. Of the 30 defendants, 23 were found guilty of various charges. (For lack of proof, the charges of cannibalism had been dismissed.) Five of the guilty were sentenced to death, four to life imprisonment. The other 14 were sentenced to shorter terms. 

But the attitude of the American occupation forces began to change largely because of the start of the Korean War in June 1950. The United States had less interest in punishing Japan, an enemy turned ally. In September 1950, U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, as supreme commander for Allied Forces, reduced most of the sentences. By 1958, all those convicted were free. None of the death sentences was carried out. 

Do your own research! An internet search of Japanese War Crimes will result in numerous web sites to visit. Make sure the youth of today don't just hear the liberals who whine about the use of nuclear bombs on the poor Japanese

     Japanese War Crimes 

Nanjing Massacre & Tokyo War Crimes Trial   

The Other Holocaust    

 

 

                      

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