Japan’s war crimes were equal to those of Nazi Germany…but remain largely unpunished

July 15, 11:53 AMNorfolk Crime ExaminerDave Gibson

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Australian soldier being beheaded by Japanese guard

With the recent extradition of John Demjanjuk to Germany, where he has been charged 27,900 counts of murder, for his alleged role as a prison guard at a Nazi death camp during World War II, we are once again reminded of the atrocities which took place during that terrible war.

While war the crimes committed by Nazi Germany have been well documented and many of those responsible were punished, that is certainly not the case for Imperial Japan.

The crimes committed by the Japanese during World War II are vast and every bit as horrifying as those perpetrated by the Third Reich. However, comparatively little has been said about the atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army and very few were punished for those crimes.

In 1942, The Japanese Army captured nearly 70,000 U.S. and Filipino soldiers at Corregidor. On April 9, the soldiers were sent on the infamous Bataan Death March. They were marched over 50 miles in 100 degree heat, with no food or water. If a man was unable to continue--he was killed by Japanese troops. They would either tie the exhausted man to a tree and use him for bayonet practice, shoot him, or behead him. Along the way, many Filipino civilians threw food to the POWs and were killed for their kindness. Enraged by the acts of compassion, the savage Japanese soldiers killed many civilians, including babies.

When the American and Filipino POWs finally arrived at Camp O'Donnell, close to 16,000 had died along the way. During their internment, another 20,000 died from starvation and disease. The Japanese offered no medical treatment and less than a cup of rice a day to the prisoners. Many were later sent to Japan and their occupied territories to work as slave laborers. While 12,000 Americans were originally taken prisoner in the Bataan atrocities, only 4,000 survived the war.

However, the crimes committed by Japanese Imperial Army began long before the United States Pacific Fleet was attacked at Pearl Harbor.

In late 1937, the Japanese invaded Nanking, China. The Imperial Japanese killed 300,000 Chinese and raped 100,000 women. There were mass killings, in which tens of thousands of Chinese were lined-up and used for machine-gun practice. All private homes and businesses were sacked. Chinese fathers were forced to rape their daughters and sons forced to rape their mothers--all for the amusement of the Japanese soldiers. Their were even several accounts of Japanese soldiers committing cannibalism.

A crime which was formally sanctioned by the Japanese Imperial Army was that of sex-slavery. The United Nations estimates that 200,000 women were forced into this practice by the Japanese. The number is actually much higher, as the U.N. figures excluded Chinese women. Many of us have heard of the so-called 'Korean Comfort Girls.' These women were kidnapped and forced to fulfill the animalistic needs of the Japanese soldiers. However, in Shanghai alone the Japanese built 90 brothels in which close to 500 Chinese women were enslaved.

A little known fact is that the Japanese also used so-called weapons of mass destruction. They used chemical weapons on the Chinese in the late 1930's. In their 1937 campaign to seize Wuhan, they perpetrated no less than 375 separate chemical attacks. Japan produced over 5 million poison gas shells between 1931-1945. China is still dealing with the cleanup of Japanese chemical weapons. It is estimated that there are between 700,000 and 2,000,000 shells still buried in the Chinese countryside, left behind by Japanese troops.

In 2003, a man looking for scrap metal in Northeastern China uncovered 5 barrels of mustard gas, left by the Japanese. More than 40 people were injured in the accident and one man was killed.

While the terror dealt by the hands of the Nazis has been well documented, the atrocities committed by the Japanese seems to have been somehow forgotten. Just consider the fact that one percent of American POWs in Nazi camps died, while the mortality rate among American POWs in Japanese camps was 37 percent.

The Japanese Imperial Army regularly engaged in beheadings, rape, and torture. Japan refused to ratify the Geneva Conventions and during World War II, showed a true disdain for human life.

Unfortunately, as we continue to lose our World War II veterans, we also lose those who witnessed the evil first-hand.

Those of us who care about the truth and the lives of those veterans, are charged with the responsibility to demand that the truth be told. The fact is, Japan is responsible for the most atrocious war crimes of the 20th century.