View source for Japanese war crimes

{{Short description|War crimes committed by Imperial Japan}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2019}}{{Infobox civilian attack
| title = Japanese war crimes
| location = In and around East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific
| date = 1927–1945<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Rigg |first1=Bryan Mark |author-link= Bryan Mark Rigg|title=Japan's Holocaust: History of Imperial Japan's Mass Murder and Rape During World War II|publisher=Knox Press|year=2024 |isbn=9781637586884 |pages=13–14, 23, 54, 190–191, 289|language=en}}</ref>
| partof = the [[territorial conquests of the Empire of Japan]]
| image = Nanking bodies 1937.jpg
| image_upright = 
| caption = Bodies of victims along the [[Qinhuai River]], out of [[Nanjing]]'s west gate during the [[Nanjing Massacre]]
| type = [[war crimes]], [[mass murder]], [[ethnic cleansing]] and other [[crimes against humanity]]
| fatalities = 10 million and 20 million<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Oxford Companion to World War II |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-19-860446-4 |editor-last=Dear |editor-first=I. C. B. |editor-link=I. C. B. Dear |location=Oxford |page=182 |editor-last2=Foot |editor-first2=M. R. D. |editor-link2=M. R. D. Foot |orig-date=1995}}</ref>- {{Circa|19,000,000}}<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrTS3lsjLWA | title=Downfall-Why Japan Surrendered with very special guest Richard Frank-Episode 225 | website=[[YouTube]] | date=15 August 2023 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.routledge.com/Imperial-Japans-World-War-Two-1931-1945/Gruhl/p/book/9781412811040 | title=Imperial Japan's World War Two: 1931-1945 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://networks.h-net.org/node/22055/reviews/22104/selden-dower-embracing-defeat-japan-wake-world-war-ii | title=Selden on Dower, 'Embracing Defeat. Japan in the Wake of World War II' &#124; H-Net }}</ref> – {{Circa|30,000,000}}<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Rigg |first1=Bryan Mark |author-link= Bryan Mark Rigg|title=Japan's Holocaust: History of Imperial Japan's Mass Murder and Rape During World War II|publisher=Knox Press|year=2024 |isbn=9781637586884 |pages=190–191, 276, 312|language=en}}</ref>
| perpetrator = '''[[Empire of Japan]]'''{{bulleted list|[[Imperial Japanese Army]]|[[Imperial Japanese Navy]]}}
| motive = {{hlist|[[Imperialism]]|[[Japanese nationalism]]|[[Ultranationalism]]|[[Racism in Japan|Racism]]}}
{{Infobox|child=yes
| label1 = Trials
| data1  = [[International Military Tribunal for the Far East|Tokyo Trial]], and [[#Other trials|others]]}}
}}

During its imperial era, the [[Empire of Japan]] committed numerous [[war crime]]s and [[crimes against humanity]] across various Asian-Pacific nations, notably during the [[Second Sino-Japanese War|Second Sino-Japanese]] and [[Pacific War]]s. These incidents have been referred to as "the Asian [[The Holocaust|Holocaust]]",<ref name="nyt-1999">{{Cite news |last=Blumenthal |first=Ralph |date=7 March 1999 |title=The World: Revisiting World War II Atrocities; Comparing the Unspeakable to the Unthinkable |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E6DB153FF934A35750C0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110321043541/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E6DB153FF934A35750C0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink |archive-date=21 March 2011 |access-date=26 July 2008 |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref><ref name="latimes-1995">{{Cite news |last=Kang |first=K. Connie |date=4 August 1995 |title=Breaking Silence: Exhibit on "Forgotten Holocaust" Focuses on Japanese War Crimes |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-08-04-me-31301-story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220119212048/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-08-04-me-31301-story.html |archive-date=19 January 2022 |access-date=19 October 2023 |work=[[Los Angeles Times]]}}</ref> and "Japan's Holocaust",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rigg |first=Bryan Mark |author-link=Bryan Mark Rigg |title=Japan's Holocaust: History of Imperial Japan's Mass Murder and Rape During World War II |publisher=Knox Press |year=2024 |isbn=9781637586884 |pages=13–14, 282, 294 |language=en}}</ref> and also as the "Rape of Asia".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rigg |first=Bryan Mark |author-link=Bryan Mark Rigg |title=Japan's Holocaust: History of Imperial Japan's Mass Murder and Rape During World War II |publisher=Knox Press |year=2024 |isbn=9781637586884 |pages=93 |language=en}}</ref> The crimes occurred during the early part of the [[Shōwa era]], under [[Hirohito]]'s reign.

The [[Imperial Japanese Army]] (IJA) and the [[Imperial Japanese Navy]] (IJN) were responsible for a multitude of war crimes leading to millions of deaths. War crimes ranged from sexual slavery and massacres to human experimentation, torture, starvation, and forced labor, all either directly committed or condoned by the Japanese military and government.<ref>{{Cite web |date=15 August 2016 |title=Japanese War Crimes |url=https://www.archives.gov/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001125321/http://www.archives.gov/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/ |archive-date=1 October 2011 |access-date=19 October 2023 |publisher=The National Archives (U.S.)}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Pacific Theater Document Archive |url=http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~warcrime/PT.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090718103739/http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~warcrime/PT.htm |archive-date=18 July 2009 |publisher=War Crimes Studies Center, University of California, Berkeley}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Bibliography: War Crimes |url=http://www.gwu.edu/~memory/research/bibliography/warcrimes.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190816032304/https://www2.gwu.edu/~memory/research/bibliography/warcrimes.html |archive-date=16 August 2019 |access-date=21 April 2010 |publisher=Sigur Center for Asian Studies, George Washington University}}</ref><ref name="Gruhl 2017">{{Cite book |last=Gruhl |first=Werner |title=Imperial Japan's World War Two: 1931–1945 |publisher=Transaction Publishers |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-7658-0352-8 |page=85}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Voices of the "Comfort Women": The Power Politics Surrounding the UNESCO Documentary Heritage |url=https://apjjf.org/2021/5/Shin.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230418021604/https://apjjf.org/2021/5/Shin.html |archive-date=18 April 2023 |access-date=8 May 2023 |website=The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus|date=March 2021 }}</ref> Evidence of these crimes, including oral testimonies and written records such as diaries and war journals, has been provided by Japanese veterans.<ref>{{cite book |last=Drea |first=Edward |url=https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf |title=Researching Japanese War Crimes |date=2006 |publisher=National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi Warcrimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group |page=28 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303190336/http://www.archives.gov/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf |archive-date=3 March 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The Japanese political and military leadership knew of its military's crimes, yet continued to allow it and even support it, with the majority of Japanese troops stationed in Asia either taking part in or supporting the killings.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rigg |first=Bryan Mark |author-link=Bryan Mark Rigg |title=Japan's Holocaust: History of Imperial Japan's Mass Murder and Rape During World War II |publisher=Knox Press |year=2024 |isbn=9781637586884 |pages=266 |language=en}}</ref>

The [[Imperial Japanese Army Air Service]] participated in [[Chemical warfare|chemical]] and [[Biological warfare|biological attacks]] on civilians during the Second Sino-Japanese War and [[World War II]], violating international agreements that Japan had previously signed, including the [[Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907|Hague Conventions]], which prohibited the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare.<ref>{{Cite news |date=25 January 2001 |title=Japan bombed China with plague-fleas |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1135368.stm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200328163015/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1135368.stm |archive-date=28 March 2020 |access-date=19 October 2023 |work=BBC News}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Keiichi |first=Tsuneishi |title=Unit 731 and the Japanese Imperial Army's Biological Warfare Program |url=http://www.japanfocus.org/-Tsuneishi-Keiichi/2194 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150127222203/http://www.japanfocus.org/-Tsuneishi-Keiichi/2194 |archive-date=27 January 2015 |access-date=19 October 2023 |website=Japan Focus|date=24 November 2005 }}</ref>

Since the 1950s, [[List of war apology statements issued by Japan|numerous apologies for the war crimes]] have been issued by senior Japanese government officials; however, apologies issued by Japanese officials have been criticized by some as insincere. Japan's [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan)|Ministry of Foreign Affairs]] has acknowledged the country's role in causing "tremendous damage and suffering"  before and during World War II, particularly the [[Nanjing Massacre|massacre and rape of civilians in Nanjing]] by the IJA.<ref name="mofa_jp">{{Cite web |title=Q8: What is the view of the Government of Japan on the incident known as the "Nanjing Massacre"? |url=http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/q_a/faq16.html#q8 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141213205234/http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/q_a/faq16.html#q8 |archive-date=13 December 2014 |access-date=2 October 2011 |website=Foreign Policy Q&A |publisher=Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan}}</ref> However, the issue remains controversial, with some members of the Japanese government, including former prime ministers [[Junichiro Koizumi]] and [[Shinzo Abe|Shinzō Abe]], having paid respects at the [[Yasukuni Shrine]], which honors all Japanese war dead, including convicted Class A war criminals. Furthermore, some [[Japanese history textbook controversies|Japanese history textbooks]] provide only brief references to the war crimes,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kasahara |first=Tokushi |title=Reconciling Narratives of the Nanjing Massacre in Japanese and Chinese Textbooks |url=http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/file/kasahara.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131231183120/http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/file/kasahara.pdf |archive-date=31 December 2013 |access-date=19 October 2023 |publisher=Tsuru Bunka University}}</ref> and certain members of the [[Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)|Liberal Democratic Party]] have denied some of the atrocities, such as the government's involvement in abducting women to serve as "[[comfort women]]", a [[euphemism]] for sex slaves.<ref name="Tabuchi">{{Cite news |last=Tabuchi |first=Hiroko |author-link=Hiroko Tabuchi |title=Japan's Abe: No Proof of WWII Sex Slaves |newspaper=The Washington Post |agency=Associated Press |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/AR2007030100578.html |access-date=1 March 2007 |archive-date=3 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121103190750/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/AR2007030100578.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Associated Press">{{Cite news |date=1 March 2007 |title=Japan's Abe Denies Proof of World War II Sex Slaves |url=https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Japan-Sex-Slaves.html?ref=world |work=The New York Times |access-date=1 March 2007}}</ref>

==Definitions==
{{Main|Definitions of Japanese war crimes}}
The [[Tokyo Charter]] defines [[war crime]]s as "violations of the [[laws or customs of war]],"<ref>{{cite web |title=International Military Tribunal for the Far East Charter (IMTFE Charter) – The Faculty of Law |url=https://www.jus.uio.no/english/services/library/treaties/04/4-06/military-tribunal-far-east.xml |access-date=28 January 2020 |website=jus.uio.no |language=en |archive-date=29 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190529083141/https://www.jus.uio.no/english/services/library/treaties/04/4-06/military-tribunal-far-east.xml |url-status=live }}</ref> which involves acts using prohibited weapons, violating [[battle]]field norms while engaging in [[combat]] with the enemy [[combatant]]s, or against [[protected persons]],<ref>{{Cite web |title="Defining International Aggression: The Search for World Peace". |url=http://www.derechos.org/peace/dia/doc/dia48.html |access-date=28 January 2020 |website=derechos.org |archive-date=13 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131213032227/http://www.derechos.org/peace/dia/doc/dia48.html |url-status=live }}</ref> including enemy civilians and [[citizens]] and [[property]] of [[Neutrality (international relations)|neutral states]] as in the case of the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gilbert |first=Geoff |title=Responding to International Crime (International Studies in Human Rights) |date=30 September 2006 |isbn=90-04-15276-8 |page=358|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers }}</ref>

Military personnel from the [[Empire of Japan]] have been convicted of committing many such acts during the period of [[Japanese expansionism|Japanese imperialism]] from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. Japanese military soldiers conducted a series of [[human rights abuse]]s against civilians and prisoners of war throughout East Asia and the western [[Pacific Ocean|Pacific]] region. These events reached their height during the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]] of 1937–45 and the [[Pacific War|Asian and Pacific campaigns of World War II]] (1941–45).

===International and Japanese law===
[[File:Chinese civilians to be buried alive.jpg|thumb|Chinese civilians being buried alive by Japanese troops]]
Japan signed the [[Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War (1929)|1929 Geneva Convention on the Prisoners of War]] and the [[Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field (1929)|1929 Geneva Convention on the Sick and Wounded]],<ref name="icrc.org">{{Cite web |title=Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field. Geneva, 27 July 1929. |url=http://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/States.xsp?xp_viewStates=XPages_NORMStatesParties&xp_treatySelected=300 |access-date=6 July 2013 |publisher=[[International Committee of the Red Cross]] |archive-date=23 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131023011215/http://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/States.xsp?xp_viewStates=XPages_NORMStatesParties&xp_treatySelected=300 |url-status=live }}</ref> but the Japanese government declined to ratify the POW Convention. In 1942, the Japanese government stated that it would abide by the terms of the Convention ''[[mutatis mutandis]]'' ('changing what has to be changed').<ref>{{Cite web |date=25 February 2013 |title=World War Two – Geneva Convention |url=http://historyonthenet.com/WW2/geneva_convention.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130718091123/http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW2/geneva_convention.htm |archive-date=18 July 2013 |access-date=21 July 2013 |publisher=Historyonthenet.com}}</ref> The crimes committed also fall under other aspects of international and Japanese law. For example, many of the crimes committed by Japanese personnel during World War II broke Japanese [[military law]], and were subject to [[court martial]], as required by that law.<ref>[http://yale.edu/gsp/publications/WaiKeng.doc See, for example: Wai Keng Kwok, 2001, "Justice Done? Criminal and Moral Responsibility Issues In the Chinese Massacres Trial Singapore, 1947"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070614140107/http://yale.edu/gsp/publications/WaiKeng.doc |date=14 June 2007 }} (Genocide Studies Program Working Paper No. 18, Yale University), p. 27. Access date: 23 April 2007.</ref> The Empire also violated international agreements signed by Japan, including provisions of the [[Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907)]] such as protections for [[prisoners of war]] and a ban on the use of [[chemical weapons]], the [[Forced Labour Convention|1930 Forced Labour Convention]] which prohibited [[forced labor]], the [[1921 International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children]] which prohibited [[human trafficking]], and other agreements.<ref name="chang-barker-2003">{{Cite book |last1=Chang |first1=Maria Hsia |title=Japanese War Crimes: The Search for Justice |last2=Barker |first2=Robert P. |publisher=Transaction Publishers |year=2003 |isbn=0-7658-0890-0 |editor-last=Peter |editor-first=Li |page=44 |chapter=Victor's Justice and Japan's Amnesia}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II |date=August 2001 |publisher=[[M. E. Sharpe]] |isbn=0-7656-0543-0 |editor-last=Stetz |editor-first=Margaret |pages=154–156 |editor-last2=Bonnie BC Oh}}</ref> The Japanese government also signed the [[Kellogg–Briand Pact]] (1929), thereby rendering its actions in 1937–45 liable to charges of [[crimes against peace]],<ref name="lippman-2004">{{Cite journal |last=Lippman |first=Matthew |date=1 January 2004 |title=The history, development, and decline of crimes against peace |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5433/is_200401/ai_n21362456/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1 |journal=George Washington International Law Review |volume=36 |issue=5 |page=25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081001004334/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5433/is_200401/ai_n21362456/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1 |archive-date=1 October 2008 |access-date=26 July 2008}}</ref> a charge that was introduced at the [[Tokyo Trials]] to prosecute "Class A" war criminals. "Class B" war criminals were those found guilty of war crimes ''per se'', and "Class C" war criminals were those guilty of [[crimes against humanity]]. The Japanese government also accepted the terms set by the [[Potsdam Declaration]] (1945) after the end of the war, including the provision in Article 10 of punishment for "all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners". Japanese law does not define those convicted in the post-1945 trials as criminals, despite the fact that Japan's governments have accepted the judgments made in the trials, and in the [[Treaty of San Francisco]] (1952).{{clarify|reason=This seems to have been cut off mid-sentence – "in the Treaty of San Francisco... what?"|date=October 2020}} Former Prime Minister [[Shinzō Abe]] had advocated the position that Japan accepted the Tokyo tribunal and its judgements as a condition for ending the war, but that its verdicts have no relation to domestic law. According to Abe, those convicted of war crimes are not criminals under Japanese law.<ref name="japan-times-2006">{{Cite news |date=7 October 2006 |title=Under Japanese law, 14 at Yasukuni not criminals: Abe |work=[[The Japan Times]] |url=http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20061007a4.html |access-date=26 July 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081216084244/http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20061007a4.html |archive-date=16 December 2008}}</ref>

===Historical and geographical extent===
[[File:Satsuma-samurai-during-boshin-war-period.jpg|thumb|Samurai warriors of the Chosyu clan, during the Boshin War period of the 1860s]]
Outside Japan, different societies use widely different timeframes when they define Japanese war crimes.{{Citation needed|date=July 2008}} For example, [[Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910|the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910]] was enforced by the Japanese military, and the Society of [[Joseon|Yi Dynasty Korea]] was switched to the political system of the [[Empire of Japan]]. Thus, [[North Korea|North]] and [[South Korea]] both refer to "Japanese war crimes" as events which occurred during the period of [[Korea under Japanese rule]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zhao |first=Yali |year=2006 |title=Countering Textbook Distortion: War Atrocities in Asia, 1937–1945 |url=https://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/publications/articles/se_700706424.pdf |journal=National Council for the Social Studies |volume=7 |pages=424–430 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=22 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322174118/https://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/publications/articles/se_700706424.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

By comparison, the [[Allies of World War I|Western Allies]] did not come into a military conflict with Japan until 1941, and [[North Americans]], Australians, [[South East Asia]]ns and Europeans may consider "Japanese war crimes" to be events that occurred from 1942 to 1945.<ref>See, for example: [http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1979/nov-dec/symonds.html Craig Symonds, "War, Politics, and Grand Strategy in the Pacific, 1941–1945", ''Air University Review'', November–December 1979] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061004230225/http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1979/nov-dec/symonds.html |date=4 October 2006 }} (Access date: 15 February 2007): "most American historians, date the war from December 1941". See also [https://www.archives.gov/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf Edward Drea, "Introduction", in Edward Drea, Greg Bradsher, Robert Hanyok, James Lide, Michael Petersen & Daqing Yang, 2006, ''Researching Japanese War Crimes Records''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303000000/http://www.archives.gov/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf |date=3 March 2016 }} (National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C.; p. 15): "The atrocities at Nanjing occurred four years before the United States entered the war. At that time, the U.S. government did not have a large military or diplomatic intelligence network in China. A handful of trained military or embassy personnel reported on events, sometimes second-hand; compared with the sensational press coverage, the official U.S. documentation was scant. As a result, with the exception of the records produced during the postwar Class A war crimes trial of the commanding general of Japanese forces deemed responsible for the Rape of Nanking, there are few materials on this subject at the National Archives." See also, [http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/shillonyBA.html Ben-Ami Shillony, "Book Review, Book Title: A History of Japan, 1582–1941 Internal and External Worlds, Author: L. M. Cullen Professor of History, Trinity College, Dublin", (Institute of Historical Research, February 2004)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060928210616/http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/shillonyBA.html |date=28 September 2006 }} (Access date: 15 February 2007); Grant K. Goodman, "Review 'The Kempei Tai in the Philippines: 1941–1945' by Ma. Felisa A. Syjuco" ''Pacific Affairs'', v. 64, no. 2 (Summer 1991), pp.&nbsp;282–83 (Access date: 15 February 2007); [http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/undocs/html/IDEC601.HTM United Nations Human Rights Committee, "Fifty-Ninth Session, 24 March – 11 April 1997, Decisions, Communication No. 601/1994" (3 April 1997)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140521031910/http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/undocs/html/IDEC601.HTM |date=21 May 2014 }} (Access date: 15 February 2007);[http://www.house.gov/bordallo/gwcrc/RL30606.pdf Gary K. Reynolds, 2002, ''U.S. Prisoners of War and Civilian American Citizens Captured and Interned by Japan in World War II: The Issue of Compensation by Japan''(Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, 17 December 2002)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111214144911/http://www.house.gov/bordallo/gwcrc/RL30606.pdf |date=14 December 2011 }} Access date: 15 February 2007.</ref>

Japanese war crimes were not always carried out by [[Japanese people|ethnic Japanese]]<ref name="The Korea Times">{{Cite web |last=Shin |first=Hee-seok |date=10 February 2017 |title=Korean War criminals tried as Japanese |url=http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/phone/news/view.jsp?req_newsidx=103587 |access-date=10 February 2017 |work=[[The Korea Times]] |language=ko |archive-date=27 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181227230607/http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/phone/news/view.jsp?req_newsidx=103587 |url-status=dead }}</ref> personnel. A small minority of people in every Asian and Pacific country invaded or occupied by Japan [[collaboration|collaborated]] with the Japanese military, or even served in it, for a wide variety of reasons, such as economic hardship, coercion, or antipathy to other [[Imperialism|imperialist]] powers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=de Jong |first=Louis |title=The collapse of a colonial society. The Dutch in Indonesia during the Second World War |publisher=KITLV Press |others=translation J. Kilian, C. Kist and J. Rudge, introduction J. Kemperman |year=2002 |isbn=90-6718-203-6 |series=Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 206 |location=Leiden, The Netherlands |pages=40, 42, 45, 203–04, 305–07, 311–12, 328, 373–74, 386, 391, 393, 429, 488 |author-link=Loe de Jong}}</ref> In addition to Japanese civil and military personnel, Chinese (including [[Manchu People|Manchus]]), Koreans, and Taiwanese who were forced to serve in the military of the Empire of Japan were also found to have committed war crimes as part of the Japanese Imperial Army.<ref name="Harmsen, Peter 2012, p. 4">Harmsen, Peter, [[Jiji Press]], "Taiwanese seeks payback for brutal service in Imperial Army", ''[[The Japan Times]]'', 26 September 2012, p. 4</ref><ref name="Breen">{{Cite web |last=Breen |first=Michael |title=Truth Commission Should Be Truthful |url=http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/opinion/200611/kt2006111619251454330.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070216020355/http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/opinion/200611/kt2006111619251454330.htm |archive-date=16 February 2007 |website=[[The Korea Times]]|quote=The Truth Commission on Forced Mobilization under the Japanese Imperialism (sic) announced on Monday that 83 of the 148 Koreans convicted of war crimes were victims of Japan and should not be blamed. A ruling on three more is pending, and families have requested a review of the 23 Koreans who were executed.}} ([https://web.archive.org/web/20240608152933/http://ingakankei.blog130.fc2.com/blog-entry-126.html?sp article text]<!--Keep this!; the webarchive link for the original article is an error page-->)</ref><ref name="The Korea Times" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Ryall |first=Julian |date=11 November 2014 |title=British ex-POW in Japanese camp "disgusted" by guard demands for compensation |language=en |work=The Daily Telegraph |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/11220761/British-ex-POW-in-Japanese-camp-disgusted-by-guard-demands-for-compensation.html |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |access-date=10 February 2017 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/11220761/British-ex-POW-in-Japanese-camp-disgusted-by-guard-demands-for-compensation.html |archive-date=11 January 2022}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

Both South Korea and North Korea have stated that the [[Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910]], which lead to the annexation of Korea by Japan, was concluded illegally.<ref name="Kawasaki-1996">[http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v3n2/kawasaki.html Yutaka Kawasaki, "Was the 1910 Annexation Treaty Between Korea and Japan Concluded Legally?" ''Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law'', v. 3, no. 2 (July 1996)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190216011130/http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v3n2/kawasaki.html |date=16 February 2019 }}.</ref>

==Background==

===Japanese militarism, nationalism, imperialism and racism===
{{Main|Bushido|Statism in Shōwa Japan|Japanese militarism|Japanese nationalism|Eugenics in Japan|Fascism in Asia#Japan|Racism in Asia#Japan|Racism in Japan}}

[[File:Illustration of the Decapitation of Violent Chinese Soldiers by Utagawa Kokunimasa 1894.png|thumb|Japanese illustration depicting the [[Decapitation|beheading]] of Chinese captives during the [[First Sino-Japanese War|Sino-Japanese War]] of 1894–1895]]

[[Militarism]], [[nationalism]] and [[racism]], especially during Japan's imperialist expansion, had great bearings on the conduct of the Japanese armed forces both before and during the [[World War II|Second World War]]. After the [[Meiji Restoration]] and the collapse of the [[Tokugawa shogunate]], the [[Emperor of Japan|Emperor]] became the focus of military loyalty, nationalism and racism. During the so-called "Age of Imperialism" in the late 19th century, Japan followed the lead of other world powers by establishing a colonial empire, an objective which it aggressively pursued.

Unlike many other major powers, Japan never ratified the [[Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War (1929)|Geneva Convention of 1929]]—also known as the Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva 27 July 1929—which was the version of the Geneva Convention that covered the treatment of prisoners of war during World War II.<ref>{{Cite web |title=ICRC databases on international humanitarian law |url=http://www.cicr.org/ihl.nsf/WebSign?ReadForm&id=305&ps=P |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205211218/http://www.cicr.org/ihl.nsf/WebSign?ReadForm&id=305&ps=P |archive-date=5 February 2012 |access-date=21 July 2013 |publisher=Cicr.org}}</ref> Nevertheless, Japan ratified the [[Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907]] which contained provisions regarding prisoners of war<ref>{{Cite book |title=Forgotten Captives in Japanese-Occupied Asia (Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia) |date=13 October 2011 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-0-415-69005-8 |editor-last=Blackburn |editor-first=Kevin |page=12 |editor-last2=Hack |editor-first2=Karl}}</ref> and an Imperial Proclamation in 1894 stated that Japanese soldiers should make every effort to win the war without violating international laws. According to Japanese historian [[Yuki Tanaka (historian)|Yuki Tanaka]], Japanese forces during the First Sino-Japanese War released 1,790 Chinese prisoners without harm, once they signed an agreement not to take up arms against Japan if they were released.<ref name="Tanaka Hidden Horrors pp72-73">Tanaka ''Hidden Horrors'' pp.&nbsp;72–73</ref> After the [[Russo-Japanese War]] of 1904–1905, all of the 79,367 [[Russian Empire|Russian]] prisoners who were held by the Japanese were released and they were also paid for the labor which they performed for the Japanese, in accordance with the Hague Convention.<ref name="Tanaka Hidden Horrors pp72-73" /> Similarly, the behavior of the Japanese military in [[World War I]] was at least as humane as that of other militaries which fought during the war,{{Citation needed|date=August 2008}} with some [[German Empire|German]] prisoners of the Japanese finding life in Japan so agreeable that they stayed and settled in Japan after the war.<ref>{{Cite news |date=31 January 2000 |title=German-POW camp reveals little-known history of Japan |agency=[[Kyodo News]] |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0XPQ/is_/ai_59198009 |access-date=20 October 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081216075736/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0XPQ/is_/ai_59198009 |archive-date=16 December 2008}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=23 March 2004 |title=Japanese POW camp was a little slice of home |agency=[[Agence France-Presse]] |url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2004/03/23/2003107480 |access-date=20 October 2008 |archive-date=25 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190825100420/http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2004/03/23/2003107480 |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[File:Contest To Cut Down 100 People.jpg|thumb|Two Japanese commanders, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda competing to see who could kill (with a sword) one hundred people first. The headline reads, "'Incredible Record' (in the [[Contest to kill 100 people using a sword|Contest to Decapitate 100 People]])—Mukai 106 – 105 Noda—Both 2nd Lieutenants Go Into Extra Innings".]]

{{blockquote|As Japan continued its modernization in the early 20th century, her armed forces became convinced that success in battle would be assured if Japanese soldiers, sailors, and airmen had the "spirit" of ''[[Bushido]]''. ... The result was that the ''Bushido'' code of behavior "was inculcated into the Japanese soldier as part of his basic training." Each soldier was indoctrinated to accept that it was the greatest honor to die for the Emperor and it was cowardly to surrender to the enemy. ... ''Bushido'' therefore explains why the Japanese soldiers who were stationed in the [[Dutch East Indies|NEI]] so mistreated POWs in their custody. Those who had surrendered to the Japanese—regardless of how courageously or honorably they had fought—merited nothing but contempt; they had forfeited all honor and literally deserved nothing. Consequently, when the Japanese murdered POWs by shooting, beheading, and drowning, these acts were excused since they involved the killing of men who had forfeited all rights to be treated with dignity or respect. While civilian internees were certainly in a different category from POWs, it is reasonable to think that there was a "spill-over" effect from the tenets of ''Bushido''.| [[Fred Borch]], ''Military Trials of War Criminals in the Netherlands East Indies 1946–1949''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Borch |first=Fred |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sn8yDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA31 |title=Military Trials of War Criminals in the Netherlands East Indies 1946–1949 |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0191082955 |pages=31–32 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019132936/https://books.google.com/books?id=sn8yDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA31#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>}}Propaganda depictions of the Japanese military as superior and of others such as the Chinese or Koreans as cowards, pigs, rats or mice occurred in the use of woodcuts produced for wide consumption which were intended to provide a cruel amusement. The Myrdal-Kessle woodcut cartoon collection donated to the [[Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm|Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities]], Stockholm, Sweden, was the subject of a catalogued exhibition in 2011 and includes examples of this type of material from the Meiji period.<ref>''De hundra skratten, Japanska träsnitt som maktens bildspråk'' (The hundred laughs, Japanese woodcuts as an imagery of power), edited Lars Vargö. Carlssons in cooperation with the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (2011) ISBN 978 919790371 4</ref>

===The events of the 1930s and 1940s===

By the late 1930s, the rise of militarism in Japan created at least superficial similarities between the wider Japanese military culture and that of [[Nazi Germany|Germany]]. Japan also had a military [[secret police]] force within the [[Imperial Japanese Army|IJA]], known as the ''[[Kenpeitai]]'', which resembled the Nazi ''[[Gestapo]]'' in its role in annexed and occupied countries, but which had existed for nearly a decade before [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler's]] own birth.<ref>Lamong-Brown, Raymond. "Kempeitai: Japan's Dreaded Military Police". Sutton Publishing, 1998.</ref>

Perceived failure or insufficient devotion to the Emperor would attract punishment, frequently of the physical kind.<ref name="toland301">[[John Toland (author)|John Toland]], ''[[The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1936–1945]]''. p. 301. Random House. New York. 1970</ref> In the military, officers would assault and beat men under their command, who would pass the beating all the way down on to the lowest ranks. In [[Prisoner-of-war camp|POW camps]], this meant that prisoners of war received the worst beatings of all,<ref>{{Cite book |last=de Jong |first=Louis |title=The collapse of a colonial society. The Dutch in Indonesia during the Second World War |publisher=KITLV Press |others=translation J. Kilian, C. Kist and J. Rudge, introduction J. Kemperman |year=2002 |isbn=90-6718-203-6 |series=Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 206 |location=Leiden, The Netherlands |pages=289, 311, 417 |author-link=Loe de Jong |orig-date=2002}}</ref> partly in the belief that such punishments were merely the proper technique to deal with disobedience.<ref name="toland301" />

The phenomenon of ''[[gekokujō]]'' (下克上) which involves lower-ranking officers overthrowing or assassinating their superiors, as evidenced by the multiple coups and assassinations carried out on the mainland, also allowed for the proliferation of war crimes because if commanders tried to restrict atrocities they would either face mutiny or reassignment. Historians have also attributed war crimes to the lack of supervision and disorganization within the military which without stronger control over units and effective court martial procedures allowed for war crimes to go unpunished and therefore continue.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Smith |first=Noah |date=2014-12-09 |title=High-level disorganization still hobbles Japan |url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/12/09/commentary/japan-commentary/high-level-disorganization-still-hobbles-japan/ |access-date=2024-07-06 |website=The Japan Times |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Toland |first=John |title=The rising sun: the decline and fall of the Japanese empire, 1936-1945 |date=2003 |publisher=Modern Library |isbn=978-0-8129-6858-3 |edition=Modern Library pbk |series=Modern Library war |location=New York |pages=23–24}}</ref>

Compared to the German ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'', which carried out mass shootings on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]] in Europe and who suffered from psychological issues as a result, no such problems occurred with Japanese soldiers, as the vast majority of soldiers participated in murder and rape and seemingly enjoyed it.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rigg |first=Bryan Mark |author-link=Bryan Mark Rigg |title=Japan's Holocaust: History of Imperial Japan's Mass Murder and Rape During World War II |publisher=Knox Press |year=2024 |isbn=9781637586884 |pages=15 |language=en}}</ref>

==War crimes==
[[File:LeonardGSiffleet.jpg|thumb|upright|An Australian [[Prisoner of war|POW]], Sgt. [[Leonard Siffleet]], captured in New Guinea, about to be beheaded by a Japanese officer

with a [[guntō]], 1943.]]

Much of the controversy regarding Japan's role in World War II revolves around the death rates of prisoners of war and civilians under Japanese occupation. Historian [[Sterling Seagrave]] has written that:

{{blockquote|Arriving at a probable number of Japan's war victims who died is difficult for several interesting reasons, which have to do with Western perceptions. Both Americans and Europeans fell into the unfortunate habit of seeing [[World War I|WW1]] and [[World War II|WW2]] as separate wars, failing to comprehend that they were interlaced in a multitude of ways (not merely that one was the consequence of the other, or of the rash behavior of the victors after WW1). Wholly aside from this basic misconception, most Americans think of WW2 in Asia as having begun with [[Attack on Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor]], the British with the [[Battle of Singapore|fall of Singapore]], and so forth. The Chinese would correct this by identifying the [[Marco Polo Bridge incident]] as the start, or the earlier [[Japanese invasion of Manchuria|Japanese seizure of Manchuria]]. It really began in 1895 with Japan's [[Assassination of Empress Myeongseong|assassination of Korea's Queen Min]], and invasion of Korea, resulting in its absorption into Japan, followed quickly by Japan's seizure of southern Manchuria, etc. – establishing that Japan was at war from 1895 to 1945. Prior to 1895, [[Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598)|Japan had only briefly invaded Korea during the Shogunate]], long before the [[Meiji Restoration]], and the invasion failed. Therefore, [[Rudolph Rummel|Rummel]]'s estimate of 6-million to 10-million dead between 1937 (the [[Rape of Nanjing]]) and 1945, may be roughly corollary to the time-frame of the [[The Holocaust|Nazi Holocaust]], but it falls far short of the actual numbers killed by the Japanese war machine. If you add, say, 2-million Koreans, 2-million Manchurians, Chinese, Russians, many [[Eastern European Jewry|East European Jews]] (both [[Sephardi Jews|Sephardic]] and [[Ashkenazi Jews|Ashkenazi]]), and others killed by Japan between 1895 and 1937 (conservative figures), the total of Japanese victims is more like 10-million to 14-million. Of these, I would suggest that between 6-million and 8-million were ethnic Chinese, regardless of where they were resident.<ref name="sterling">{{Cite news |title=Sterling and Peggy Seagrave: Gold Warriors |url=http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=9196 |url-status=live |access-date=15 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080613202437/http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=9196 |archive-date=13 June 2008}}</ref>}}

In 1943, [[Prince Mikasa]], the younger brother of Hirohito and a member of the [[Imperial House of Japan]], served as an officer in the Imperial Japanese Army stationed in China. <ref name="scmp.com">{{cite web | url=http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2040559/japans-prince-mikasa-who-fought-war-china-under-fake-name-dies | title=Japan's Prince Mikasa, who fought war in China under a fake name, dies at 100 | date=27 October 2016 }}</ref> He authored a book published in 1984, in which he revealed his shock at the atrocities carried out by the Japanese military during his one-year deployment in China.<ref name="scmp.com"/> In 1994, the Japanese newspaper outlet [[Yomiuri Shimbun]] conducted an interview with him.<ref name="auto3">{{cite web | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-07-07-mn-12990-story.html | title=Hirohito's Brother Assailed Japan's WW II 'Aggression' : Asia: Late emperor's sibling confirms a bold 1944 speech to troops condemning military policy, atrocities in China | website=[[Los Angeles Times]] | date=7 July 1994 }}</ref> He provided an account of Japanese atrocities committed against the Chinese, and verified that he had denounced the aggression in a speech addressed to Japanese soldiers in China during World War II.<ref name="auto3"/> He discovered that military officers utilized Chinese prisoners of war for bayonet drills to bolster the resolve of Japanese soldiers.<ref name="auto3"/> Additionally, he noted that POWs were asphyxiated and shot in large numbers while being restrained to posts.<ref name="auto3"/> He emphasized that killing POWs in a gruesome manner constitutes a massacre, affirming without doubt that Japanese soldiers indeed committed such atrocious acts.<ref name="auto3"/>

According to Werner Gruhl, approximately eight million Chinese civilian deaths were attributable directly to Japanese aggression.<ref name="Gruhl 2017"/>

According to the findings of the Tokyo Tribunal, the death rate among prisoners of war from Asian countries held by Japan was 27.1%.<ref name="Tanaka">Tanaka ''Hidden Horrors'' pp&nbsp;2–3</ref> The death rate of Chinese prisoners of war were much higher because—under a directive ratified on 5 August 1937, by Emperor [[Hirohito]]—the constraints of international law on treatment of those prisoners was removed.<ref>Akira Fujiwara, ''Nitchû Sensô ni Okeru Horyo Gyakusatsu'', Kikan Sensô Sekinin Kenkyû 9, 1995, p. 22</ref> Only 56 Chinese prisoners of war were released after the [[surrender of Japan]].<ref name="Tanaka"/><ref>Herbert Bix, ''Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan'', 2001, p. 360</ref> After 20 March 1943, officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered and encouraged the Navy to execute all prisoners taken at sea.

According to British historian [[Mark Felton]], "officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered the deliberately sadistic murders of more than 20,000 Allied seamen and countless civilians in cold-blooded defiance of the Geneva Convention." At least 12,500 British sailors and 7,500 Australians were murdered. The Japanese Navy sank Allied merchant and Red Cross vessels, then murdered the survivors floating in the sea or in lifeboats. During Naval landing parties, the Japanese Navy rounded up, raped, then massacred civilians. Some of the victims were fed to sharks, others were killed by sledge-hammer, bayonet, crucifixion, drowning, hanging and beheading.<ref name="standard.co.uk">{{Cite web |date=12 April 2012 |title=Alive and safe, the brutal Japanese soldiers who butchered 20,000 |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/alive-and-safe-the-brutal-japanese-soldiers-who-butchered-20-000-allied-seamen-in-cold-blood-6636703.html |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=20 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720134320/https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/alive-and-safe-the-brutal-japanese-soldiers-who-butchered-20-000-allied-seamen-in-cold-blood-6636703.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Mark Felton, ''Slaughter at Sea: The Story of Japan's Naval War Crimes'' (2007).</ref>

===Attacks on neutral powers===
{{Main|Attack on Pearl Harbor}}
[[File:The USS Arizona (BB-39) burning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor - NARA 195617 - Edit.jpg|thumb|The [[USS Arizona (BB-39)|USS ''Arizona'']] burning during the Japanese [[attack on Pearl Harbor]]]]

Article 1 of the [[Hague Convention of 1907|1907 Hague Convention]] ''III – The Opening of Hostilities'' prohibited the initiation of hostilities against neutral powers "without previous and explicit warning, in the form either of a reasoned [[declaration of war]] or of an [[ultimatum]] with conditional declaration of war" and Article 2 further stated that "[t]he existence of a state of war must be notified to the neutral Powers without delay, and shall not take effect in regard to them until after the receipt of a notification, which may, however, be given by telegraph." Japanese diplomats intended to deliver the notice to the United States thirty minutes before the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] occurred on 7 December 1941, but it was delivered to the [[Federal government of the United States|U.S. government]] an hour after the attack was over. Tokyo transmitted the 5,000-word notification (commonly called the "14-Part Message") in two blocks to the [[List of ambassadors of Japan to the United States|Japanese Embassy in Washington]], but transcribing the message took too long for the Japanese ambassador to deliver it in time.<ref>Toland, ''Infamy''</ref>

The 14-Part Message was not moreover a declaration of war, but was instead about sending a message to U.S. officials that peace negotiations between Japan and the U.S. were likely to be terminated. Japanese officials were well aware that the 14-Part Message was not a proper declaration of war as required by the 1907 Hague Convention ''III – The Opening of Hostilities''. They decided not to issue a proper declaration of war anyway as they feared that doing so would expose their secret attack on Pearl Harbor to the Americans.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Japan's Military Stopped Warning of Pearl Harbor Attack, Says Iguchi |url=http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2006_fall/iguchi.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201191435/http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2006_fall/iguchi.htm |archive-date=1 February 2014 |access-date=22 January 2014}}</ref><ref name="Pearl Harbor">{{Cite web |title=Pearl Harbor and The Tokyo Trials |url=http://faculty.virginia.edu/setear/students/japanwc/Home.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170109155834/http://faculty.virginia.edu/setear/students/japanwc/Home.html |archive-date=9 January 2017 |access-date=22 January 2014}}</ref>

Some [[Historical negationism|historical negationists]] and [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theorists]] charge that President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] willingly allowed the attack to happen to create a pretext for war, but no credible evidence exists to support the claim.<ref>Martin V. Melosi, ''The Shadow of Pearl Harbor: Political controversy over the Surprise Attack, 1941–1946'', 1977</ref><ref>Gordon W. Prange, etc. al, ''At Dawn We Slept'', 1991</ref><ref>Gordon W. Prange, etc. al, ''Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History'', 1991</ref> The diary of [[Henry L. Stimson]], Roosevelt's [[United States Secretary of War|Secretary of War]], showed that Roosevelt believed in late November 1941 that a Japanese attack on British or Dutch soil was "likely," but was "confident that the Japanese would not dare to start hostilities against the United States."<ref>[[Richard N. Current]], ''Secretary Stimson: A Study in Statecraft'', [https://archive.org/details/secretarystimson0000curr/page/140/mode/1up?view=theater p.140, 156], [[Rutgers University Press]], 1954, quoting ''Hearings Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack'', [https://www.ibiblio.org/pha/congress/Vol11.pdf Part 11, p.5433], [[United States Government Publishing Office|U.S. Gov't Printing Office]], 1946.</ref>  The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, [[Japanese declaration of war on the United States and the British Empire|Japan declared war on the U.S.]] and the U.S. likewise [[United States declaration of war upon Japan|declared war on Japan]].

Simultaneously with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 (Honolulu time), Japan [[Battle of Malaya|invaded the British colony of Malaya]] and [[Bombing of Singapore (1941)|bombed Singapore]], and began [[Battle of Hong Kong|land actions in Hong Kong]], without a declaration of war or an ultimatum. Both the United States and United Kingdom were neutral when Japan attacked their territories without explicit warning of a state of war.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Best |first=Antony |title=Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbour: Avoiding War in East Asia, 1936–1941 |date=1 August 1995 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=0-415-11171-4 |page=1}}</ref>

The U.S. officially classified all 3,649 military and civilian casualties and destruction of military property at Pearl Harbor as [[non-combatant]]s as there was no state of war between the U.S. and Japan when the attack occurred.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Totani |first=Yuma |title=The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II |date=1 April 2009 |publisher=[[Harvard University Asia Center]] |page=57}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=October 2020}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=McCaffrey |first=Stephen C. |title=Understanding International Law |date=22 September 2004 |publisher=[[AuthorHouse]] |pages=210–29 |author-link=Stephen McCaffrey}}</ref>{{page range too broad|date=October 2020}}{{self-published inline|date=October 2020|certain=yes}} [[Joseph B. Keenan]], the chief prosecutor in the Tokyo Trials, says that the attack on Pearl Harbor not only happened without a declaration of war but was also a "[[Betrayal|treacherous]] and [[Deception|deceitful]] act". In fact, Japan and the U.S. were still negotiating for a possible peace agreement which kept U.S. officials distracted up to the point that Japanese planes launched their attack on Pearl Harbor. Keenan explained the definition of a war of aggression and the criminality of the attack on Pearl Harbor:

{{blockquote|The concept of aggressive war may not be expressed with the precision of a scientific formula, or described like the objective data of the physical sciences. Aggressive War is not entirely a physical fact to be observed and defined like the operation of the laws of matter. It is rather an activity involving injustice between nations, rising to the level of criminality because of its disastrous effects upon the common good of international society. The injustice of a war of aggression is criminal of its extreme grosses, considered both from the point of view of the will of the aggressor to inflict injury and from the evil effects which ensue&nbsp;... Unjust war are plainly crimes and not simply torts or breaches of contracts. The act comprises the willful, intentional, and unreasonable destruction of life, limb, and property, subject matter which has been regarded as criminal by the laws of all civilized peoples&nbsp;... The Pearl Harbor attack breached the Kellogg–Briand Pact and the Hague Convention III. In addition, it violated Article 23 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, of October 1907&nbsp;... But the attack of Pearl Harbor did not alone result in murder and the slaughter of thousands of human beings. It did not eventuate only in the destruction of property. It was an outright act of undermining and destroying the hope of a world for peace. When a nation employs a deceit and treachery, using periods of negotiations and the negotiations themselves as a cloak to screen a [[perfidy|perfidious]] attack, then there is a prime example of the crime of all crimes.<ref>Keenan, Joseph Berry and Brown, Brendan Francis, ''Crimes against International Law'', Public Affairs Press, Washington, 1950, pp.&nbsp;57–87</ref><ref>''Tokyo Transcript'', May 13, 1946, p.491</ref>}}

Admiral [[Isoroku Yamamoto]], who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor, was fully aware that if Japan lost the war, he would be tried as a war criminal for that attack; {{citation needed|date=May 2018}} as it turned out, he was killed by the [[United States Army Air Forces|USAAF]] in [[Operation Vengeance]] in 1943. At the Tokyo Trials, Prime Minister [[Hideki Tojo]], [[Shigenori Tōgō]], then [[Minister for Foreign Affairs (Japan)|Foreign Minister]], [[Shigetarō Shimada]], the [[Ministry of the Navy of Japan|Minister of the Navy]], and [[Osami Nagano]], [[Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff|Chief of Naval General Staff]], were charged with [[crimes against peace]] (charges 1 to 36) and murder (charges 37 to 52) in connection with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Along with [[war crimes]] and [[crimes against humanity]] (charges 53 to 55), Tojo was among the seven Japanese leaders sentenced to death and executed by [[hanging]] in 1948, Shigenori Tōgō received a 20-year sentence, Shimada received a [[Life imprisonment|life sentence]], and Nagano died of natural causes during the Trial in 1947.<ref name="Pearl Harbor" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://werle.rewi.hu-berlin.de/tokyo.anklageschrift.pdf|title=Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East Indictment|access-date=8 May 2023|archive-date=10 September 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160910152748/http://werle.rewi.hu-berlin.de/tokyo.anklageschrift.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

Over the years, many [[Japanese nationalism|Japanese nationalists]] argued that the attack on Pearl Harbor was justified as an act of self-defense in response to the [[Second Sino-Japanese War#Oil embargo (Sino-Japanese War)|oil embargo]] imposed by the United States. Most historians and scholars agree that the oil embargo cannot be used as justification for using military force against a foreign nation imposing the embargo because there is a clear distinction between a perception of something being essential to the welfare of the nation-state and a threat sufficiently serious to warrant an act of force in response, which Japan had failed to consider. Japanese scholar and diplomat Takeo Iguchi states that it is "[h]ard to say from the perspective of international law that exercising the right of self-defense against economic pressures is considered valid." While Japan felt that its dreams of further expansion would be brought to a halt by the American embargo, this "need" cannot be considered [[Proportionality (law)|proportional]] with the destruction suffered by the [[United States Pacific Fleet|U.S. Pacific Fleet]] at Pearl Harbor, intended by Japanese military planners to be as devastating as possible.<ref name="Pearl Harbor" />

===Mass killings===
{{multiple image
| direction         = vertical
| width             = 220
| footer            = Japanese soldiers shooting blindfolded Sikh prisoners and then bayonetting them. Photos discovered after the [[Operation Tiderace|liberation of Singapore]].
| image1            = Japanese shooting blindfolded Sikh prisoners.jpg
| alt1              = 
| caption1          = 
| image2            = Japanese atrocities imperial war museum K9923.jpg
}}

[[File:Chinese killed by Japanese Army in a ditch, Hsuchow.jpg|thumb|right|[[Xuzhou]], China, 1938. A mass grave filled with bodies of Chinese civilians, murdered by Japanese soldiers.<ref>{{Cite web |title=''China Weekly Review'', October 22, 1938. |url=http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/%7Esus/crime%81@q.htm |access-date=22 October 2006}}{{dead link|date=July 2022|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>]]
[[File:Chinese old woman raped and killed by Japanese at Tai'erzhuang.jpg|thumb|Photo taken in [[Xuzhou]], showing the body of a Chinese woman who was raped and killed by Japanese soldiers]]
The estimated number of people killed by Japanese troops varies. [[R. J. Rummel]], a professor of political science at the [[University of Hawaii]], estimates that between 1937 and 1945, the Japanese military murdered from nearly three to over ten million people, most likely six million Chinese, Indians, [[Koreans]], [[Malays (ethnic group)|Malays]], [[Indonesians]], [[Filipinos]] and [[Vietnamese people|Indochinese]], among others, including European, American and Australian prisoners of war. According to Rummel, "This [[democide]] [i.e., death by government] was due to a morally bankrupt political and military strategy, military expediency and custom, and national culture."<ref name="rummel">{{Cite web |title=Rummell, ''Statistics'' |url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM |access-date=21 July 2013 |publisher=Hawaii.edu |archive-date=23 March 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100323044733/http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM |url-status=live }}</ref> According to Rummel, in China alone, from 1937 to 1945, approximately 3.9&nbsp;million Chinese were killed, mostly civilians, as a direct result of the Japanese operations and a total of 10.2&nbsp;million Chinese were killed in the course of the war.<ref>{{Cite web |title=China's Bloody Century |url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE2.HTM |access-date=21 July 2013 |publisher=University of Hawaii |archive-date=24 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724104631/http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE2.HTM |url-status=live }}</ref> According to the British historian [[M. R. D. Foot]], civilian deaths were between 10 million and 20 million.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Oxford Companion to World War II |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-19-860446-4 |editor-last=Dear |editor-first=I. C. B. |editor-link=I. C. B. Dear |location=Oxford |page=182 |editor-last2=Foot |editor-first2=M. R. D. |editor-link2=M. R. D. Foot |orig-date=1995}}</ref> British historian [[Mark Felton]] claims that up to 30 million people were killed, most of them civilians.:<ref name="The Routledge History of Genocide">{{Cite book |last1=Carmichael |first1=Cathie |title=The Routledge History of Genocide |last2=Maguire |first2=Richard |publisher=Routledge |year=2015 |isbn=9780367867065 |page=105}}</ref>

{{blockquote|The Japanese murdered 30 million civilians while "liberating" what it called the [[Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere]] from colonial rule. About 23 million of these were ethnic Chinese. It is a crime that in sheer numbers is far greater than the Nazi Holocaust. In Germany, Holocaust denial is a crime. In Japan, it is government policy. But the evidence against the navy – precious little of which you will find in Japan itself – is damning.<ref>{{Cite news |last= |date=12 April 2012 |title=Alive and safe, the brutal Japanese soldiers who butchered 20,000 Allied seamen in cold blood |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/alive-and-safe-the-brutal-japanese-soldiers-who-butchered-20-000-allied-seamen-in-cold-blood-6636703.html |work=Evening Standard |access-date=2022-07-24 |archive-date=20 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720134320/https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/alive-and-safe-the-brutal-japanese-soldiers-who-butchered-20-000-allied-seamen-in-cold-blood-6636703.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Mark Felton, ''Japan's Gestapo: Murder, Mayhem and Torture in Wartime Asia'' (Casemate Publishers, 2009).</ref><ref>Mark Felton, "The Perfect Storm: Japanese military brutality during World War Two." ''The Routledge History of Genocide'' (Routledge, 2015) pp. 105-121.</ref>}}

One of the major atrocities committed during this period was the [[Nanjing Massacre]] of 1937–38, when, according to the findings of the [[International Military Tribunal for the Far East]], the Japanese Army massacred as many as 260,000 civilians and prisoners of war, though some{{who|date=February 2024}} have placed the figure as high as 350,000.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Shanghai and Nanjing 1937: Massacre on the Yangtze |publisher=Osprey |year=2017 |page=4}}</ref> The [[Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders]] has the death figure of 300,000 inscribed on its entrance.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Shanghai and Nanjing 1937: Massacre on the Yangtze |publisher=Osprey Publishing |year=2017 |page=269}}</ref> 

In the early 1980s, after conducting extensive interviews with Chinese survivors and reviewing existing Japanese records, Japanese journalist Honda Katsuichi concluded that the violence perpetrated by Japanese troops in the [[Nanjing Massacre]] was not an isolated event. Instead, it was part of a broader pattern of Japanese atrocities against the Chinese in the Lower Yangtze region since the [[Battle of Shanghai]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=Researching Japanese War Crimes |publisher=National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group |year=2006|url=https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf |last=Yang |first=Yang|page=x}}</ref> Hosaka Akira was an army physician, and his infantry battalion was stationed in China. In his diary, he admitted to following an order to murder civilians in the Chinese city of Changzhou.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Researching Japanese War Crimes |publisher=National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group|url=https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf |year=2006 |last=Yang |first=Yang|page=x}}</ref> 
Hosaka's diary documenting the Japanese atrocities in Changzhou has been supported by various Japanese sources. In 1987, his squad leader, Kitayama, confessed to killing civilians in Changzhou.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Researching Japanese War Crimes |publisher=National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group |year=2006 |last=Yang |first=Yang|page=x}}</ref> Makihara Nobuo was part of a infantry platoon that entered a Chinese town. In Makihara's diary, he recorded that his Machine Gun [[Company (military unit)|Company]] followed orders to indiscriminately kill all civilians in the town.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Researching Japanese War Crimes |publisher=National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group|url=https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf |year=2006 |last=Yang |first=Yang|page=x}}</ref>

During the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]], the Japanese followed what has been called a "killing policy", including killings committed against minorities such as [[Hui people|Hui Muslims]] in China. According to Wan Lei, "In a Hui clustered village in [[Gaocheng District|Gaocheng county]] of [[Hebei]], the Japanese captured twenty Hui men among whom they only set two younger men free through "redemption", and buried alive the other eighteen Hui men. In [[Mengcun Hui Autonomous County|Mengcun]] village of Hebei, the Japanese killed more than 1,300 Hui people within three years of their occupation of that area." Mosques were also desecrated and destroyed by the Japanese, and Hui cemeteries were also destroyed. After the Nanjing Massacre, mosques in [[Nanjing]] were found filled with dead bodies.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lei |first=Wan |date=February 2010 |title=The Chinese Islamic 'Goodwill Mission to the Middle East' During the Anti-Japanese War |url=https://www.academia.edu/4427135 |journal=Dîvân Disiplinlerarasi Çalismalar Dergisi |volume=cilt 15 |issue=sayi 29 |pages=139–141 |access-date=19 June 2014 |archive-date=18 March 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140318035752/http://www.academia.edu/4427135/The_Chinese_Islamic_Goodwill_Mission_to_the_Middle_East_-_Japonyaya_Karsi_Savasta_Cinli_Muslumanlarin_Orta_Dogu_iyi_Niyet_Heyeti_-_Wan_LEI |url-status=live }}</ref> Many Hui Muslims in the Second Sino-Japanese War [[Chinese Muslims in the Second Sino-Japanese War|fought against]] the Japanese military.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

In addition, [[Dachang Hui Autonomous County|The Hui Muslim county of Dachang]] was subjected to massacres by the Japanese military.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=March 2006 |title=China's Islamic Communities Generate Local Histories: The Case of Dachang |url=http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/scholarship.php?searchterm=005_dachang.inc&issue=005 |journal=China Heritage Newsletter |publisher=China Heritage Project, The Australian National University |issn=1833-8461 |number=5 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=16 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161016193006/http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/scholarship.php?searchterm=005_dachang.inc&issue=005 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Another massacre during this period was the [[Parit Sulong massacre]] in [[Japanese-occupied Malaya]], when, according to the findings of the [[International Military Tribunal for the Far East]], the [[Imperial Japanese Army]] massacred approximately five hundred prisoners of war, although higher estimates exist.{{citation needed | date = April 2017}} A similar crime committed was the [[Changjiao massacre]] in China. Back in Southeast Asia, the [[Laha massacre]] resulted in the deaths of {{formatnum: 705}} prisoners of war on [[Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies|Japanese-occupied Indonesia]]'s Ambon Island, and in [[Japanese-occupied Singapore]]'s [[Alexandra Hospital massacre]], hundreds of wounded Allied soldiers, innocent citizens and medical staff were murdered by Japanese soldiers. {{citation needed | date = April 2017}}

In Southeast Asia, the [[Manila massacre]] of February 1945 resulted in the death of 100,000 civilians in the [[Japanese-occupied Philippines]]. It is estimated that at least one out of every 20 Filipinos died at the hands of the Japanese during the occupation.<ref>Schmidt 1982, p. 36.</ref><ref>Ramsey 1990, pp. 329–330.</ref> In Singapore during February and March 1942, the [[Sook Ching massacre]] was a systematic [[genocide|extermination]] of "anti-Japanese" elements among the [[Chinese Singaporean|Chinese population]]; however, Japanese soldiers did not try to identify who was "anti-Japanese". As a result, the Japanese soldiers engaged in indiscriminate killing.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blackburn |first=Kevin |year=2000 |title=The Collective Memory of the Sook Ching Massacre and the Creation of the Civilian War Memorial of Singapore |journal=Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society |volume=2 |issue=279 |page=75 |jstor=41493428}}</ref> Former [[Prime Minister of Singapore]] [[Lee Kuan Yew]], who was almost a victim of the Sook Ching Massacre, has stated that there were between 50,000 and 90,000 casualties.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Transcript of the interview with Lee Yuan Kew |url=http://www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/media_releases/agencies/pmo/transcript/T-20091228-1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130608160130/http://www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/media_releases/agencies/pmo/transcript/T-20091228-1 |archive-date=8 June 2013 |access-date=21 July 2013 |publisher=News.gov.sg}}</ref> According to Lieutenant Colonel Hishakari Takafumi, a newspaper correspondent at the time, the plan was to ultimately kill about 50,000 Chinese, and 25,000 had already been murdered when the order was received to scale down the operation.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ho |first=Stephanie |date=17 June 2013 |title=Operation Sook Ching |url=https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_40_2005-01-24.html |access-date=17 June 2021 |website=Singapore Infopedia |publisher=National Library Board Singapore |archive-date=1 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601044222/https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_40_2005-01-24.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

There were other massacres of civilians, such as the [[Kalagon massacre]]. In wartime Southeast Asia, the [[Overseas Chinese]] and [[European diaspora]] were particular targets of Japanese abuse; in the former case, this was motivated by a [[Sinophobic]] resentment of the historic expanse and influence of [[Chinese culture]], and in the latter, by a [[Racism|racist]] [[Pan-Asianism]] and a desire to show former colonial subjects the impotence of their former rulers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hotta |first=Eri |title=Pan-Asianism and Japan's War 1931–1945 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2007 |page=201}}</ref> The Japanese executed all the Malay Sultans on Kalimantan and wiped out the Malay elite in the [[Pontianak incidents]]. In the [[Jesselton Revolt]], the Japanese killed thousands of native civilians during the [[Japanese occupation of British Borneo]] and nearly wiped out the entire [[Suluk people|Suluk Muslim]] population of the coastal islands. During the [[Japanese occupation of the Philippines]], when a [[Moro people|Moro Muslim]] [[juramentado]] [[Swordsmanship#Filipino|swordsman]] launched a suicide attack against the Japanese, the Japanese would massacre the man's entire family or village.{{Citation needed|date=November 2016}} However, Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia were sometimes spared if they supported the war effort, whether sincerely or not. This also applied to other ethnicities.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=W. Giles |first=Nathaniel |date=2015 |title=The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: The Failure of Japan's 'Monroe Doctrine' for Asia |url=https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1265&context=honors |journal=Undergraduate Honors Theses |issue=295 |pages=2–34 |via=East Tennessee State University Digital Commons}}</ref>

50 Moros were vivisected by a Japanese unit, the 33rd coast guard squad in Zamboanga in Mindanao in which Akira Makino served in. Moro guerillas armed with spears were the main enemies of the Japanese in the area.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Ichimura |first=Anri |date=23 July 2020 |title=In WWII, Japanese Soldiers Forced Filipinos to Dig Their Own Graves—Before Dissecting Them Alive |url=https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/features/vivisection-japan-philippines-a00304-20200723-lfrm |magazine=Esquire Philippines |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=17 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230417221737/https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/features/vivisection-japan-philippines-a00304-20200723-lfrm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=27 November 2006 |title=Vivisection on Filipinos admitted |work=[[The Japan Times]] |location=Osaka (Kyodo) |url=http://www2.gvsu.edu/walll/Soldier%20admits%20to%20torture%20of%20POWS.htm |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=10 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231010074058/https://www2.gvsu.edu/walll/Soldier%20admits%20to%20torture%20of%20POWS.htm?fbclid=IwAR3ZispAR4xiXf1bU8vClDHShVFVi0Zpf9SlE2Gi8oZsAWgedBXqAxMlANs |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Ozawa |first=Harumi |date=6 November 2007 |title=Japanese war veteran speaks of atrocities in the Philippines |page=9 |work=Taipei Times |location=Osaka, Japan |url=https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/11/06/2003386494 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=9 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231009062209/https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/11/06/2003386494?fbclid=IwAR10in7t37pTqpMyrssfDX6ev6GXYpJfyt0BrD2fjN8lAMtocpVUT__Vv3k |url-status=live }}</ref>

Historian Mitsuyoshi Himeta reports that a "[[Three Alls Policy]]" ({{lang|ja|Sankō Sakusen}}) was implemented in China from 1942 to 1945 and was in itself responsible for the deaths of "more than 2.7 million" Chinese civilians.<ref name="Stich-WW2">{{cite book |last1=Stich |first1=Rodney |title=Japanese and U.S. World War II Plunder and Intrigue |date=2010 |publisher=Silverpeak Enterprises |isbn=978-0-932438-70-6 |page=16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d-44dpgvU0YC&q=PA16 |access-date=9 July 2023 |language=en |archive-date=5 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231005004433/https://books.google.com/books?id=d-44dpgvU0YC&q=PA16 |url-status=live }}</ref> This [[scorched earth]] strategy, sanctioned by [[Hirohito]] himself,<ref name="Stich-WW2"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Tai |first1=Michael |title=China and Her Neighbours: Asian Diplomacy from Ancient History to the Present |date=2019 |publisher=Zed Books |isbn=978-1-786997-79-1 |page=28 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=douxDwAAQBAJ&q=PT34 |access-date=9 July 2023 |language=en |archive-date=5 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231005004434/https://books.google.com/books?id=douxDwAAQBAJ&q=PT34 |url-status=live }}</ref> directed Japanese forces to "kill all, burn all, and loot all", which caused many massacres such as the [[Panjiayu massacre]], where 1,230 Chinese people were killed. Additionally, captured Allied servicemen and civilians were massacred in various incidents, including the following:
* [[Alexandra Hospital massacre]]
* [[Laha massacre]]<ref name="Laha">{{Cite web |last=L |first=Klemen |date=1999–2000 |title=The Carnage at Laha, February 1942 |url=https://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/laha_massacre.html |website=Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941–1942 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217095032/https://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/laha_massacre.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
* [[Bangka Island massacre]]<ref name="Bangka">{{Cite web |last=L |first=Klemen |date=1999–2000 |title=The Bangka Island Massacre, February 1942 |url=https://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/bangka_massacre.html |website=Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941–1942 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217095029/https://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/bangka_massacre.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
* [[Parit Sulong Massacre]]
* [[Palawan massacre]]
* [[Behar massacre|SS ''Behar'']]
* {{ship|SS|Tjisalak}} massacre perpetrated by {{ship|Japanese submarine|I-8}}
* [[Wake Island massacre]]
* [[Tinta Massacre Site|Tinta Massacre]]
* [[Bataan Death March]]
* [[Sandakan Death Marches]]
* [[Shin'yō Maru incident|''Shin'yō Maru'' Incident]]
* [[Sulug Island massacre]]
* [[Pontianak incident]]s
* [[Manila massacre]] (concurrent with the [[Battle of Manila (1945)|Battle of Manila]])
* [[Balikpapan massacre]]
* [[Dutch East Indies massacres]]
The Japanese massacred Hui Muslims in their mosques in Nanjing and destroyed Hui mosques in other parts of China.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Wan |first=Lei |date=February 2010 |title=The Chinese Islamic "Goodwill Mission to the Middle East" During the Anti-Japanese War |url=https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/254594 |journal=Dîvân Dısıplınlerarasi Çalişmalar Dergısi |volume=15 |issue=29 |pages=133–170}} archive url=https://isamveri.org/pdfdrg/D01525/2010_29/2010_29_LEIW.pdf http://ktp.isam.org.tr/detayilhmklzt.php?navdil=eng</ref> Shen Xi’en and his father Shen Decheng witnessed the corpses of Hui Muslims slaughtered by the Japanese in Nanjing, when he was asked by Hui people to help bury their relatives. The Hui security maintenance leader Sun Shurong and Hui Imams Zhang Zihui, Ma Zihe, Ge Changfa, Wang Shouren, Ma Changfa were involved in collecting Hui corpses and burying them after the Nanjing massacre. The Ji'e lane Mosque caretaker father Zhang was in his 60s when killed by the Japanese and his decomposing corpse was the first to be washed in accordance to Islamic custom and buried. They buried the Hui corpses in Jiuhua mountain, Dongguashi, Hongtu Bridge (where Guangzhou road is now located), Wutai mountain, Donguashi (where Nanjing Normal University is located). Shen Xi'en helped bury  400 Hui bodies including children, women and men. Shen recalled burying  a 7 or 8 year old boy in addition to his mother among the Hui bodies.<ref>{{cite web |title=Testimony of Shen Xi'enpublisher=The Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders |url=https://www.19371213.com.cn/en/venerating/testimonies/201811/t20181107_2231834.html |location=Add: No. 418, Shui Simen street, Nanjing}}</ref>

Japanese used machine guns to massacre Muslim Suluk children and women at a mosque in the aftermath of the [[Jesselton revolt]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Oct 19, 1943: Chinese and Suluks revolt against Japanese in North Borneo   |url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/chinese-and-suluks-revolt-against-japanese-in-north-borneo |website=History.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308023941/https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/chinese-and-suluks-revolt-against-japanese-in-north-borneo |archive-date=8 March 2010 }}</ref>

In the [[Pontianak incidents]], the Japanese justified their mass execution of the twelve Arab and Malay Muslim Sultans by claiming they were planning to rebel and that the Arabs, Sultans and Chinese were all working to "massacre Japanese". The Japanese report on the incident noted that there were anti-Dutch Chinese independence movements before and linked them to the anti-Japanese conspiracy. On 28 June 1944 the Japanese executed the Sultans of West Kalimantan including Pontianak after a naval court martial. The accusations against the Sultans were printed in Borneo Shimbun on 1 July 1944.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Maekawa |first1=Kaori |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NZWqvMBu80kC&dq=%22trials+took+place+only+for+selected+cases%2C+and+many+people+were+killed+without+trial%22&pg=PA160 |title=Southeast Asian Minorities in the Wartime Japanese Empire |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1136125065 |editor1-last=Kratoska |editor1-first=Paul H. |page=160 |chapter=Chapter Ten The Pontianak Incidents and the Ethnic Chinese in Wartime Western Borneo}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4t95DwAAQBAJ&dq=%22victims+of+the+killings+had+varying+ethnic+backgrounds%3A+Dutch%2C+Eurasian%2C+Malay%2C+bugis%22&pg=PA212 |title=The Encyclopedia of Indonesia in the Pacific War: In cooperation with the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation |date=2009 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-9004190177 |editor1-last=Post |editor1-first=Peter |series=Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 3 Southeast Asia |page=212 |chapter=4. Occupation: Coercion and Control}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Tanasaldy |first1=Taufiq |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PbFiAAAAQBAJ&dq=%22many+Malay+aristocrats%2C+political+activists%2C+community+leaders%2C+and%22&pg=PA74 |title=Regime Change and Ethnic Politics in Indonesia: Dayak Politics of West Kalimantan |date=2012 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-9004253483 |edition=reprint |others=JSTOR Open Access monographs, Online access: Brill Brill Open e-Books, Online access: OAPEN Open Research Library |volume=278 |series=Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Land- en Volkenkunde.Leiden Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal- |pages=74, 75}}</ref> The Japanese slaughter of the Malay sultans of west Kalimantan led to Dayaks ascending to the political scene after the violent destruction of the Malay nobility at the hands of Japan.<ref>{{cite book |last=Tanasaldy |first=Taufiq |url=https://brill.com/downloadpdf/book/9789004253483/B9789004253483-s004.xml |title=Regime Change and Ethnic Politics in Indonesia : Dayak Politics of West Kalimantan |date=2012 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-25348-3 |series=Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde |volume=278 |location=Leiden |page=50, 60 |chapter=3 Dayaks prior to independence (up to 1945)}}</ref><ref>https://brill.com/downloadpdf/book/9789004253483/B9789004253483-s004.pdf?pdfJsInlineViewToken=1557905106&inlineView=true</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Tanasaldy |first=Taufiq |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctvbnm4q8.6 |title=Regime Change and Ethnic Politics in Indonesia: Dayak Politics of West Kalimantan |date=2012 |publisher=Brill |isbn= |volume=278 |location= |pages=49–78 |chapter=Dayaks Prior to Independence (up to 1945)|jstor=10.1163/j.ctvbnm4q8.6 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://oapen.org/download?type=document&docid=421239 | archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20170722214245/https://oapen.org/download?type=document&docid=421239 | archive-date=22 July 2017 | title=OAPEN Home }}</ref><ref>https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/34518/421239.pdf;jsessionid=3308DABDA03F3C3463F28D25B3E59B73?sequence=1</ref><ref>https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/34518/421239.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y</ref><ref>https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/e1c244f1-fb1e-4589-998b-4109a1b53578/421239.pdf</ref><ref>https://openresearchlibrary.org/ext/api/media/1daf0c0e-c572-4afc-9ef9-2c33a40d5c13/assets/external_content.pdfhttp://library.um.edu.mo/ebooks/b28022294.pdf</ref><ref>https://library.um.edu.mo/ebooks/b28022294.pdfhttp://www.groove-war.com/bitstream/id/e1c244f1-fb1e-4589-998b-4109a1b53578/421239.pdf</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.academia.edu/15049509 | title=Regime change and ethnic politics in Indonesia: Dayak politics of West Kalimantan | last1=Tanasaldy | first1=Taufiq }}</ref>

===Human experimentation and biological warfare===
{{Main|Unit 731|Japan and weapons of mass destruction#Bioweapons}}
[[File:Unit 731 cold experiment.jpg|thumb|right|A [[hypothermia]] experiment, using Chinese prisoners as [[Research participant|subjects]] under surveillance by Japanese soldiers in 731]]
[[File:Shiro-ishii.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Shirō Ishii]], commander of [[Unit 731]]]]

Special Japanese military units conducted experiments on civilians and POWs in China. The purpose of experimentation was to develop biological weapons that could be used for aggression. Biological agents and gasses developed from these experiments were used against the Chinese Army and civilian population.<ref name="Gruhl 2017"/>  These included [[Unit 731]] under [[Shirō Ishii]]. Victims were subjected to experiments including but not limited to [[vivisection]], amputations without anesthesia, testing of [[biological weapons]], horse blood transfusions, and injection of animal blood into their corpses.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barenblatt |first=Daniel |title=A Plague upon Humanity: The Secret Genocide of Axis Japan's Germ Warfare Operation |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-06-018625-8 |pages=78–79}}</ref> Anesthesia was not used because it was believed that anesthetics would adversely affect the results of the experiments.<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2D71630F934A25750C0A963958260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=print "Unmasking Horror"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110317115032/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2D71630F934A25750C0A963958260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=print |date=17 March 2011 }}. Nicholas D. Kristof (17 March 1995) New York Times. A special report.; Japan Confronting Gruesome War Atrocity</ref>

{{blockquote|To determine the treatment of frostbite, prisoners were taken outside in freezing weather and left with exposed arms, periodically drenched with water until frozen solid. The arm was later amputated; the doctor would repeat the process on the victim's upper arm to the shoulder. After both arms were gone, the doctors moved on to the legs until only a head and torso remained. The victim was then used for plague and pathogens experiments.<ref>Byrd, Gregory Dean, ''[http://etd-submit.etsu.edu/etd/theses/available/etd-0403105-134542/unrestricted/ByrdG042805f.pdf General Ishii Shiro: His Legacy is that of a Genius and Madman]''. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060618072831/http://etd-submit.etsu.edu/etd/theses/available/etd-0403105-134542/unrestricted/ByrdG042805f.pdf |date=2006-06-18 }}, p. 33.</ref>}}

A former unit 731 member testified:

<blockquote>As soon as the symptoms were observed, the prisoner was taken from the cell and into the dissection room...he was strapped down, still screaming frightfully. One of the doctors stuffed a towel into his mouth, then with one quick slice of the scalpel he was opened up." Witnesses at vivisections report that the victim usually lets out a horrible scream when the cut is made, and the voice stops soon after.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gruhl |first1=Werner |title=Imperial Japan's World War Two: 1931-1945 |date=2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-51324-1 |pages=82 |language=en}}</ref></blockquote>
Furthermore, according to the 2002 ''International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare'', the number of people killed by the Imperial Japanese Army germ warfare and human experiments is around 580,000.<ref>Daniel Barenblatt, ''A Plague upon Humanity'', 2004, pp. xii, 173.</ref> Top officers of Unit 731 were not prosecuted for war crimes after the war, in exchange for turning over the results of their research to the Allies. They were also reportedly given responsible positions in Japan's pharmaceutical industry, medical schools and health ministry.<ref>{{Cite news |date=21 February 2011 |title=Japan digs up site linked to WWII human experiments |work=The Telegraph |location=London |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8338842/Japan-digs-up-site-linked-to-World-War-2-human-experiments.html |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8338842/Japan-digs-up-site-linked-to-World-War-2-human-experiments.html |archive-date=11 January 2022}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=McNeill |first=David |date=22 February 2011 |title=Japan confronts truth about its germ warfare tests on prisoners of war |work=The Independent |location=London |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japan-confronts-truth-about-its-germ-warfare-tests-on-prisoners-of-war-2221715.html |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217095028/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japan-confronts-truth-about-its-germ-warfare-tests-on-prisoners-of-war-2221715.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

While Unit 731 is the most infamous facility, scholars have shown that Japanese biological and chemical warfare units stationed in Beijing (Unit 1855), Nanjing (Unit 1644) and Canton (Unit 1688) also experimented on human subjects.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Drea|first=Edward|date=2006|title=Researching Japanese War Crimes Records|page=37|url=https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf|access-date=19 October 2023|archive-date=3 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303190336/http://www.archives.gov/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Unit 731 victim.jpg|thumb|[[Unit 731]] members spraying a noxious substance onto a victim as part of their research]]
One case of human experimentation occurred in Japan itself. At least nine of 11 members of Lt.{{nbsp}}Marvin Watkins' 29th Bomb Group crew (of the 6th Bomb Squadron) survived the crash of their [[U.S. Army Air Forces]] [[B-29 Superfortress|B-29]] [[bomber]] on [[Kyūshū]], on 5 May 1945.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Pacific Wrecks |url=http://pacificwrecks.com/ |website=pacificwrecks.com |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=29 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200629123105/https://pacificwrecks.com/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The bomber's commander was separated from his crew and sent to Tokyo for interrogation, while the other survivors were taken to the anatomy department of [[Kyushu University]], at [[Fukuoka, Fukuoka|Fukuoka]], where they were subjected to vivisection or killed.<ref>{{Cite web |title=''The Denver Post'', June 1, 1995, cited by Gary K. Reynolds, 2002, "U.S. Prisoners of War and Civilian American Citizens Captured and Interned by Japan in World War II: The Issue of Compensation by Japan" (Library of Congress) |url=http://www.house.gov/bordallo/gwcrc/RL30606.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111214144911/http://www.house.gov/bordallo/gwcrc/RL30606.pdf |archive-date=14 December 2011}}</ref><ref>Landas, Marc, ''The Fallen: A True Story of American POWs and Japanese Wartime Atrocities'', Hoboken John Wiley 2004 {{ISBN|0-471-42119-7}}</ref>

In 1939, Unit 731 launched 100 periodic biological attacks on military and civilian targets. Attacks include contaminating wells with intestinal pathogens, distribution of microbe-laced foods, air drops of plague inflected fleas, and aerial spray of contaminants.<ref name="auto1">{{cite book |last=Tóth |first=Tibor |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NAzlBwAAQBAJ&dq=When+the+Japanese+army+advanced+again+into+contaminated+territory,+an+outbreak+of+intestinal+disease+caused+up+to+10,000&pg=PA19 |title=The Implementation of Legally Binding Measures to Strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, held in Budapest, Hungary, 2001 |date=2006 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=1402020988 |edition=illustrated |volume=150 of NATO Science Series II: Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry |page=19 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=5 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231005004434/https://books.google.com/books?id=NAzlBwAAQBAJ&dq=When+the+Japanese+army+advanced+again+into+contaminated+territory,+an+outbreak+of+intestinal+disease+caused+up+to+10,000&pg=PA19 |url-status=live }}</ref> Although the effectiveness of the biological attacks is hard to assess, civilian casualties are estimated to be high, with several hundred thousand killed.<ref name="auto1"/>

Some Japanese physicians killed their victims with [[potassium cyanide]] before dissecting them, while others used [[chloroform]]. Yoshio Onodera, who conducted human experiments within Unit 1644, testified that his group conducted experiments on roughly 100-150 people. They would then murder their victims by injecting them with chloroform.<ref>{{cite book |last1=LaFleur| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gGQYOvo9-AsC&q=Yoshimura+ |first1=William |last2=Böhme |first2=Gernot |last3=Shimazono |first3=Susumu |title=Dark medicine: rationalizing unethical medical research |date=2007 |publisher=Indiana University Press|page=75|location=US| isbn=978-0-253-22041-7 }}</ref>

On 11 March 1948, 30 people, including several doctors and one female nurse, were brought to trial by American military tribunal. Fukujiro Ishiyama, the doctor most responsible for the experimentation, killed himself before the trial started. Charges of cannibalism were dropped, but 23 people were found guilty of vivisection or wrongful removal of body parts. Five were sentenced to death, four to life imprisonment, and the rest to shorter terms. In 1950, the military governor of Japan, General [[Douglas MacArthur]], commuted all of the death sentences and significantly reduced most of the prison terms. All of those involved in relation to the university vivisection, with the exception of [[Isamu Yokoyama]], the general most responsible for allowing the experimentation to happen, walked free no later than 1958. Yokoyama died in prison in 1952. In 1980, an author found that one of the doctors who was supposed to be executed was still alive and practicing medicine.<ref>Landas p.255</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Tanabe |first=Kunio Francis |date=1980-10-12 |title=Facts and Fiction of a Japanese War Crime |language=en-US |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1980/10/12/facts-and-fiction-of-a-japanese-war-crime/f459239a-2511-4b61-83d2-aa0d3205c394/ |access-date=2023-06-19 |issn=0190-8286 |archive-date=28 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170828154025/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1980/10/12/facts-and-fiction-of-a-japanese-war-crime/f459239a-2511-4b61-83d2-aa0d3205c394/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In China, the Japanese waged ruthless biological warfare against Chinese civilians and soldiers. Japanese aviators sprayed fleas carrying plague germs over metropolitan areas, creating [[bubonic plague]] epidemics.<ref name="ciadoc">{{Cite web |title=CIA Special Collection ISHII, SHIRO_0005 |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/ISHII%2C%20SHIRO_0005.pdf |access-date=5 June 2021 |archive-date=31 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210531174750/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/ISHII%2C%20SHIRO_0005.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Barenblatt |first=Daniel |title=A Plague upon Humanity: The Secret Genocide of Axis Japan's Germ Warfare Operation |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-06-018625-8 |pages=32–33}}</ref> Japanese soldiers used flasks of diseases-causing microbes, which included [[cholera]], [[dysentery]], [[typhoid]], [[anthrax]] and [[paratyphoid]], to contaminate rivers, wells, reservoirs and houses; mixed food with deadly bacteria to infect hungry Chinese civilians; and even passed out chocolate filled with anthrax bacteria to the local children.<ref>Sheldon H. Harris, ''Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932–45, and the American Cover-up'', 1994, p. 77–78</ref>

During the final months of World War II, Japan had planned to use plague as a biological weapon against U.S. civilians in [[San Diego|San Diego, California]], during [[Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night]], hoping that the plague would spread terror to the American population, and thereby dissuade America from attacking Japan. The plan was set to launch at night on 22 September 1945, but Japan surrendered five weeks earlier.<ref>Naomi Baumslag, ''Murderous Medicine: Nazi Doctors, Human Experimentation, and Typhus'', 2005, p. 207</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Stewart |first=Amy |date=25 April 2011 |title=Where To Find The World's Most 'Wicked Bugs': Fleas |work=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/2011/04/25/135638924/where-to-find-the-worlds-most-wicked-bugs |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=21 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190421145109/https://www.npr.org/2011/04/25/135638924/where-to-find-the-worlds-most-wicked-bugs |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Working |first=Russell |date=5 June 2001 |title=The trial of Unit 731 |url=http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2001/06/05/commentary/world-commentary/the-trial-of-unit-731/ |work=[[The Japan Times]] |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=26 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170726065251/http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2001/06/05/commentary/world-commentary/the-trial-of-unit-731/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In July 1989, a mass grave of more than one hundred skeletons was unearthed at a construction site in Tokyo, which was the former location of the Army Medical College from 1929 to 1945. Investigators determined that the bones belonged to various ethnic Asian groups of foreign origin, as indicated by the skulls.<ref name="Indiana University Press">{{cite book |last1=LaFleur| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gGQYOvo9-AsC&q=Yoshimura+ |first1=William |last2=Böhme |first2=Gernot |last3=Shimazono |first3=Susumu |title=Dark medicine: rationalizing unethical medical research |date=2007 |publisher=Indiana University Press|pages=77–78 |location=US| isbn=978-0-253-22041-7 }}</ref> Investigators also discovered skulls that were marked with scalpels, cut by a sword, or pierced by bullets from a pistol.<ref name="Indiana University Press"/>  From these findings, it's inferred that Japanese military physicians conducted experiments on the brains of individuals on the battlefield, and that the evidence was subsequently disposed of and buried at that location.<ref name="Indiana University Press"/>

In 2006, former IJN medical officer [[Akira Makino]] stated that he was ordered—as part of his training—to carry out vivisection on about 30 civilian prisoners in the Philippines between December 1944 and February 1945.<ref>BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6185442.stm "Japanese doctor admits POW abuse"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217105938/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6185442.stm |date=17 February 2022 }}. ''BBC News''. Accessed 26 November 2006.</ref> The surgery included amputations.<ref>Kyodo News Agency, [http://asia.news.yahoo.com/061125/kyodo/d8lk5da00.html "Ex-navy officer admits to vivisection of war prisoners in Philippines"], ''Yahoo! Asia News''{{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> Most of Makino's victims were [[Moro people|Moro Muslims]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bt.com.bn/focus/2007/10/31/a_life_haunted_by_wwii_surgical_killings|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141213021214/http://www.bt.com.bn/focus/2007/10/31/a_life_haunted_by_wwii_surgical_killings|url-status=dead|title=A life haunted by WWII surgical killings : BT News|archive-date=13 December 2014|access-date=8 May 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=17 March 2014 |title=AFP: Japanese veteran haunted by WWII surgical killings |url=https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ht5P8U54dLa7dH9mqjKyurq0zQMw?hl=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140317024425/https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ht5P8U54dLa7dH9mqjKyurq0zQMw?hl=en |archive-date=17 March 2014}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=6 November 2007 |title=Japanese war veteran speaks of atrocities in the Philippines |url=https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/11/06/2003386494 |website=Taipei Times |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217095028/http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/11/06/2003386494 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Parry |work=The Australian |title=Dissect them alive: chilling Imperial that order could not be disobeyed |year=2007 |url=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/dissect-them-alive-chilling-imperial-that-order-could-not-be-di/story-e6frg6so-1111113061584 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=14 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150214145048/http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/dissect-them-alive-chilling-imperial-that-order-could-not-be-di/story-e6frg6so-1111113061584 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Parry |first=Richard Lloyd |title=Dissect them alive: order not to be disobeyed |date=25 February 2007 |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article2606909.ece |work=[[The Times]] |access-date=19 May 2014 |archive-date=28 February 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070228095300/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1438491.ece }}</ref> [[Ken Yuasa]], a former military doctor in China, has also admitted to similar incidents in which he was aggressively performing live vivisections on live Chinese victims, blaming the nationalistic indoctrination of his schooling for his conduct and lack of remorse.<ref>"Vivisectionist recalls his day of reckoning". ''The Japan Times''. 24 October 2007. p. 3.</ref> Yuasa admitted to killing Chinese captives while training others in surgery.<ref name="books.google.ca">{{cite book |last1=LaFleur| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gGQYOvo9-AsC&q=Yoshimura+ |first1=William |last2=Böhme |first2=Gernot |last3=Shimazono |first3=Susumu |title=Dark medicine: rationalizing unethical medical research |date=2007 |publisher=Indiana University Press|page=78 |location=US| isbn=978-0-253-22041-7 }}</ref> He further added that in order to quickly train military physicians for the battlefield, physicians would gather every few months to perform "surgery drills" in China.<ref name="books.google.ca"/> Surgery drills involved capturing local citizens, shooting them in the thigh with a bullet, and monitoring the amount of time it would take to extract the bullet.<ref name="books.google.ca"/> The drills were widespread in China, with most instances involving the abduction of local citizens by the military and their subsequent delivery to the Army's medical division.<ref name="books.google.ca"/>

The [[Imperial House of Japan]] was responsible for the human experimentation programs, as members of the imperial family, including [[Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko]], [[Prince Chichibu]], [[Prince Mikasa]] and [[Prince Takeda Tsuneyoshi]], participated in the programs in various ways, which included authorizing, funding, supplying, and inspecting biomedical facilities.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harris |first=Sheldon |title=Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932–45, and the American Cover-Up |publisher=Routledge |year=1995 |isbn=978-0415932141}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Large |first=Stephen |title=Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan, A Political Biography |publisher=Routledge |year=1995 |isbn=9781-138009110 |pages=67–68, 134, 117–119, 144–145}}</ref>

Shiro Ishii was demoted after the cholera attack he directed in 1942 against Chinese civilians accidently infected and killed Japanese soldiers and he did not direct anymore bioglocial attacks for the rest of the war.<ref>{{cite book |last=Guillemin |first=Jeanne |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8UpCNpAJanIC&dq=general+ishii+demoted&pg=PA257 |title=Mirrors of Justice: Law and Power in the Post-Cold War Era |date=2010 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521195379 |page=257 |chapter=12 National Security, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Selective Pursuit of Justice at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, 1946-1948}}</ref> Ishii boasted about his role in the 1940-1941 biological disease attacks and boasted to the Japanese army in the 1942 attacks that he would kill even more, until he accidentally killed Japanese troops with his own weapons, causing a disaster among Japanese ranks and he was forced out and replaced.<ref>{{cite book |last=Guillemin |first=Jeanne |title=Hidden Atrocities: Japanese Germ Warfare and American Obstruction of Justice at the Tokyo Trial |date=2017 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0231544986 |page=194 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iUs1DwAAQBAJ&dq=general+ishii+demoted&pg=PT201}}</ref>

===Use of chemical weapons===
{{See also|Changde chemical weapon attack|Japan and weapons of mass destruction#Chemical weapons}}

Throughout the war with China from 1937 to 1945, Japan deployed chemical weapons, including poisonous and irritating gases, against both Chinese military personnel and civilians. This action was denounced by the League of Nations in May 1938.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Drea |first=Edward |title=Researching Japanese War Crimes Introductory Essay |publisher=National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group|url=https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf |year=2006 |isbn=1-880875-28-4 |page=142}}</ref>

According to Walter E. Grunden, history professor at [[Bowling Green State University]], the Japanese incorporated [[Chemical warfare|gas warfare]] into many aspects of their army's war against China because they concluded that Chinese forces were unable to retaliate in kind.<ref name="auto">{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6_14|chapter=No Retaliation in Kind: Japanese Chemical Warfare Policy in World War II|first=Walter E.|last=Grunden|title=One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences|editor-first1=Bretislav|editor-last1=Friedrich|editor-first2=Dieter|editor-last2=Hoffmann|editor-first3=Jürgen|editor-last3=Renn|editor-first4=Florian|editor-last4=Schmaltz|editor-first5=Martin|editor-last5=Wolf|date=22 June 2017|publisher=Springer International Publishing|pages=259–271|via=Springer Link|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6_14|isbn=978-3-319-51663-9|s2cid=158528688|access-date=19 October 2023|archive-date=16 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221016161215/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6_14|url-status=live}}</ref> Their utilization of gas warfare involved deploying specialized gas troops, as well as infantry, artillery, engineers, and air force units.<ref>{{cite book |author=United States. War Department. Military Intelligence Division|issue= 24 of Special series, United States War Dept |date= 1944|title=Enemy Tactics in Chemical Warfare |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gq1BAAAAIAAJ&dq=japanese+gas+hand+to+hand+combat&pg=PA81  |publisher=War Department |page=69}}</ref> Grunden further added that "from 1937 to 1945, the military services of Japan used chemical weapons on over 2000 occasions, primarily in the [[Second Sino-Japanese War|China Theater of Operations]]."<ref name="auto"/> 

The Narashino Military Academy near Tokyo had assembled a compilation of fifty-six case studies detailing the use of chemical weapons by Japan in China during World War II. This collection included information on lethal agents like Yperite, commonly known as mustard gas.<ref name="auto2">{{Cite book |last=Drea |first=Edward |title=Researching Japanese War Crimes Introductory Essay |publisher=National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group|url=https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf |year=2006 |isbn=1-880875-28-4 |page=38}}</ref> The document was discovered at the [[National Archives and Records Administration]]  by a Japanese historian.<ref name="auto2"/>

According to historians [[Yoshiaki Yoshimi]] and Kentaro Awaya, during the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]], [[chemical warfare|gas weapons]], such as [[tear gas]], were sporadically used in 1937, but in early 1938, the [[Imperial Japanese Army]] resorted to the full-scale use of [[phosgene]], [[chlorine]], [[Lewisite]] and [[Chloropicrin|nausea gas]] (red), and from mid-1939, [[mustard gas]] (yellow) was used against both [[Kuomintang]] and [[Chinese Communist Party|Communist Chinese]] troops.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tanaka |first=Yuki |year=2015 |title=Poison Gas: The Story Japan Would Like to Forget |journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists |volume=44 |issue=8 |pages=10–9 |doi=10.1080/00963402.1988.11456210|bibcode=1988BuAtS..44h..10T }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=8 July 2019 |title=Report documenting how Japan used chemical weapons during Second Sino-Japanese War found for first time |url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/07/08/national/history/detailed-report-documents-japans-use-nerve-agents-second-sino-japanese-war/ |website=[[The Japan Times]] |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217095034/https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/07/08/national/history/detailed-report-documents-japans-use-nerve-agents-second-sino-japanese-war/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2004, Yoshimi and Yuki Tanaka discovered documents in the Australian National Archives which state that [[cyanide]] gas was tested on Australian and Dutch prisoners in November 1944 on [[Kai Islands]] (Indonesia).<ref>[https://archive.today/20120529003741/http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/nn20040727a9.html "Japan tested chemical weapons on Aussie POW: new evidence"]. ''Japan Times''.</ref>

According to Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno, [[Emperor Hirohito]] signed orders which specified the use of chemical weapons in China.<ref>Yoshimi and Matsuno, ''Dokugasusen kankei shiryô II, Kaisetsu'' 1997</ref> For example, during the [[Battle of Wuhan]] from August to October 1938, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions, despite the [[Hague Convention of 1899#Hague Convention of 1899|1899 Hague Declaration]] ''IV, 2 – Declaration on the Use of Projectiles the Object of Which is the Diffusion of Asphyxiating or Deleterious Gases''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Laws of War: Declaration on the Use of Projectiles the Object of Which is the Diffusion of Asphyxiating or Deleterious Gases; July 29, 1899 |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/dec99-02.asp |access-date=21 July 2013 |publisher=Avalon.law.yale.edu |archive-date=10 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110810224600/http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/dec99-02.asp |url-status=live }}</ref> and Article 23 (a) of the [[Hague Convention of 1907|1907 Hague Convention]] ''IV – The Laws and Customs of War on Land''.<ref name="chang-barker-2003" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague, 18 October 1907. |url=http://www.icrc.org/ihl/385ec082b509e76c41256739003e636d/1d1726425f6955aec125641e0038bfd6?OpenDocument |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130926100946/http://www.icrc.org/ihl/385ec082b509e76c41256739003e636d/1d1726425f6955aec125641e0038bfd6?OpenDocument |archive-date=26 September 2013 |access-date=4 July 2013 |publisher=[[International Committee of the Red Cross]]}}</ref> A resolution adopted by the [[League of Nations]] on 14 May condemned the use of poison gas by Japan.

According to [[Takahito, Prince Mikasa|Prince Mikasa]], a member of the imperial family of Japan, he watched an army film that showed Japanese troops gassing Chinese prisoners who were tied to stakes.<ref>{{Cite news |date=6 July 1994 |title=Hirohito's Brother Says Japan Was Brutal Aggressor in War |work=Associated Press News |url=https://apnews.com/article/54751e3cfe7e286626e76b7fd43fb757 |access-date=27 April 2022 |archive-date=27 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220427214026/https://apnews.com/article/54751e3cfe7e286626e76b7fd43fb757 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Another incident of chemical warfare occurred during the [[Battle of Yichang]] in October 1941, during which the 19th Artillery Regiment helped the 13th Brigade of the [[Eleventh Army (Japan)|IJA 11th Army]] by launching 1,000 yellow gas shells and 1,500 red gas shells at the Chinese [[National Revolutionary Army]]. The area was crowded with Chinese civilians unable to evacuate. Some 3,000 Chinese soldiers were in the area and 1,600 were affected. The Japanese report stated that "the effect of gas seems considerable".<ref>Yuki Tanaka, "Poison Gas, the Story Japan Would Like to Forget", ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'', October 1988, p. 17</ref>

In 2004, Yoshimi Yoshiaki published the most comprehensive study of Japan's military use of poisonous gases in China and Southeast Asia. Yoshimi discovered a battle report by a Japanese Infantry Brigade that detailed its use of mustard gas in a major operation against the Communist-led [[Eighth Route Army]] in [[Shanxi Province]] in the winter of 1942. The unit which carried out the operation noted the severity of the mustard gas attack, and it also commented about the anti-Japanese sentiment which existed among the members of the civilian population who were affected by the mustard gas.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Drea |first=Edward |title=Researching Japanese War Crimes Introductory Essay |publisher=National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group |year=2006 |isbn=1-880875-28-4 |page=38}}</ref>

===Torture of prisoners of war===
{{See also|Bamboo torture|Effectiveness of torture for interrogation}}
[[File:Photograph of American Prisoners Using Improvised Litters to Carry Comrades, 05-1942 - NARA - 535564.jpg|thumb|A burial detail of American and Filipino [[Prisoner of war|POWs]] killed during the [[Bataan Death March]], 1942]]

Japanese imperial forces employed widespread use of [[torture]] on prisoners of war, usually in an effort to gather military intelligence quickly.<ref>{{Cite book |last=de Jong |first=Louis |title=The collapse of a colonial society. The Dutch in Indonesia during the Second World War |publisher=KITLV Press |translator1-first=J. |translator1-last=Kilian |translator2-first=C. |translator2-last=Kist |translator3-first=J. |translator3-last=Rudge |others=introduction by J. Kemperman |year=2002 |isbn=90-6718-203-6 |series=Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 206 |location=Leiden, The Netherlands |pages=167, 170–73, 181–84, 196, 204–25, 309–14, 323–25, 337–38, 34, 1 343, 345–46, 380, 407 |author-link=Loe de Jong |orig-date=2002}}</ref> Tortured POWs were often later executed. A former Japanese Army officer who served in China, Uno Shintaro, stated:

{{Blockquote|The major means of getting intelligence was to extract information by interrogating prisoners. Torture was an unavoidable necessity. Murdering and burying them follows naturally. You do it so you won't be found out. I believed and acted this way because I was convinced of what I was doing. We carried out our duty as instructed by our masters. We did it for the sake of our country. From our filial obligation to our ancestors. On the battlefield, we never really considered the Chinese humans. When you're winning, the losers look really miserable. We concluded that the [[Yamato people|Yamato {{bracket|Japanese}} race]] was superior.<ref>Haruko Taya Cook & Theodore F. Cook, ''Japan at War'', 1993, {{ISBN|1-56584-039-9}}, p. 153</ref>}}

After the [[atomic bombing of Hiroshima]] during World War II, the [[Japanese secret police]] tortured a captured American [[P-51]] [[fighter pilot]] named [[Marcus McDilda]] to discover how many [[atomic bombs]] the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] had and what the future targets were. McDilda, who had originally told his captors he knew nothing about the atomic bomb (and who indeed knew nothing about [[nuclear fission]]), "confessed" under further torture that the US had 100 atomic bombs and that Tokyo and [[Kyoto]] were the next targets:
{{blockquote|text=As you know, when atoms are split, there are a lot of [[electric charge|pluses and minuses]] released. Well, we've taken these and put them in a huge container and separated them from each other with a lead shield. When the box is dropped out of a plane, we melt the lead shield and the pluses and minuses come together. When that happens, it causes a tremendous bolt of lightning and all the atmosphere over a city is pushed back! Then when the atmosphere rolls back, it brings about a tremendous thunderclap, which knocks down everything beneath it.|author=Marcus McDilda|source=<ref name="Jerome T. Hagen 1996">{{Cite book |last=Hagen |first=Jerome T. |url=https://archive.org/details/warinpacific0000hage_o9h7 |title=War in the Pacific, Chapter 25 "The Lie of Marcus McDilda" |publisher=Hawaii Pacific University |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-9653927-0-9 |pages=159–160 |url-access=registration}}</ref>}}

According to many historians, one of the favorite techniques of Japanese torturers was "[[waterboarding|simulated drowning]]", in which water was poured over the immobilized victim's head, until they suffocated and lost consciousness. They were then resuscitated brutally (usually with the torturer jumping on their abdomen to expel the water) and then subjected to a new session of torture. The entire process could be repeated for about twenty minutes.{{efn|"Interestingly, although the United States condemned these practices, notably during the [[Tokyo Trial]], its [[United States Armed Forces|armed forces]] used the same technique several times in the context of the [[War on Terror]]. They then proceeded to deny that simulated drowning was torture, an opinion shared by at least [[The Wall Street Journal]] which, on 12 November 2005, commenting on the torture of alleged terrorists of [[Al-Qaeda]], published an editorial denying that the technique had "any proximity to torture".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://lawofwar.org/|title=Law of War Home Page|website=lawofwar.org|access-date=19 October 2023|archive-date=11 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210211155426/http://lawofwar.org/|url-status=live}}</ref>

During the [[2008 United States elections|presidential elections in the United States in 2008]], these interpretations were the subject of controversy, with candidates [[John McCain]] and [[Barack Obama]]<ref>{{Cite web |last=Greg Sargent |date=October 2007 |title=Obama: 'I Cannot Support' Mukasey Without Clarity On Waterboarding |url=http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2007/10/obama.php |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090804143234/http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2007/10/obama.php |archive-date=4 August 2009 |access-date=3 September 2009 |publisher=Election Central}}</ref> considering the practice as torture, as opposed to other [[Republican Party (United States)|republican]] candidates.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Michael Cooper and Marc Santora |date=October 2007 |title=McCain Rebukes Giuliani on Waterboarding Remark |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/us/politics/26giuliani.html |access-date=3 September 2009 |archive-date=25 April 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090425031627/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/us/politics/26giuliani.html |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

===Execution and killing of captured Allied airmen===

[[File:Doolittle Raider RL Hite blindfolded by Japanese 1942.jpg|thumb|A blindfolded [[Doolittle Raid]]er taken captive in 1942]]

Many Allied airmen captured by the Japanese on land or at sea were executed in accordance with official Japanese policy. During the [[Battle of Midway]] in June 1942, three American airmen who were shot down and landed at sea were spotted and captured by [[Imperial Japanese Navy]] warships. After being tortured, machinist mate first class [[Bruno Gaido]] and his pilot Ensign Frank O'Flaherty, were tied to five-gallon kerosene cans filled with water and dumped overboard from the {{ship|Japanese destroyer|Makigumo|1941|6}};<ref>{{Cite web |title=Toughness—Aviation Machinist Mate 1st Class Bruno Peter Gaido |url=https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-004/h-004-5.html |access-date=7 December 2021 |website=[[Naval History and Heritage Command]] |archive-date=7 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211207060539/https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-004/h-004-5.html |url-status=live }}</ref> a third airman, Ensign Wesley Osmus, was fatally wounded with an axe before being pushed into the sea from the stern of the ''[[Japanese destroyer Arashi|Arashi]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chūichi Nagumo |date=June 1942 |title=CINC First Air Fleet Detailed Battle Report no. 6 |url=http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/IJN/rep/Midway/Nagumo/ |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=26 May 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060526093630/http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/IJN/rep/Midway/Nagumo/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Cressman |first=Robert |url=https://archive.org/details/TheOfficialChronologyOfTheUSNavyInWorldWarII |title=The Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II |publisher=Naval Institute Press |year=1999 |isbn=1-55750-149-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/TheOfficialChronologyOfTheUSNavyInWorldWarII/page/n100 101]}}</ref>

On 13 August 1942, Japan passed the [[Enemy Airmen's Act]], which stated that Allied pilots who bombed non-military targets in the [[Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II|Pacific Theater]] and were captured by Japanese forces were subject to trial and punishment, despite the absence of any international law containing provisions regarding [[aerial warfare]].<ref name="ICRC">{{Cite journal |last=Javier Guisández Gómez |date=30 June 1998 |title=The Law of Air Warfare |url=http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/57jpcl.htm |journal=International Review of the Red Cross |pages=347–63 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130425044944/http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/57jpcl.htm |archive-date=25 April 2013 |number=323}}</ref> This legislation was passed in response to the [[Doolittle Raid]] on 18 April 1942, in which American [[North American B-25 Mitchell|B-25]] bombers under the command of [[Lieutenant Colonel]] [[Jimmy Doolittle|James Doolittle]] bombed Tokyo and other Japanese cities. According to the [[Hague Convention of 1907]] (the only convention Japan had ratified regarding the treatment of prisoners of war), any military personnel captured on land or at sea by enemy troops were to be treated as prisoners of war and not punished for simply being lawful combatants. Eight Doolittle Raiders captured upon landing in China (four months before the passage of the Act) were the first Allied aircrew to be brought before a [[kangaroo court]] in Shanghai under the act, charged with alleged (but unproven) strafing of Japanese civilians during the Doolittle Raid. The eight aircrew were forbidden to present any defense and, despite the lack of legitimate evidence, were found guilty of participating in aerial military operations against Japan. Five of the eight sentences were commuted to life imprisonment; the other three airmen were taken to a cemetery outside Shanghai, where they were [[execution by firing squad|executed by firing squad]] on 14 October 1942.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chun |first=Clayton |url=https://archive.org/details/doolittleraid19400chun/page/85 |title=The Doolittle Raid 1942: America's first strike back at Japan (Campaign) |date=31 January 2006 |publisher=[[Osprey Publishing]] |isbn=1-84176-918-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/doolittleraid19400chun/page/85 85]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Stewart Halsey Ross |title=Strategic Bombing by the United States in World War II: The Myths and the Facts |date=13 December 2002 |publisher=[[Osprey Publishing]] |isbn=0-7864-1412-X |page=59}}</ref>

The Enemy Airmen's Act contributed to the deaths of hundreds of Allied airmen throughout the Pacific War. An estimated 132 Allied airmen shot down during the [[air raids on Japan|bombing campaign against Japan]] in 1944–1945 were [[summarily executed]] after short kangaroo trials or [[drumhead court-martial|drumhead courts-martial]]. Imperial Japanese military personnel deliberately killed 33 American airmen at [[Fukuoka]], including fifteen who were beheaded shortly after the Japanese Government's intention to surrender was announced on 15 August 1945.<ref>Francis (1997), pp. 471–72</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=November 2013}} Mobs of civilians also killed several Allied airmen before the Japanese military arrived to take the airmen into custody.<ref>Tillman (2010), p. 170</ref> Another 94 airmen died from other causes while in Japanese custody, including 52 who were killed when they were deliberately abandoned in a prison during the [[bombing of Tokyo]] on 24–25 May 1945.<ref name="Takai_Sakaida_114">Takai and Sakaida (2001), p. 114</ref><ref>Tillman (2010), pp. 171–72</ref>

===Execution and killing of captured Allied seamen===
*Rear Admiral Takero Kouta, commander of the Japanese First Submarine Force at Truk, on 20 March 1943 sent out to subs under his command an order to kill [[Merchant Navy]] crewman after the ship was sunk.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pacificwar.org.au/JapWarCrimes/TenWarCrimes/WarCrimes_Jap_Navy.html|title=War crimes of the Imperial Japanese Navy|website=www.pacificwar.org.au|access-date=8 May 2023|archive-date=7 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307092639/http://pacificwar.org.au/JapWarCrimes/TenWarCrimes/WarCrimes_Jap_Navy.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>{{full citation needed|date=May 2023}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://library.icrc.org/library/docs/DOC/irrc-902-papanicolopulu.pdf|title=Red Cross, The duty to rescue at sea, in peacetime and in war|access-date=19 October 2023|archive-date=15 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230315215644/https://library.icrc.org/library/docs/DOC/irrc-902-papanicolopulu.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>{{full citation needed|date=May 2023}}
*The [[World War II United States Merchant Navy|United States Merchant Navy]] ship [[Japanese submarine I-8 attack on SS Jean Nicolet|SS ''Jean Nicolet'']], torpedoed by {{ship|Japanese submarine|I-8}} on 2 July 1944, off [[Ceylon]] at {{coord|03|28|S|074|30|E|display=inline}}. All of the crew and passengers made it into the [[Lifeboat (shipboard)|lifeboats]] safely. The I-8 forced the 100 onto the deck of the submarine and then killed most of them. The ''I-8'' crew shot at both the crew and the lifeboats. The submarine crew took the crew's valuables. Those not shot, about 30 crew members, were hit and stabbed on the deck. Seeing a plane, the submarine crew tossed overboard the remaining crew and dived. A [[Consolidated PBY Catalina|Catalina]] flying boat spotted the crew in the water and sent [[Royal Navy]] [[armed trawler]] {{HMS|Hoxa|T16|6}} rescued the men. After over 30 hours in the water the crew was rescued on 4 July 1944.<ref name="combinedfleetI8">{{Cite web |last1=Hackett |first1=Bob |last2=Kingsepp |first2=Sander |date=1 July 2016 |title=IJN Submarine I-8: Tabular Record of Movement |url=http://www.combinedfleet.com/I-8.htm |access-date=20 December 2021 |website=combinedfleet.com |archive-date=23 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123180859/http://www.combinedfleet.com/I-8.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Bridgland |first=Tony |title=Waves of Hate |publisher=Pen & Sword |year=2002 |isbn=0-85052-822-4}}</ref><ref name="ijnsubsiteI8">{{Cite web|url=http://www.ijnsubsite.info/I-Sub%20Details/I-8.htm|title=I_8|access-date=8 May 2023|archive-date=5 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405012945/http://www.ijnsubsite.info/I-Sub%20Details/I-8.htm|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="armedguard">{{Cite web |title=Moore |url=http://www.armed-guard.com/ag87.html |website=armed-guard.com |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=20 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720134546/http://www.armed-guard.com/ag87.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
*Merchant Navy [[Behar massacre|SS ''Behar'']] sank on 6 March 1944, in the [[Indian Ocean]], seventy-two merchant seamen made it into lifeboats. They were taken aboard the [[Japanese cruiser Tone (1937)|heavy cruiser Tone]] and the crew's valuables taken. The crew was roped up in painful positions, beaten, and locked in an extremely hot store room. By order of Vice Admiral Sakonju, the crew, men and women, were killed. Sakonju was executed for his war crimes in 1947.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lamont-Brown |first=Raymond |title=Ships From Hell: Japanese War Crimes on the High Seas |publisher=Sutton |year=2002 |isbn=0-7509-2719-4 |location=Stroud, Gloucestershire}}</ref>
*[[Japanese submarine I-26]], after sinking the merchant ship SS ''Richard Hovey'' in the [[Arabian Sea]], shot at the crew in their three lifeboats and a two [[life raft]]s. ''I-26'' rammed one lifeboats [[capsizing]] it. ''I-26'' took the captain and three crew POWs.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.usmm.org/felknorhovey.html|title=SS Richard Hovey: a Tale of Japanese Atrocities and Survival by Bruce Felknor|website=www.usmm.org|access-date=8 May 2023|archive-date=29 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210329232541/http://www.usmm.org/felknorhovey.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The four survived and were repatriated after the end of the war.
* Planes from the [[Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryū]] sank and killed crew and passengers in the {{SS|Poelau Bras}}'s lifeboats, sinking six of the nine boats off [[Sumatra]].<ref>[http://muntokpeacemuseum.org/?page_id=27 "SS Poelau Bras Attacked"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230607190326/https://muntokpeacemuseum.org/?page_id=27 |date=7 June 2023 }}. Muntok Peace Museum.</ref>
*[[Japanese submarine I-37|''I-37'']] on 27 November 1943 shot and killed eight crewmen in the MV ''Scotia'' lifeboats. On 22 February 1944 shot at {{SS|British Chivalry}}'s lifeboats, 13 were killed. On 29 February 1944 SS ''Ascot''{{'s}} lifeboats were shot at, leaving only seven survivors.<ref name=combinedfleetI8/>
*[[Japanese submarine I-165|''I-165'']] on 18 March 1944 shot at {{SS|Nancy Moller}}'s lifeboats, killing 23.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Edwards |first=Bernard |title=Blood and Bushido: Japanese Atrocities at Sea 1941–1945 |publisher=Brick Tower Press |year=1997 |isbn=1-883283-18-3 |location=New York |page=162}}</ref>
*[[Japanese submarine I-12|''I-12'']] on 28 October 1944 shot at the lifeboats of the SS ''John A. Johnson'', killing eleven.<ref>[https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/n/naval-armed-guard-service-in-world-war-ii/japanese-atrocities.html "Japanese Atrocities"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720134155/https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/n/naval-armed-guard-service-in-world-war-ii/japanese-atrocities.html |date=20 July 2023 }}. US Navy.</ref>
* One survivor, [[Lord James Blears|James Blears]], a 21-year-old radio operator, of the crew of the {{SS|Tjisalak}}, lived to tell of the torture and execution of the lifeboat crew by submarine ''I-8''. How many other lifeboat crews did not have survivors is not known.<ref name="Ben-Yehuda2013">{{Cite book |last=Ben-Yehuda |first=Nachman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AapQAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 |title=Atrocity, Deviance, and Submarine Warfare: Norms and Practices During the World Wars |date=15 July 2013 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=978-0-472-11889-2 |page=1 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019132939/https://books.google.com/books?id=AapQAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="EastWatt1985">{{Cite book |last=Watt |first=Donald Cameron |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iMFWAAAAYAAJ |title=The Tokyo war crimes trial: index and guide |publisher=Garland |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-8240-4774-0}}</ref>
*[[Japanese submarine I-158#Second war patrol|Cargo ship Langkoeas lifeboats attacked by I-158]] ''I-158'' on 3 January 1942 sank the Dutch cargo ship {{SS|Langkoeas}} and subsequently attacked its lifeboats with machine guns. After interrogating the crew under threat of torture, its commander threw them back into the sea without their lifeboats.
*Tanker Augustina massacre, in the Western Java Sea, 1942, lifeboats machine-gunned, only 2 survived.<ref>[https://www.cnooks.nl/Jubileum/2%20%20Other%20documents/2%20%20History/WW%20I%20&%20WWII/Augustina%201942.pdf Tanker Augustina massacre] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326032224/https://www.cnooks.nl/Jubileum/2%20%20Other%20documents/2%20%20History/WW%20I%20%26%20WWII/Augustina%201942.pdf |date=26 March 2023 }}''cnooks.nl''</ref>

===Using Allied nationals as human shields===
The prohibition of using enemy nationals as [[human shield]]s is based on Article 23 under Section II of the 1907 Fourth Hague Convention, which states: "A belligerent is […] forbidden to compel the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hague04.asp|title=The Avalon Prject - Laws of War : Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907|website=avalon.law.yale.edu}}</ref> A [[World War I]]-era 1915 Belgian report stated "[i]f it be not permissible to compel a man to fire on his fellow citizens, neither can he be forced to protect the enemy and to serve as a living screen."<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1553304/1/7.%20Hovsepyan%20FINAL.pdf#page=3|title=Legality of Attacks Against Human Shields in Armed Conflict|author=Eduard Hovsepyan|pages=170–171|date=2017|journal=UCL Discovery|doi=10.14324/111.2052-1871.083}}</ref>

The application is limited to only enemy nationals and it does not apply to the same persons exposed to dangers from [[aerial warfare|aerial]] and [[naval warfare|naval attack]] since the Fourth Hague Convention only governs [[land warfare]]. The 1949 [[Fourth Geneva Convention]] prohibits parties to the international conflict from using protected persons regardless of nationality as human shields against any type of enemy attacks,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-28?activeTab=undefined|title=Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.: Article 28 - Treatment II. Danger zones|publisher=[[International Committee of the Red Cross]]}}</ref> closing the gaps mentioned in the preceding sentence.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-28/commentary/1958?activeTab=undefined|title=Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.: Commentary of 1958: Article 28 - Treatment II. Danger zones|publisher=[[International Committee of the Red Cross]]}}</ref>

====Battle of Manila (1945)====
During the [[Battle of Manila (1945)|Battle of Manila]] in 1945, Japanese forces used Filipino civilians as human shields to protect their positions against the liberating American troops.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/macarthurs-battle-to-liberate-manila-amid-murder-mayhem/|title=MacArthur's Battle to Liberate Manila Amid Murder & Mayhem|date=2019|website=Warfare History Network}}</ref> Author [[Damien Lewis (filmmaker)|Damien Lewis]] wrote "The Japanese defenders had taken thousand of Filipinos–men, females and children alike–hostage, and were holding them as human shields. Many died in the bombardment and subsequent battles that followed, as the walled city was cleared in bitter street-to-street fighting."<ref>{{cite book|title=Smoky the Brave: How a Feisty Yorkshire Terrier Mascot Became a Comrade-in-Arms During World War II|author=[[Damien Lewis (filmmaker)|Damien Lewis]]|pages=196–197|date=December 4, 2018|publisher=[[Hachette Book Group]]|isbn=9-7803-0692-2565}}</ref> Alec Wahlman wrote:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6dG5CgAAQBAJ&dq=Filipino+civilians+human+shields+Manila+Japanese&pg=PA113|title=Storming the City: U.S. Military Performance in Urban Warfare from World War II to Vietnam|author=Alec Wahlman|pages=113–114|date=2015|publisher=[[University of North Texas Press]]|isbn=9-7815-7441-6190}}</ref>

<blockquote>
Unlike US forces, the Japanese in Manila did not allow the presence of the civilian population to interfere with their operations. In fact, they actively used the population as both shields and targets . . . On one occasion, an American [[Artillery observer|forward observer]] spotted some Japanese moving supplies, while twenty Filipinos were held at gunpoint nearby, including a Filipino girl tied naked to a tree, to avoid drawing American artillery fire.
</blockquote>

An American WWII veteran who fought in the 1945 Battle of Manila stated "the Japanese would use Philippine civilians as human shields when they were trying to get away. The Japs would grab them and drag them in front of them. We couldn't shoot at the Japanese when they had the civilians in front of them."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=syBZEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT1025|title=Pacific War Stories: In the Words of Those Who Survived|editor=Gerald A. Meehl, Rex Alan Smith|date=September 27, 2011|publisher=[[Abbeville Publishing Group]]|isbn=9-7807-8926-0109}}</ref> When American forces reached [[Intramuros]], they realized 4,000 Filipino civilians were held hostage within the wall, most of whom were rounded up by the Japanese and used as human shields. U.S. commanders demanded the Japanese soldiers to surrender or release the hostages but were met in response with silence. American artillery and infantry assaults on the wall began as a result, killing over 1,000 Japanese and taking 25 prisoners, but the ensuing fight with the Japanese defenders also caused considerable and [[collateral damage]] along the way.<ref name="HGXB">{{cite web|url=https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-P-Triumph/USA-P-Triumph-16.html%7C|title=Chapter XVI: Manila: The Last Resistance|author=Robert Ross Smith|website=www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://usa.inquirer.net/117307/manilas-utter-destruction-during-world-war-ii|title=Manila's utter destruction during World War II|author=Dennis Edward Flake |date=November 25, 2022|website=Inquirer.net}}</ref>

The American assault on Intramuros weakened Japanese defenses, and the Japanese decided to release 3,000 hostages, most of them females and children, because most of the men under Japanese captivity were murdered. At the end, the use of human shields along with the Manila massacre by the Japanese resulted in the deaths of 100,000 civilians in the battle.<ref name="HGXB"/>

===Cannibalism===

Many written reports and testimonies which were collected by the Australian War Crimes Section of the Tokyo tribunal, and investigated by prosecutor [[William Webb (judge)|William Webb]] (the tribunal's future Judge-in-Chief), indicate that Japanese personnel committed acts of [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]] against Allied prisoners of war in many parts of Asia and the Pacific. In many cases, these acts of cannibalism were inspired by ever-increasing Allied attacks on Japanese supply lines, and the death and illness of Japanese personnel which resulted from hunger. According to historian Yuki Tanaka: "cannibalism was often a systematic activity which was conducted by whole squads which were under the command of officers".<ref>Tanaka, ''Hidden Horrors'', p. 127</ref> This frequently involved murder for the purpose of securing bodies. For example, an [[British Indian Army|Indian]] POW, ''[[Havildar]]'' Changdi Ram, testified that "[on November 12, 1944] the Kempeitai beheaded [an Allied] pilot. I saw this from behind a tree and watched some of the Japanese cut flesh from his arms, legs, hips, buttocks and carry it off to their quarters&nbsp;... They cut it [into] small pieces and fried it."<ref>[[Lord Russell of Liverpool]] (Edward Russell), ''The Knights of Bushido, a short history of Japanese War Crimes'', Greenhill books, 2002, p. 236.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Ten of Japan's worst War Crimes |url=https://www.pacificwar.org.au/JapWarCrimes/Cross-section_JapWarCrimes.html |website=pacificwar.org.au |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=30 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200930055258/https://www.pacificwar.org.au/JapWarCrimes/Cross-section_JapWarCrimes.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In some cases, flesh was cut from living people: another Indian POW, ''[[Lance Naik]]'' Hatam Ali (later a citizen of [[Pakistan]]), testified in [[New Guinea]] and stated:

{{Blockquote|...&nbsp;the Japanese started selecting prisoners and every day one prisoner was taken out and killed and eaten by the soldiers. I personally saw this happen and about 100 prisoners were eaten at this place by the Japanese. The remainder of us were taken to another spot {{convert|50|mi|km|disp=sqbr}} away where 10 prisoners died of sickness. At this place, the Japanese again started selecting prisoners to eat. Those selected were taken to a hut where their flesh was cut from their bodies while they were alive and they were thrown into a ditch where they later died.<ref>[[Lord Russell of Liverpool]] (Edward Russell), ''The Knights of Bushido, a short history of Japanese War Crimes'', Greenhill books, 2002, p. 121.</ref>}}

According to another account by Jemadar Abdul Latif of 4/9 Jat Regiment of the Indian Army who was rescued by the [[Australian Army]] at the Sepik Bay in 1945:

{{blockquote|At the village of Suaid, a Japanese medical officer periodically visited the Indian compound and selected each time the healthiest men. These men were taken away ostensibly for carrying out duties, but they never reappeared.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Japanese ate Indian PoWs, used them as live targets in WWII |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Japanese-ate-Indian-PoWs-used-them-as-live-targets-in-WWII/articleshow/40017577.cms |access-date=March 6, 2017 |work=The Times of India |date=11 August 2014 |archive-date=13 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230713165214/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Japanese-ate-Indian-PoWs-used-them-as-live-targets-in-WWII/articleshow/40017577.cms |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Perhaps the most senior officer convicted of cannibalism was Lt Gen. [[Yoshio Tachibana]] (立花芳夫,''Tachibana Yoshio''), who with 11 other Japanese personnel was tried in August 1946 in relation to the execution of U.S. Navy airmen, and the cannibalism of at least one of them, during August 1944, on [[Chichijima incident|Chichi Jima]], in the [[Bonin Islands]]. The airmen were beheaded on Tachibana's orders. Because military and international law did not specifically deal with cannibalism, they were tried for murder and "prevention of honorable burial". Tachibana was sentenced to death, and hanged.<ref>[http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/yamashita6.htm] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061208093731/http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/yamashita6.htm|date=8 December 2006}} ''Case No. 21 Trial Of General Tomoyuki Yamashita, United States Military Commission, Manila, (8 October-7 December 1945), and the Supreme Court of the United States (Judgments Delivered On 4 February 1946). Part VI'' (Retrieved on 18 December 2006); [http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/welch_naval_MCs.pdf Jeanie M. Welch, "Without a Hangman, Without a Rope: Navy War Crimes Trials After World War II", ''International Journal of Naval History'', v.1, No. 1, April 2002, pp.&nbsp;5–6] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191103132545/http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/welch_naval_MCs.pdf|date=3 November 2019}}</ref>

=== Avoidable hunger ===

[[File:POWs Burma Thai RR.jpg|thumb|Australian and Dutch prisoners of war at [[Tarsau]] in Thailand, 1943]]

Deaths caused by the diversion of resources to Japanese troops in occupied countries were also considered war crimes,<ref>Marcel Junod, International Red Cross</ref><ref>[https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf Researching Japanese War Crimes] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303190336/http://www.archives.gov/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf |date=3 March 2016 }} January 28, 2015, '' National Archives''</ref> because Article 52 under Section III of the 1907 Fourth Hague Convention states that "Requisitions in kind and services ... shall be in proportion to the resources of the country".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wDW0BQAAQBAJ&pg=PA186|title=Use of Force · War and Neutrality Peace Treaties (N-Z)|author=Rudolf Bernhardt|page=186|date=May 12, 2014|publisher=[[Elsevier]]|isbn=9-7814-8325-7006|access-date=19 October 2023|archive-date=19 October 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019132940/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Use_of_Force_War_and_Neutrality_Peace_Tr/wDW0BQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=&pg=PA186&printsec=frontcover|url-status=live}}</ref> Millions of civilians in Southeast Asia – especially in [[Vietnam]] and [[Dutch East Indies]], which were major producers of rice – died during the avoidable hunger in 1944–45.<ref>{{Cite book |last=de Jong |first=Louis |title=The collapse of a colonial society. The Dutch in Indonesia during the Second World War |publisher=KITLV Press |others=translation by J. Kilian, C. Kist and J. Rudge, introduction by J. Kemperman |year=2002 |isbn=90-6718-203-6 |series=Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 206 |location=Leiden, Netherlands |pages=227–281 |chapter=III Starvation in the Indies}}</ref>

In the [[Vietnamese Famine of 1945]] one to two million Vietnamese starved to death in the Red River delta of northern Vietnam due to the Japanese, as the Japanese seized Vietnamese rice without paying for it. In Phat Diem the Vietnamese farmer Di Ho was one of the few survivors who saw the Japanese steal grain.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gunn |first=Geoffrey |date=17 August 2015 |title=The great Vietnam famine |url=https://www.endofempire.asia/0817-6-the-great-vietnam-famine-4/ |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=17 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220617211855/https://www.endofempire.asia/0817-6-the-great-vietnam-famine-4/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The North Vietnamese government accused both France and Japan of the famine and said 1–2 million Vietnamese died.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gunn |first=Geoffrey |date=24 January 2011 |title=The Great Vietnamese Famine of 1944–45 Revisited 1944–45年ヴィエトナム大飢饉再訪 |url=https://apjjf.org/2011/9/5/Geoffrey-Gunn/3483/article.html |journal=The Asia-Pacific Journal |volume=9 |issue=5 Number 4 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=7 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190107131837/https://apjjf.org/2011/9/5/Geoffrey-Gunn/3483/article.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dũng |first=Bùi Minh |year=1995 |title=Japan's Role in the Vietnamese Starvation of 1944–45 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/japans-role-in-the-vietnamese-starvation-of-194445/8A5205371AAECFB6D6CBE8AD7F70C41F |journal=Modern Asian Studies |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=573–618 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X00014001 |s2cid=145374444 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=10 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180610045032/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/japans-role-in-the-vietnamese-starvation-of-194445/8A5205371AAECFB6D6CBE8AD7F70C41F |url-status=live }}</ref> Võ An Ninh took photographs of dead and dying Vietnamese during the great famine.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hien |first=Nina |date=Spring 2013 |title=The Good, the Bad, and the Not Beautiful: In the Street and on the Ground in Vietnam |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/t/tap/7977573.0003.202/--good-the-bad-and-the-not-beautiful-in-the-street?rgn=main;view=fulltext |journal=Local Culture/Global Photography |volume=3 |issue=2 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=21 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210421041425/https://quod.lib.umich.edu/t/tap/7977573.0003.202/--good-the-bad-and-the-not-beautiful-in-the-street?rgn=main;view=fulltext |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.akg-images.com/archive/-2UMEBM2Y85NV.html |title=Vietnam: Corpses in a mass grave following the 1944–45 famine during the Japanese occupation. Up to 2 million Vietnamese died of starvation. |id=AKG3807269 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=22 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220622003638/https://www.akg-images.com/archive/-2UMEBM2Y85NV.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Vietnamese Famine of 1945 |url=https://japanesevietnam.weebly.com/vietnamese-famine-of-1945.html |website=Japanese Occupation of Vietnam |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=17 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220617211855/https://japanesevietnam.weebly.com/vietnamese-famine-of-1945.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Starving Vietnamese were dying throughout northern Vietnam in 1945 due to the Japanese seizure of their crops. By the time the Chinese came to disarm the Japanese forces, Vietnamese corpses were on the streets of Hanoi and had to be cleaned up by students.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Bui |first1=Diem |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Opb_14GLdXcC&pg=PA40 |title=In the Jaws of History |last2=Chanoff |first2=David |date=1999 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=0253335396 |edition=illustrated, reprint |series=Vietnam war era classics series |pages=39, 40 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019132938/https://books.google.com/books?id=Opb_14GLdXcC&pg=PA40#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Forced labor===
{{Main|Slavery in Japan}}
{{Anti-Korean sentiment in Japan|Anti-Korean tropes}}
[[File:Baoshan1937-Asahi-01-1a.jpg|thumb|Japanese soldiers escorting Chinese forced-labour farm workers, 1937]]

The Japanese military's use of [[forced labor]], by Asian civilians and POWs, also caused many deaths. According to a joint study by historians including Zhifen Ju, Mitsuyoshi Himeta, Toru Kubo and [[Mark Peattie]], more than 10 million Chinese civilians were mobilised by the ''[[Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere#The Kōa-in|Kōa-in]]'' (Japanese Asia Development Board) to perform forced labour.<ref>Zhifen Ju, ''Japan's atrocities of conscripting and abusing north China draftees after the outbreak of the Pacific War'', 2002</ref> More than 100,000 civilians and POWs died in the construction of the [[Death Railway|Burma-Siam Railway]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=links for research, Allied POWs under the Japanese |url=http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/links.html |access-date=21 July 2013 |publisher=Mansell.com |archive-date=1 June 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130601205859/http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/links.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

The [[Library of Congress|U.S. Library of Congress]] estimates that in [[Java (island)|Java]] the Japanese military forced between four and ten million ''[[romusha]]'' (Japanese: "manual laborers") to work.<ref>[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+id0029) Library of Congress, 1992, 'Indonesia: World War II and the Struggle For Independence, 1942–50; The Japanese Occupation, 1942–45'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181203205042/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID%20id0029) |date=3 December 2018 }} Access date: 9 February 2007.</ref> About 270 000 of these Javanese laborers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in Southeast Asia, but only 52 000 were repatriated to Java, likely indicating an eighty percent death rate.

According to historian Akira Fujiwara, Emperor [[Hirohito]] personally ratified the decision to remove the constraints of international law ([[Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907)|The Hague Conventions]]) on the treatment of Chinese prisoners of war in the directive of 5 August 1937. This notification also advised staff officers to stop using the term "prisoners of war".<ref>Fujiwara, ''Nitchū sensō ni okeru horyo gyakusatsu'', 1995</ref> The Geneva Convention exempted POWs of [[sergeant]] rank or higher from manual labour, and stipulated that prisoners performing work should be provided with extra rations and other essentials. Japan was not a signatory to the [[Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War (1929)|1929 Geneva Convention on the Prisoners of War]] at the time, and Japanese forces did not follow the convention, although they ratified the [[Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field (1929)|1929 Geneva Convention on the Sick And Wounded]].<ref name="icrc.org" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/us-prisoners-war-civilian-american-citizens-captured.html|title=US Prisoners of War and Civilian American Citizens Captured|website=NHHC|access-date=8 May 2023}}</ref>

Shortly after the war, Japan's Foreign Ministry wrote a comprehensive report about Chinese laborers. The report estimated that of some 40,000 Chinese laborers taken to Japan, nearly 7,000 had died by the end of the war. The Japanese burned all copies except for one for the fear of that it might become incriminating evidence at the war crimes trials.<ref name="Drea 2006 33">{{cite book|title=Researching Japanese War Crimes|publisher=National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi Warcrimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group|date=2006|page=33|last=Drea|first=Edward}}</ref> In 1958, a Chinese man was discovered hiding in the mountains of [[Hokkaido]]. The man did not know that the war was over, and he was one of thousands of laborers who were taken to Japan. This specific event brought attention to Japan's use of forced Asian labor during the war.<ref>{{cite book|title=Researching Japanese War Crimes|publisher=National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi Warcrimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group|date=2006|page=33|last=Drea|first=Edward}}{{Pd-notice}}</ref>

Korean men and women were the largest group forced into labor in wartime Japan, and many were not able to return to Korea afterwards.<ref name="Drea 2006 33"/>

In the 1930s and 1940s the Japanese in Manchukuo forced all members of the indigenous Hezhen ethnic minority into forced labour camps where entire Hezhen clans died, and only 300 Hezhen survived at the end of World War II. The Hezhen population later regrew to 5,000. Hezhen culture was damaged and only a few Hezhen retained traditional knowledge like making fish skin clothing, like the mother of You Wenfeng.<ref>{{cite news |last=Woo |first=Ryan |date=January 23, 2020 |title=Keeping fish-leather tradition alive China's 'mermaid descendants' weave final garments from skin of fish |url=https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2020/01/23/2003729717 |agency=Reuters |location=TONGJIANG, China}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Bryant |first=Alice |date=January 29, 2020 |title=Fish Skin Clothing Tradition at Risk of Dying Out |url=https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/fish-skin-clothing-tradition-at-risk-of-dying-out/5255747.html |work=Reuters, Voice of America}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=January 24, 2020 |title=Fish Skin Clothing Tradition at Risk of Dying Out |url=https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/5259090.html |work=Voice of America}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Bryant |first=Alice |date=January 29, 2020 |title=2020-01-29 Fish Skin Clothing Tradition at Risk of Dying Out |url=https://voa-story.com/2020-01-29-fish-skin-clothing-tradition-at-risk-of-dying-out/ |work=Reuters, Voice of America}}</ref>

===Rape===
{{See also|Comfort women}}

The expressions ''ianfu'' (慰安婦, {{lang|en|"[[comfort women]]"}}) or ''jūgun ianfu'' (従軍慰安婦, {{lang|en|"women of military comfort"}}) are [[euphemism]]s for women used in military [[brothel]]s in occupied countries, many of whom were forcefully recruited or recruited through fraud, and who are considered victims of [[sexual assault]] and/or [[sexual slavery]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=29 March 2001 |title=Japanese comfort women ruling overturned |work=CNN|url=http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/03/29/japan.comfort.women.02/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081216122655/http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/03/29/japan.comfort.women.02/ |archive-date=16 December 2008}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Sheridan |first=Michael |date=31 July 2005 |title=Black museum of Japan's war crimes |work=The Times |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article549954.ece |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=27 July 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080727011159/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article549954.ece |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In addition to the systematic use of comfort women, Japanese troops engaged in wholesale rape in Nanjing, China. [[John Rabe]], the leader of a Safety Zone in [[Nanjing]], [[China]], kept a diary during the [[Nanjing Massacre]], and wrote about the Japanese atrocities committed against the people in the Safety Zone.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Woods |first=John E. |title=The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe |year=1998 |page=77 |quote=Two Japanese soldiers have climbed over the garden wall and are about to break into our house. When I appear they give the excuse that they saw two Chinese soldiers climb over the wall. When I show them my party badge, they return the same way. In one of the houses in the narrow street behind my garden wall, a woman was raped, and then wounded in the neck with a bayonet. I managed to get an ambulance so we can take her to Kulou Hospital ... Last night up to 1,000 women and girls are said to have been raped, about 100 girls at [[Ginling College]]&nbsp;... alone. You hear nothing but rape. If husbands or brothers intervene, they're shot. What you hear and see on all sides is the brutality and bestiality of the Japanese soldiers.}}<!--ISSN/ISBN needed--></ref>

Japanese soldiers committed mass rapes in [[Manila massacre#Mass rapes|Manila massacre]] in the Philippines. Japanese soldiers in Bayview Hotel, Manila, raped hundreds of Italian, Russian, Spanish, British, American and Filipino women.<ref>{{cite book |last=Min |first=Pyong Gap |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j5QdEAAAQBAJ&dq=russian+italian+bayview+raped&pg=PT70 |title=Korean "Comfort Women": Military Brothels, Brutality, and the Redress Movement |date=2021 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-1978814981 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=5 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231005004433/https://books.google.com/books?id=j5QdEAAAQBAJ&dq=russian+italian+bayview+raped&pg=PT70 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1992, historian [[Yoshiaki Yoshimi]] published material based on his research in archives at Japan's National Institute for Defense Studies. Yoshimi claimed that there was a direct link between imperial institutions such as the [[East Asia Development Board|Kōain]] and "comfort stations". When Yoshimi's findings were published in the [[News media in Japan|Japanese news media]] on 12 January 1993, they caused a sensation and forced the government, represented by Chief Cabinet Secretary [[Koichi Kato (LDP)|Kato Koichi]], to acknowledge some of the facts that same day. On 17 January, Prime Minister [[Kiichi Miyazawa]] presented formal apologies for the suffering of the victims, during a trip in South Korea. On 6 July and 4 August, the Japanese government issued two statements by which it recognised that "Comfort stations were operated in response to the request of the military of the day", "The Japanese military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women", and that the women were "recruited in many cases against their own will through coaxing and coercion".<ref>Yoshiaki Yoshimi, 2001–02, ''Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military during World War II''. Columbia University Press</ref>

Japanese veteran [[Yasuji Kaneko]] admitted to ''[[The Washington Post]]'' that the women "cried out, but it didn't matter to us whether the women lived or died. We were the emperor's soldiers. Whether in military brothels or in the villages, we raped without reluctance."<ref name="Tabuchi"/>

The [[Bahay na Pula]] in the Philippines was an example of a military-operated garrison where local women were raped.<ref>{{Cite news |last=McMullen |first=Jane |date=17 June 2016 |title=The Philippines' forgotten "comfort women" |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36537605 |access-date=29 January 2020 |archive-date=14 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414040646/https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36537605 |url-status=live }}</ref>

On 17 April 2007, Yoshimi and another historian, Hirofumi Hayashi, announced the discovery, in the archives of the Tokyo Trials, of seven official documents suggesting that Imperial military forces, such as the ''[[Tokubetsu Keisatsutai|Tokkeitai]]'' (naval secret police), directly coerced women to work in frontline brothels in China, Indochina and Indonesia. These documents were initially made public at the war crimes trial. In one of these, a lieutenant is quoted as confessing having organized a brothel and having used it himself. Another source refers to ''Tokkeitai'' members having arrested women on the streets, and after enforced medical examinations, putting them in brothels.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Yoshida |first=Reiji |date=18 April 2007 |title=Evidence documenting sex-slave coercion revealed |work=[[The Japan Times]] |url=http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070418a5.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071119022533/http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070418a5.html |archive-date=19 November 2007}}</ref>

On 12 May 2007, journalist Taichiro Kaijimura announced the discovery of 30 Dutch government documents submitted to the [[Tokyo tribunal]] as evidence of a forced massed prostitution incident in 1944 in [[Magelang]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=12 May 2007 |title=Files: Females forced into sexual servitude in wartime Indonesia |work=[[The Japan Times]] |url=http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/05/12/news/files-females-forced-into-sexual-servitude-in-wartime-indonesia/ |access-date=28 December 2016 |archive-date=12 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171112185516/https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/05/12/news/files-females-forced-into-sexual-servitude-in-wartime-indonesia/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In other cases, some victims from [[East Timor]] testified they were dragged from their homes and forced into prostitution at military brothels even when they were not old enough to have started menstruating and were repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers "night after night".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hirano |first=Keiji |date=28 April 2007 |title=East Timor former sex slaves speak out |work=[[The Japan Times]] |url=http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070428f1.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201095546/http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070428f1.html |archive-date=1 December 2008}}</ref>

A Dutch-Indonesian comfort woman, [[Jan Ruff O'Herne]] (who later lived in Australia until her death), who gave evidence to the U.S. committee, said the Japanese Government had failed to take responsibility for its crimes, that it did not want to pay compensation to victims, and that it wanted to rewrite history. Ruff O'Herne said that she had been raped "day and night" for three months by Japanese soldiers when she was 21.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cardy |first=Todd |date=5 March 2007 |title=Japanese PM's denial upsets 'comfort woman' |url=http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21327548-2,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071015164728/http://news.com.au/story/0%2C23599%2C21327548-2%2C00.html |archive-date=15 October 2007}}</ref>

On 26 June 2007, the [[United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs]] passed a resolution asking that Japan "should acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its military's coercion of women into sexual slavery during the war".<ref name="Japan Times: U.S. panel OKs sex slave resolution">{{Cite news |date=28 June 2007 |title=U.S. panel OKs sex slave resolution |work=[[The Japan Times]] |url=http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/06/28/national/u-s-panel-oks-sex-slave-resolution/ |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=6 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406095439/https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/06/28/national/u-s-panel-oks-sex-slave-resolution/ |url-status=live }}</ref> On 30 July 2007, the House of Representatives passed the resolution. Japanese Prime Minister [[Shinzō Abe]] said this decision was "regrettable".<ref name="Japan Times: U.S. panel OKs sex slave resolution" />

Scholars have stated that there were as many as 200,000 comfort women, mostly from Korea,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Min |first=Pyong Gap |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j5QdEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Filipino%2C+Vietnamese%2C+Thai%2C+Indonesian+and+Burmese+women+collectively+also+seem+to+have+made+up+a+significant+proportion+of+the+ACW.%22&pg=PT70 |title=Korean 'Comfort Women': Military Brothels, Brutality, and the Redress Movement |date=2021 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-1978814981 |series=Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019132937/https://books.google.com/books?id=j5QdEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Filipino%2C+Vietnamese%2C+Thai%2C+Indonesian+and+Burmese+women+collectively+also+seem+to+have+made+up+a+significant+proportion+of+the+ACW.%22&pg=PT70#v=onepage&q=%22Filipino%2C%20Vietnamese%2C%20Thai%2C%20Indonesian%20and%20Burmese%20women%20collectively%20also%20seem%20to%20have%20made%20up%20a%20significant%20proportion%20of%20the%20ACW.%22&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> and some other countries such as China, Philippines, Burma, the Dutch East Indies,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Narayanan |first1=Arujunan |date=2002 |title=Japanese war crimes and Allied crimes trials in Borneo during World War II |url=http://journalarticle.ukm.my/404/1/1.pdf |journal=JEBAT |volume=29 |issue= |pages=10, 11 |doi= |access-date=10 April 2023 |archive-date=4 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404043656/http://journalarticle.ukm.my/404/1/1.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |date=2020-12-15 |title=At the Mercy of the Enemy: the Record of a Japanese War Criminal |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/364935212.pdf |journal=教育学論究 |volume=29 |issue=12 |pages=29–40 |doi= |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=12 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230512001213/https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/364935212.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author1=Salbiah bt Mohamed Salleh |author2=Jamil bin Ahmad |author3=Mohd Aderi bin Che Noh |author4=Aminudin bin Hehsan |date=2018 |title= Profil Akhlak Guru Pendidikan Islam Di Malaysia |journal=International Journal of Islamic and Civilizational Studies |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=80–93 |doi=10.11113/umran2018.5n2.187 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Krausse |first1=Gerald H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7KoUAQAAIAAJ&q=%22had+to+wear+identification+tags+.+Some+270%2C000+Indonesians+were+conscripted+to+work+in+Burma+%2C+but+only+7%2C000+returned+%3B+many+thousands+were+kept+in+Japan+as+prisoners+of+war+and+never+came+back+.+Indonesian+women+were+routinely+rounded+up+to+serve+as+prostitutes+in+Japanese+army+camps+.%22 |title=Indonesia |last2=Krausse |first2=Sylvia Engelen |last3=Krausse |first3=Sylvia C. Engelen |date=1994 |publisher=Clio Press |isbn=1851091270 |edition=2 |series=Volume 170 of World bibliographical series |volume=170 of ABC-CLIO World Bibliographical |location= |page=xxviii |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=31 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230531003241/https://books.google.com/books?id=7KoUAQAAIAAJ&q=%22had+to+wear+identification+tags+.+Some+270,000+Indonesians+were+conscripted+to+work+in+Burma+,+but+only+7,000+returned+;+many+thousands+were+kept+in+Japan+as+prisoners+of+war+and+never+came+back+.+Indonesian+women+were+routinely+rounded+up+to+serve+as+prostitutes+in+Japanese+army+camps+.%22 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=O'Neill |first=Claire |date=June 4, 2017 |title=Comfort Women: Untold Stories Of Wartime Abuse |work=NPR |location= |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2011/06/04/134271795/comfort-women-untold-stories-of-wartime-abuse |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=20 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720135519/https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2011/06/04/134271795/comfort-women-untold-stories-of-wartime-abuse |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Geerken |first=Horst H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YqhUdrlRDFUC&dq=%22women+were+forced+into+prostitution+and+often+kept+for+months+in+the+barracks+of+the%22&pg=PA145 |title=A Gecko for Luck: 18 years in Indonesia |date=2015 |publisher=BoD – Books on Demand |isbn=978-3839152485 |edition=2 |location= |page=145 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=20 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720135615/https://books.google.com/books?id=YqhUdrlRDFUC&dq=%22women+were+forced+into+prostitution+and+often+kept+for+months+in+the+barracks+of+the%22&pg=PA145 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Excessive citations inline|date=May 2023}} Netherlands,<ref>{{Cite news |date=19 March 2007 |title=Comfort Women Were 'Raped': U.S. Ambassador to Japan |publisher=[[The Chosun Ilbo]] & Chosun |url=http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2007/03/19/2007031961023.html |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217095038/http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2007/03/19/2007031961023.html |url-status=live }}</ref> and Australia<ref>{{Cite news |last=Moynihan |first=Stephen |date=3 March 2007 |title=Abe ignores evidence, say Australia's comfort women |publisher=The Age |location=Melbourne |url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/abe-ignores-evidence-say-australias-comfort-women/2007/03/02/1172338881441.html |access-date=21 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013150327/http://theage.com.au/news/world/abe-ignores-evidence-say-australias-comfort-women/2007/03/02/1172338881441.html |archive-date=13 October 2007}}</ref> were forced to engage in sexual activity.<ref>{{Cite web |last=McCormack |first=Gavan |date=6 February 2005 |title=How the History Wars in Japan Left a Black Mark on NHK TV (Their BBC) |url=http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/9954 |publisher=History News Network |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=5 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405211354/http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/9954 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Soh |first=C. Sarah |date=May 2001 |title=Japan's Responsibility Toward Comfort Women Survivors |url=http://www.jpri.org/publications/workingpapers/wp77.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120628222046/http://www.jpri.org/publications/workingpapers/wp77.html |archive-date=28 June 2012 |access-date=8 October 2006 |publisher=Japan Policy Research Institute}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Nozaki |first=Yoshiko |date=3 September 2005 |title=The Horrible History of the 'Comfort Women' and the Fight to Suppress Their Story |url=http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/13533 |publisher=History News Network |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=20 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720135538/http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/13533 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Dudden |first=Alexis |date=25 April 2006 |title=US Congressional Resolution Calls on Japan to Accept Responsibility for Wartime Comfort Women |url=http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10155 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060430130545/http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10155 |archive-date=30 April 2006 |publisher=ZNet}}</ref>{{Excessive citations inline|date=May 2023}}

Japanese use of Malays, Javanese<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stetz |first1=Margaret D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RW2mBgAAQBAJ&dq=%22fifty+Javanese+girls+were+strictly+supervised+by+a+Japanese+woman%22&pg=PA62 |title=Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II |last2=Oh |first2=Bonnie B. C. |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1317466253 |edition=illustrated |location= |pages=61–64 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=20 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720135754/https://books.google.com/books?id=RW2mBgAAQBAJ&dq=%22fifty+Javanese+girls+were+strictly+supervised+by+a+Japanese+woman%22&pg=PA62 |url-status=live }}</ref> Thai, Burmese, Filipino and Vietnamese women as comfort women was corroborated by testimonies. As a result of the rape, many women were infected with sexually transmitted diseases.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tanaka |first=Yuki |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mV5dymPXNBgC&dq=%22verify+that+other+Asian+women,+such+as+Vietnamese+and+Malaysians,+were+also+exploited+for+the+same+purpose+by+the+Japanese%22&pg=PA60 |title=Japan's Comfort Women |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=1134650124 |page=60 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220722182502/https://dokumen.pub/japans-comfort-women-asias-transformations-1nbsped-0415194008-9780415194006.html |archive-date=2022-07-22 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Stetz |first1=Margaret D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RW2mBgAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA126 |title=Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II |last2=Oh |first2=Bonnie B. C. |date=12 February 2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1317466253 |edition=illustrated |page=126 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019132937/https://books.google.com/books?id=RW2mBgAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA126#v=onepage&q=tanaka%20comfort%20vietnamese%20burmese&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Min |first=Pyong Gap |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j5QdEAAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PT70 |title=Korean 'Comfort Women': Military Brothels, Brutality, and the Redress Movement |date=2021 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-1978814981 |series=Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019133429/https://books.google.com/books?id=j5QdEAAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PT70#v=onepage&q=tanaka%20comfort%20vietnamese%20burmese&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nIeBYY-TpMsC&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA209 |title=Double Agency: Acts of Impersonation in Asian American Literature and Culture |date=2005 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=0804751862 |page=209 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019133523/https://books.google.com/books?id=nIeBYY-TpMsC&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA209#v=onepage&q=tanaka%20comfort%20vietnamese%20burmese&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Thoma |first=Pamela |title=Asian American Women: The Frontiers Reader |date=2004 |publisher=U of Nebraska Press |isbn=0803296274 |editor-last=Vo |editor-first=Linda Trinh |edition=illustrated, reprinted |page=175 |chapter=Cultural Autobiography, Testimonial, and Asian American Transnational Feminist Coalition in the 'Comfort Women of World War II' Conference |editor-last2=Sciachitano |editor-first2=Marian |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CNZ-DsVg5T8C&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA175 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019133437/https://books.google.com/books?id=CNZ-DsVg5T8C&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA175#v=onepage&q=tanaka%20comfort%20vietnamese%20burmese&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Excessive citations inline|date=May 2023}} There were comfort women stations in Malaya, Indonesia, Philippines, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Korea.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yoon |first=Bang-Soon L. |title=Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Interactions, Nationalism, Gender and Lineage |date=2015 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-9004292932 |editor-last=Kowner |editor-first=Rotem |edition=reprint |series=Brill's Series on Modern East Asia in a Global Historical Perspective |page=464 |chapter=Chapter 20: Sexualized Racism, Gender and Nationalism: The Case of Japan's Sexual Enslavement of Korean 'Comfort Women' |editor-last2=Demel |editor-first2=Walter |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6Tq2CAAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA464 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019133951/https://books.google.com/books?id=6Tq2CAAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA464#v=onepage&q=tanaka%20comfort%20vietnamese%20burmese&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Qiu |first1=Peipei |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HDyFAwAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA215 |title=Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan's Sex Slaves |last2=Su |first2=Zhiliang |last3=Chen |first3=Lifei |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199373895 |edition=illustrated |series=Oxford oral history series |page=215 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019133948/https://books.google.com/books?id=HDyFAwAAQBAJ&dq=tanaka+comfort+vietnamese+burmese&pg=PA215#v=onepage&q=tanaka%20comfort%20vietnamese%20burmese&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>

After the defeat of Japan, some of the non-European victims received no compensation or apology<ref>{{cite news |last=O'Neill |first=Claire |date=June 4, 2011 |title=Comfort Women: Untold Stories of Wartime Abuse |work=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2011/06/04/134271795/comfort-women-untold-stories-of-wartime-abuse |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=20 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720135519/https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2011/06/04/134271795/comfort-women-untold-stories-of-wartime-abuse |url-status=live }}</ref> and the exploitation of them was ignored.<ref>{{cite book |last=Tanaka |first=Yuki |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mV5dymPXNBgC&dq=%22Dutch+were+equally+indifferent+to+victims+who+were+not+white+and+Dutch%22&pg=PA78 |title=Japan's Comfort Women |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=1134650124 |pages=78–82, 85, 86 |quote=As much as the Japanese were unconcerned about the exploitation of non-Europeans, the Dutch were equally indifferent to victims who were not white and Dutch. However, there were at least two exceptional cases brought by the Dutch ... |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=23 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423140214/https://books.google.com/books?id=mV5dymPXNBgC&dq=%22Dutch+were+equally+indifferent+to+victims+who+were+not+white+and+Dutch%22&pg=PA78 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://dokumen.pub/japans-comfort-women-asias-transformations-1nbsped-0415194008-9780415194006.html | title=Japan's Comfort Women (Asia's Transformations) | edition=1st | isbn=9780415194006 | last1=Tanaka | first1=Toshiyuki | year=2002 | publisher=Psychology Press | access-date=19 October 2023 | archive-date=25 July 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220725051737/https://dokumen.pub/japans-comfort-women-asias-transformations-1nbsped-0415194008-9780415194006.html | url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Stetz |first1=Margaret D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RW2mBgAAQBAJ&dq=%22Dutch+were+equally+indifferent+to+victims+who+were+not+white+and+Dutch%22&pg=PA61 |title=Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II |last2=Oh |first2=Bonnie B. C. |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1317466253 |edition=illustrated |location= |pages=61–68 |quote=Japanese were unconcerned about the non-Europeans, so too the Dutch were equally indifferent to non-European victims who were not white and Dutch. |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=23 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423140212/https://books.google.com/books?id=RW2mBgAAQBAJ&dq=%22Dutch+were+equally+indifferent+to+victims+who+were+not+white+and+Dutch%22&pg=PA61 |url-status=live }}</ref>

As the Dutch implemented a war of attrition and scorch earth, they forced Chinese on Java to flee inland, and the Dutch destroyed all important assets, including Chinese factories and property. Local Indonesians joined in on the Dutch violence against the Chinese, looting Chinese property and trying to attack Chinese citizens. However, when the Japanese troops landed and seized control of Java from the Dutch, to people's surprise, the Japanese forced the native Indonesians to stop looting and attacking Chinese and warned the Indonesians they would not tolerate anti-Chinese violence in Java. The Japanese viewed the Chinese in Java and their economic power specifically as important and vital to the Japanese war effort, so they did not physically harm the Chinese of Java, and no known execution or torture of Chinese citizens took place (unlike in other places). There was no violent confrontation between Japanese and Chinese on Java, unlike in British Malaya. The Japanese also allowed Chinese of Java in the Federation of Overseas-Chinese Associations (Hua Chiao Tsung Hui) to form the Keibotai, their own armed Chinese defence corps for protection with Japanese military instructors training them how to shoot and use spears. The Chinese viewed this as important to defending themselves from local Indonesians. The majority of Chinese of Java did not die in the war. It was only after the war ended when Japanese control fell and then the native Indonesians again started attacks against the Chinese of Java when the Japanese were unable to protect them.<ref>{{cite book |last=Touwen-Bouwsma |first=Elly |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NZWqvMBu80kC&pg=PA57 |title=Southeast Asian Minorities in the Wartime Japanese Empire |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1136125065 |editor-last=Kratoska |editor-first=Paul H. |pages=57–61 |chapter=Four: Japanese Policy towards the Chinese on Java, 1942-1945: A Preliminary Outline}}</ref>

In Java, the Japanese heavily recruited Javanese girls as comfort women and brought them to New Guinea, Malaya, Thailand and other areas foreign to Indonesia besides using them in Java itself. The Japanese brought Javanese women as comfort women to Buru island, and Kalimantan. The Japanese recruited help from local collaborator police of all ethnicities to recruit Javanese girls, with one account accusing Chinese recruiters of tricking a Javanese regent into sending good Javanese girls into prostitution for the Japanese in May 1942. The Japanese also lied to the Javanese telling them that their girls would become waitresses and actresses when recruiting them.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4t95DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA191 |title=The Encyclopedia of Indonesia in the Pacific War: In cooperation with the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation |date=2009 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-9004190177 |editor-last=Post |editor-first=Peter |volume=19 of Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 3 Southeast Asia |page=191 |author-link=}}</ref> The Japanese brought Javanese women as comfort women prostitutes to Kupang in Timor while in East Timor the Japanese took local women in Dili. In Bali, the Japanese sexually harassed Balinese women when they came and started forcing Balinese women into brothels for prostitution, with Balinese men and Chinese men used as recruiters for the Balinese women. All of the brothels in Bali were staffed by Balinese women.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4t95DwAAQBAJ&dq=chinese+men+and+a+couple+of+balinese+men&pg=PA192 |title=The Encyclopedia of Indonesia in the Pacific War: In cooperation with the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation |date=2009 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-9004190177 |editor-last=Post |editor-first=Peter |volume=19 of Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 3 Southeast Asia |page=193 |author-link=}}</ref> In brothels in Kalimantan, native Indonesian women made up 80% of the prostitutes.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Encyclopedia of Indonesia in the Pacific War: In cooperation with the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation |date=2009 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-9004190177 |editor-last=Post |editor-first=Peter |volume=19 of Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 3 Southeast Asia |page=193 |author-link=}}</ref> Javanese girls and local girls were used in a Japanese brothel in Ambon in Batu Gantung. European Dutch women were overrepresented in documents on Dutch East Indies comfort women which did not reflect the actual reality because the Dutch did not care about native Indonesian women being victimised by Japan, refusing to prosecute cases against them since Indonesia was not a UN member at the time.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Encyclopedia of Indonesia in the Pacific War: In cooperation with the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation |date=2009 |isbn=978-9004190177 |editor-last=Post |editor-first=Peter |volume=19 of Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 3 Southeast Asiapublisher=BRILL |page=195 |publisher=BRILL |author-link=}}</ref> Javanese comfort women who were taken by Japanese to islands outside Java were treated differently depending on whether they stayed on those islands or returned to Java. Since Javanese society was sexually permissive and they kept it secret from other Javanese, the Javanese women who returned to Java fared better, but the Javanese women who stayed on the islands like Buru were treated harsher by their hosts since they locals in Buru were more patriarchal.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4t95DwAAQBAJ&dq=relatively+permissive+javanese&pg=PA196 |title=The Encyclopedia of Indonesia in the Pacific War: In cooperation with the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation |date=2009 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-9004190177 |editor-last=Post |editor-first=Peter |volume=19 of Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 3 Southeast Asia |page=196 |author-link=}}</ref> The Japanese murdered Christians and forced girls into prostitution in Timor and Sumba, desecrating sacred vessels and vestments in churches and using the churches as brothels. Javanese girls were brought as prostitutes by the Japanese to Flores and Buru.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Hului |first=Patricia |date=July 19, 2021 |title=The influence of Catholicism on Flores island during WWII |url=https://kajomag.com/the-influence-of-catholicism-on-flores-island-during-wwii/ |magazine=Kajo Mag |location= }}</ref> Eurasians, Indians, Chinese, Dutch, Menadonese, Bataks, Bugis, Dayaks, Javanese, Arabs and Malays were arrested and massacred in the Mandor affair.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Hului |first=Patricia |date=September 18, 2019 |title=The Mandor Affair, the massacres in West Kalimantan during WWII |url=https://kajomag.com/the-mandor-affair-the-massacres-in-west-kalimantan-during-wwii/ |magazine=Kajo Mag |location= }}</ref>

The Japanese brought Indonesian Javanese girls to British Borneo as comfort women to be raped by Japanese officers at the Ridge road school and Basel Mission Church, and the Telecommunication Center Station (former rectory of the All Saints Church) in Kota Kinabalu as well as ones in Balikpapan and Beaufort. Japanese soldiers raped Indonesian women and Dutch women in the Netherlands East Indies. Many of the women were infected with STDs as a result.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Narayanan |first1=Arujunan |date=2002 |title=Japanese war crimes and Allied crimes trials in Borneo during World War II |url=http://journalarticle.ukm.my/404/1/1.pdf |journal=JEBAT |volume=29 |issue= |pages=10, 11 |doi= |access-date=8 April 2023 |archive-date=4 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404043656/http://journalarticle.ukm.my/404/1/1.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |date=2020-12-15 |title=At the Mercy of the Enemy: the Record of a Japanese War Criminal |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/364935212.pdf |journal=教育学論究 |volume=29 |issue=12 |pages=29–40 |doi=}}</ref> Sukarno prostituted Indonesian girls from ethnic groups like Minangkabau to the Japanese.<ref>{{cite book |last=Penders |first=Christian Lambert Maria |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WswLAAAAIAAJ&q=%22This+impression+is+reinforced+by+Sukarno%27s+own+glowing+reports26+of+how+he+was+successful+in+regulating+rice+supplies+in+Padang+and+in+procuring+prostitutes+for+the+Japanese+soldiers+,+activities+which+cannot+exactly+be+described+as+...%22 |title=The Life and Times of Sukarno |date=1974 |publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson |isbn=0283484144 |edition=illustrated |page=64 |quote=This impression is reinforced by Sukarno's own glowing reports26 of how he was successful in regulating rice supplies in Padang and in procuring prostitutes for the Japanese soldiers , activities which cannot exactly be described as ...}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Friend |first=Theodore |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_w6Mn4xRLt8C&dq=sukarno+prostitution+japanese&pg=PA27 |title=Indonesian Destinies |date=2009 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0674037359 |edition=unabridged |page=27 |quote=Sukarno's first administrative act, he acknowledges, was to gather 120 prostitutes as "volunteers" to be penned in a special camp for service to Japanese soldiers. He congratulated himself on simultaneously enhancing the women's income, sating the lust of the invaders, and thereby protecting virtuous Minangkabau maidens.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Levenda |first=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UsyhkoJTqzYC&dq=sukarno+prostitution+japanese&pg=PA52 |title=Tantric Temples: Eros and Magic in Java |date=2011 |publisher=Nicolas-Hays, Inc. |isbn=978-0892546015 |page=52}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Geerken |first=Horst H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YqhUdrlRDFUC&dq=peta+prostitutes+japanese+indonesian&pg=PA145 |title=A Gecko for Luck: 18 years in Indonesia |date=2015 |publisher=BoD – Books on Demand |isbn=978-3839152485 |edition=2 |page=145}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Krausse |first1=Gerald H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7KoUAQAAIAAJ&q=%22had+to+wear+identification+tags+.+Some+270,000+Indonesians+were+conscripted+to+work+in+Burma+,+but+only+7,000+returned+;+many+thousands+were+kept+in+Japan+as+prisoners+of+war+and+never+came+back+.+Indonesian+women+were+routinely+rounded+up+to+serve+as+prostitutes+in+Japanese+army+camps+.%22 |title=Indonesia |last2=Krausse |first2=Sylvia C. Engelen |date=1994 |publisher=Clio Press |isbn=1851091270 |edition=2nd |page=xxviii |quote=had to wear identification tags. Some 270,000 Indonesians were conscripted to work in Burma, but only 7,000 returned; many thousands were kept in Japan as prisoners of war and never came back. Indonesian women were routinely rounded up to serve as prostitutes in Japanese army camps.}}</ref> The Japanese destroyed many documents related to their rape of Indonesian Javanese girls at the end of the war so the true extent of the mass rape is uncountable, but testimony witnesses records the names and accounts of Indonesian Javanese comfort women.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stetz |first1=Margaret D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RW2mBgAAQBAJ&dq=%22fifty+Javanese+girls+were+strictly+supervised+by+a+Japanese+woman%22&pg=PA62 |title=Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II |last2=Oh |first2=Bonnie B. C. |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1317466253 |edition=illustrated |location= |pages=61–64 |author-link=}}</ref>

Japanese in one instance tried to disguise the Javanese comfort girls they were raping as red cross nurses with red cross armbands when they surrendered to Australian soldiers in Kupang, Timor.<ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/120083 |title=Koepang, Timor 1945-10-02. Timforce. Twenty Six Javanese Girls Who Were Liberated at Koepang From Japanese Brothels. Just Prior to Their Release the Japanese Issued Them With Red Cross Arm Bands in an Attempt to Camouflage the Foul Manner in Which These Girls Had Been Used. Young Lady in Chief of the Girls Is Komoriah. She is Holding the Doll She Kept Throughout Her Enforced Stay in Japanese Hands. (Photographer K. B. Davis) |date=2 October 1945 |publisher=Australian War Memorial |id=120083 |people=comfort women}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/120087 |title=Koepang, Timor 1945-10-02. Timforce. Twenty Six Javanese Girls Who Were Liberated at Koepang From Japanese Brothels. Just Prior to Their Release the Japanese Issued Them With Red Cross Arm Bands in an Attempt to Camouflage the Foul Manner in Which These Girls Had Been Used. These Girls Will Now Be Cared For By The Netherlands Indies Civil Administration. (Photographer K. B. Davis) |date=2 October 1945 |publisher=Australian War Memorial |id=120087 |people=comfort women}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Tanaka |first=Yuki |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mV5dymPXNBgC&dq=They+were+living+in+the+ruins+of+the+Japanese+comfort+station+at+Beaufort+(presently+Weston)+on+the+Padas+River+in+...+The+Japanese+tried+to+camouflage+this+by+making+them+wear+Red+Cross+armbands.63+The+Australian+forces+apparently+had+...&pg=PA81 |title=Japan's Comfort Women |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=1134650124 |page=81}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Stetz |first1=Margaret D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RW2mBgAAQBAJ&dq=The+Japanese+tried+to+camouflage+this+by+making+them+wear+Red+Cross+armbands.%22+It+seems+that+the+Australian+forces+had+no+intention+of+finding+out+which+Japanese+were+responsible+for+crimes+against+these+Indonesian+women.&pg=PA63 |title=Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II |last2=Oh |first2=Bonnie B. C. |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1317466253 |edition=illustrated |location= |page=63}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B1u7AAAAIAAJ&q=Japan%27s+Comfort+Women+,+Theirs+and+Ours+by+Murray+Sayle+Late+in+August+1944+,+Australian+troops+securing+the+island+of+Timor+after+Japan%27s+surrender+came+across+a+group+of+40+young+Javanese+women+wearing+Red+Cross+armbands+,+although |title=JPRI Critique: A Publication of the Japan Policy Research Institute, Volume 9 |publisher=Japan Policy Research Institute |page=1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Post |first=Peter |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4t95DwAAQBAJ&dq=Twenty-six+Javanese+girls,+liberated+from+Japanese+brothels+in+Kupang+(Timor).+Just+before+their+release,+the+Japanese+issued+them+with+Red+Cross+arm+bands+in+an+attempt+to+camouflage+the+fact+that+they+had+been+used+Because+r%C5%8Dmusha+...&pg=PA194 |title=The Encyclopedia of Indonesia in the Pacific War: In cooperation with the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation |date=2009 |publisher=Brill|isbn=978-9004190177 |editor1-last=Post |editor1-first=Peter |chapter=4. Occupation: Coercion and Control |at=p. 194; column 19; van Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 3 Southeast Asia}}</ref>

In addition to disguising the Java girls with Red Cross armbands some Dutch girls were also brought to Kupang and native girls from Kupang were also kidnapped by the Japanese while the native men were forced into hard labour.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mackie |first=Vera |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tiUlDwAAQBAJ&dq=A+native+who+worked+in+a+Koepang+cafe+before+the+war+said+that+the+Japanese+forfeited+co-operation+of+the+natives+by+...+japanese+returned+them+to+bima+dressed+in+the+red+cross+uniforms+they+originally+wore+to+timor+break+the+japanese+...&pg=PA140 |title=Sources and Methods in Histories of Colonialism: Approaching the Imperial Archive |date=2017 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1351986632 |editor1-last=Reid |editor1-first=Kirsty |edition=illustrated |series=Routledge Guides to Using Historical Sources |page=140 |chapter=Gender, geopolitics and gaps in the records |editor2-last=Paisley |editor2-first=Fiona }}</ref>

Indian and Javanese captives in Biak were freed from Japanese control by Allied forces.<ref>{{cite book |last=Boyer |first=Allen D |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4QylDgAAQBAJ&dq=...+lumber+and+sawmills;+officers%27+clubs;+pornography;+proposed+Red+Cross+post+clubs;+PX+(post+exchange)+operations;+...+improvements+and+comforts;+infantry+fighting;+Japanese+resistance;+Javanese+and+Indian+prisoners+liberated;+...&pg=PT227 |title=Rocky Boyer's War: An Unvarnished History of the Air Blitz that Won the War in the Southwest Pacific |date=2017 |publisher=Naval Institute Press |isbn=978-1682470978}}</ref>

Only 70,000 Javanese survived out of 260,000 Javanese forced to labour on the death railway between Burma and Thailand.<ref>{{cite book |last=Trevor |first=Malcolm |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PrAoHzoP1QkC&dq=...+260,000+Javanese+sent+to+the+railway+and+else-+where+,+only+70,000+returned+home+.+Those+working+on+the+railway+included+Burmese+,+Chinese+,+Indians+,+Malays+,+Thais+and+Vietnamese+.+Acting+for+the+Red+Cross+,+the+British+government+...&pg=PA124 |title=Japan: Restless Competitor : the Pursuit of Economic Nationalism |date=2001 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=1903350026 |edition=illustrated |page=124}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Trevor |first=Malcolm |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=arldAgAAQBAJ&dq=...+260,000+Javanese+sent+to+the+railway+and+else-+where+,+only+70,000+returned+home+.+Those+working+on+the+railway+included+Burmese+,+Chinese+,+Indians+,+Malays+,+Thais+and+Vietnamese+.+Acting+for+the+Red+Cross+,+the+British+government+...&pg=PA124 |title=Japan - Restless Competitor: The Pursuit of Economic Nationalism |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1134278411 |page=124}}</ref>

In August 1945, the Japanese were getting ready to execute female European internees by shooting in the Dutch East Indies and their plans were only stopped by the atomic bomb with the plans and list of detainees already written down.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jennings |first1=Captain Mick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FhMZEAAAQBAJ&dq=The+Javanese+nationalist+movement+who+wanted+to+take+back+Indonesia+from+the+Dutch+were+on+the+rampage.+...+The+Japanese,+afraid+of+retribution+from+the+Allies,+started+handing+out+Red+Cross+parcels+and+mail+and+even+gave+a+concert+for+...&pg=PA168 |title=Escape to Japanese Captivity: A Couple's Tragic Ordeal in Sumatra, 1942–1945 |last2=Jennings |first2=Margery |date=2021 |publisher=Pen and Sword Military |isbn=978-1526783127 |page=168}}</ref>

Francis Stanley (Frank) Terry, an Australian sailor on a naval vessel, participated in the repatriation of Indonesian Javanese comfort women from islands across Indonesia back to their home.<ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/S01794 |title=F3781 Francis Stanley Terry as a cook; minesweeper HMAS Mercedes and corvette HMAS Warrnambool; Australian western approaches and northern and eastern waters; 1941-1946; interviewed by John Roberts |date=27 July 1995 |type= |language= |time=! Hour Australian War Memorial |format=TDK D60 Cassette |id=S01794 |people=Terry, Francis Stanley (Frank) Roberts, Niall John}}</ref><ref>https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/awm-media/collection/S01794/document/1866247.PDF {{bare URL inline|date=March 2024}}</ref><ref>Francis Stanley Terry (cook; minesweeper HMAS Mercedes and corvette HMAS Warrnambool; Australian western approaches and northern and eastern waters; 1941-1946), oral history interview, 27 July 1995, AWM, S01794.</ref>

The Dutch royal family and government seized the money from Japanese comfort women prostitution in the Dutch East Indies territory for itself instead of compensating the women.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Molemans |first1=Griselda |last2=Park |first2=Hee Seok |date=August 15, 2022 |title=Both the State and the royal family benefited from the earnings of Dutch East Indies 'comfort women' |url=https://www.pabst-science-publishers.com/current/news-archiv/details-archive/both-the-state-and-the-royal-family-benefited-from-the-earnings-of-dutch-east-indies-comfort-women.html |website=Follow The Money}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Molemans |first1=Griselda |last2=Park |first2=Hee Seok |date=August 15, 2022 |title=Both the State and the royal family benefited from the earnings of Dutch East Indies 'comfort women' |url=https://www.ftm.eu/articles/dutch-state-and-royal-family-profited-from-money-comfort-women?share=oGtVAb11Rh%2BAGTmJxQgR9t2033uPclbxiZiOALN1ovwnfKYlf3MPVNkKTcbf1zc%3D |website=Follow The Money}}</ref>

The Japanese forced Javanese women to work in brothels and Javanese men to become forced labour at airstrips in Labuan, Borneo. The Javanese men were worked to starvation, resembling skeletons, barely able to move and were sick with beri beri by the time they were freed in June 1945 by Australians.<ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C170219 |title=Javanese slaves in native compound sick ward |date=1945 |publisher=Australian War Memorial |id=C170219 |people=slaves, Friend, Donald}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C170216 |title=Javanese slaves in native compound sick ward |date=1945 |publisher=Australian War Memorial |id=C170216 |people=slaves, Friend, Donald}}</ref> The Japanese reserved a house as a brothel and officer's club on Fox Road in Labuan.<ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C375607 |title=Labuan. September 1945. A private house in Fox Road used by the Japanese as an Officer's club and brothel. (Donor R. Fullford) |date=1945 |publisher=Australian War Memorial |id=C375607 |people=brothel}}</ref>

On 28 August 1945, the British and Australians gave medical treatment to 300 Javanese and Malay men slaves of the Japanese who were malnourished and starving from forced labour.<ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/115185 |title=Miri, Borneo. 1945-08-28. Over 300 Natives, Malay and Javanese, Escaped From the Japanese and Are Now in the British Borneo Civil Administration Compound. Shown Above, a Group of Men Typical of the Malnutrition Cases Being Treated at the Compound. |date=28 August 1945 |publisher=Australian War Memorial |id=115185 |people=Malay and Javanese}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/115187 |title=Miri, Borneo. 1945-08-28. Some of the 300 Natives, Malay and Japanese, Who Escaped From the Japanese and Are Now in the British Borneo Civil Administration Compound. |date=28 August 1945 |publisher=Australian War Memorial |id=115187 |people=Malay and Javanese}}</ref>

Many Indonesian comfort females were reluctant to talk about their experiences due to shame. A 10-year-old Indonesian girl named Niyem from Karamangmojo in Yogyakarta was repeatedly raped for two months by Japanese soldiers along with other Indonesian girls in West Java. She did not tell her parents what the Japanese did to her when she managed to flee.<ref>{{cite news |last=O'Neill |first=Claire |date=June 4, 2011 |title=Comfort Women: Untold Stories Of Wartime Abuse |work=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2011/06/04/134271795/comfort-women-untold-stories-of-wartime-abuse}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Hirano |first=Keiji |date=Oct 19, 2015 |title=Photo exhibition shows pain of Indonesian former 'comfort women' |work=[[The Japan Times]] |location=Kyodo |url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2015/10/19/arts/photo-exhibition-shows-pain-indonesian-former-comfort-women/}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=O'Neill |first=Claire |date=June 4, 2011 |title=Comfort Women: Untold Stories Of Wartime Abuse |work=wbur |url=https://www.wbur.org/npr/134271795/comfort-women-untold-stories-of-wartime-abuse}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://library.panos.co.uk/stock-photo-niyem-born-1933-was-one-of-tens-of-thousands-of-comfort-women-forced-panos-image00117720.html |title=Comfort Women |publisher=panos pictures |location=Karangmojo, Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia |format=picture |id=JBA00738INN |people=Niyem (born 1933), Jan Banning}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://library.panos.co.uk/features/stories/comfort-women.html#0_00117720 |title=Comfort Women |publisher=panos pictures |location=Karangmojo, Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia |format=picture |id=JBA00738INN |people=Niyem (born 1933), Jan Banning}}</ref>

The Japanese killed four million Indonesians.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Baird |first1=J. Kevin |date=January 1, 2016 |title=War Crimes in Japan-Occupied Indonesia: Unraveling the Persecution of Achmad Mochtar |url=https://apjjf.org/2016/01/4-Baird.html |journal=Japan Focus: The Asia-Pacific Journal |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages= |doi= }}</ref> After the defeat of Japan, the Dutch generally did not care about Japanese rape of non-white, native Indonesian Muslim girls and most of the time they only charged Japanese war criminals for rape of white Dutch women.<ref>{{cite book |last=Tanaka |first=Yuki |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mV5dymPXNBgC&dq=%22Dutch+were+equally+indifferent+to+victims+who+were+not+white+and+Dutch%22&pg=PA78 |title=Japan's Comfort Women |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=1134650124 |pages=78–82, 85, 86 |quote=As much as the Japanese were unconcerned about the exploitation of non-Europeans, the Dutch were equally indifferent to victims who were not white and Dutch. However, there were at least two exceptional cases brought by the Dutch ...}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://dokumen.pub/japans-comfort-women-asias-transformations-1nbsped-0415194008-9780415194006.html | title=Japan's Comfort Women (Asia's Transformations) &#91;1 ed.&#93; 0415194008, 9780415194006 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Stetz |first1=Margaret D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RW2mBgAAQBAJ&dq=%22Dutch+were+equally+indifferent+to+victims+who+were+not+white+and+Dutch%22&pg=PA61 |title=Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II |last2=Oh |first2=Bonnie B. C. |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1317466253 |edition=illustrated |location= |pages=61–68 |quote=... Japanese were unconcerned about the exploitation of non-Europeans, so too the Dutch were equally indifferent to victims who were not white and Dutch.}}</ref>

Suharto silenced public discussion in Indonesian on Japanese war crimes in Indonesia in order to stop anti-Japanese sentiment building up but it happened regardless when the movie Romusha came out in 1973 and the Peristiwa Malari (Malari affair) riots broke out in Indonesia in 1974 against Japan. Suharto also sought to silence discussion on Japanese war crimes due to Indonesia's own war crimes in East Timor after 1975, but Indonesians started talking about Indonesian comfort women in the 1990s following the example of Korea. Mardyiem, a Javanese Indonesian comfort woman talked about what happened to her after Indonesian comfort women were interviewed by Japanese lawyers, after decades of being forced to stay silent.<ref>{{cite book |last=Rickum |first=Boryano |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m5QCBQAAQBAJ&dq=japanese+mardyiem&pg=PA184 |title=Feelings at the Margins: Dealing with Violence, Stigma and Isolation in Indonesia |date=2014 |publisher=Campus Verlag |isbn=978-3593500058 |editor1-last=Stodulka |editor1-first=Thomas |edition=illustrated |location= |page=184 |chapter=Marginalized by Silence- Victims of Japanese Occupation in Indonesia's Political Memory |editor2-last=Röttger-Rössler |editor2-first=Birgitt}}</ref>

Three major revolts happened against Japan by Indonesians in Java. Japanese forced Indonesians of West Java in Cirebon to hand over a massive quota of rice to the Japanese military with Japanese officers using brutality to extract even more than the official quota. The Indonesians in Cirebon rebelled twice and targeted Indonesian collaborator bureaucrats and Japanese officers in 1944. Japan killed a lot of Indonesian rebels while crushing them with deadly force. In Sukmana, Singapurna, the Tasikmalaya regency, the conservative religious teacher Kiai Zainal Mustafa told his followers that in the month when Muhammad was born they would gain divine protection when he gave a sign. In February 1943, Japanese Kempeitai caught wind of what was happening and came to the area but the roads were blocked to stop them. The Indonesian villagers and students began to fight the Japanese and seized the sabre of the Japanese chief to kill him. More Japanese arrived and 86 Japanese and 153 Indonesian villagers died in the fighting. The Japanese then arrested Zainal and 22 others for execution. Supriyadi lead a Peta mutiny against the Japanese in February 1945.<ref>{{cite book |last=Friend |first=Theodore |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UQMABAAAQBAJ&dq=kenpeitai+executed&pg=RA1-PA176 |title=The Blue-Eyed Enemy: Japan against the West in Java and Luzon, 1942-1945 |date=2014 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1400859467 |location= |page=175,176}}</ref>

Japanese raped Malay comfort women but UMNO leader Najib Razak blocked all attempts by other UMNO members like Mustapha Yakub at asking Japan for compensation and apologies.<ref>{{cite news |last=Nanda |first=Akshita |date=January 23, 2017 |title=Stirring look at comfort women in Singapore |url=https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/stirring-look-at-comfort-women-in-singapore |access-date= |work=The Straits Times |location=}}</ref>

The threat of Japanese rape against Chitty girls led Chitty families to let Eurasians, Chinese and full blooded Indians to marry Chitty girls and stop practicing endogamy.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pillai |first=Patrick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Uh1qDwAAQBAJ&dq="Chitty+girls+being+hastily"&pg=PP66 |title=Yearning to Belong |date=2016 |publisher=Flipside Digital Content Company Inc. |isbn=978-9814762007 |page=47}}</ref>

Japanese soldiers gang raped Indian Tamil girls and women they forced to work on the Burma railway and made them dance naked.<ref>{{cite book |last=Russell |first=Edward Frederick Langley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cRw_DwAAQBAJ&dq=%22young+Tamil+women+were+forced+to+dance%22&pg=PA93 |title=The Knights of Bushido: A History of Japanese War Crimes during World War II |date=2016 |publisher=Frontline Books |isbn=978-1473887596 |page=93}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Russell |first=Edward Frederick Langley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LiL_DQAAQBAJ&dq="young+Tamil+women+were+forced+to+dance"&pg=PT107 |title=The Knights of Bushido: A History of Japanese War Crimes During World War II |date=2016 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1510710375 |edition=reprint}}</ref> 150,000 Tamils were killed on the railway by Japanese brutality.<ref>{{cite news |date=August 27, 2016 |title=The real Kwai killed over 1.50 lakh Tamils |url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/The-real-Kwai-killed-over-1.50-lakh-Tamils/article14593113.ece |work=The Hindu |location=Chennai}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=KOLAPPAN |first=B. |date=August 27, 2016 |title=The real Kwai killed over 1.50 lakh Tamils |url=http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/the-real-kwai-killed-over-150-lakh-tamils/article9037199.ece |work=The Hindu |location=Chennai}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=30 Jun 2023 |title=Remembering Death Railway labourers |url=https://www.tamilmurasu.com.sg/tabla/india/remembering-death-railway-labourers |work=Tamil Murasu}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Notes on the Thai-Burma Railway Part VII: Tamil Workers on the Railway |url=http://www.kyoto-seika.ac.jp/researchlab/wp/wp-content/uploads/kiyo/pdf-data/no25/david.pdf |journal=Journal of Kyoto Seika University |pages=2–22 |number=25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191222004455/http://www.kyoto-seika.ac.jp/researchlab/wp/wp-content/uploads/kiyo/pdf-data/no25/david.pdf |archive-date=22 December 2019 }}</ref> Tamils who got sick from cholera were executed by the Japanese.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lomax |first=Eric |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GnY-AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA158 |title=The Railway Man: A POW's Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgiveness (Movie Tie-in Editions) |date=2014 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0393344073 |edition=reprint |page=158}}</ref>  As Tamil women got raped by Japanese, the Japanese soldiers contracted venereal disease like soft sore, syphilis and gonorrhoea and Thai women also spread those diseases to coolies on the railroad.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jKOWt4jYW34C&pg=PA161 |title=The Thailand-Burma Railway, 1942-1946: Asian labour |date=2006 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=0415309549 |editor-last=Kratoska |editor-first=Paul H. |edition=illustrated |volume=4 |page=161}}</ref>

=== Looting and destruction of heritage ===
Several scholars have claimed that the Japanese government, along with Japanese military personnel, engaged in widespread [[looting]] during the period of 1895 to 1945.<ref>Kenneth B. Lee, 1997, ''Korea and East Asia: The Story of a Phoenix'', Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group</ref><ref>Sterling & Peggy Seagrave, 2003, ''Gold warriors: America's secret recovery of Yamashita's gold'', London: Verso Books ({{ISBN|1-85984-542-8}})</ref> The stolen property included private land, as well as many different kinds of valuable goods looted from banks, depositories, [[Safe deposit box|vaults]], temples, churches, mosques, art galleries, commercial offices, libraries (including Buddhist monasteries), museums and other commercial premises, as well as private homes.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Johnson |first=Chalmers |date=20 November 2003 |title=The Looting of Asia |pages=3–6 |work=London Review of Books |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n22/chalmers-johnson/the-looting-of-asia |access-date=7 April 2019 |issn=0260-9592 |archive-date=7 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190407185616/https://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n22/chalmers-johnson/the-looting-of-asia |url-status=live }}</ref>

In China, an eyewitness, journalist F. Tillman of ''[[The New York Times]]'', sent an article to his newspaper where he described the [[Imperial Japanese Army]]'s entry into [[Nanjing]] in December 1937: "The plunder carried out by the Japanese reached almost the entire city. Almost all buildings were entered by Japanese soldiers, often in the sight of their officers, and the men took whatever they wanted. Japanese soldiers often forced Chinese to carry the loot."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/nanking.asp|title=Internet History Sourcebooks: Modern History|website=sourcebooks.fordham.edu|access-date=8 May 2023|archive-date=8 May 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230508201620/https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/nanking.asp|url-status=live}}</ref>{{full citation needed|date=May 2023}}

In Korea, it is estimated that about 100,000 priceless artifacts and cultural goods were looted by Japanese colonial authorities and private collectors during the nearly [[Korea under Japanese rule|fifty years of military occupation]]. The Administration claims that there are 41,109 cultural objects which are located in Japan but remain unreported by the Japanese authorities. Unlike the [[Nazi plunder|works of art looted]] by [[Nazi Germany|Nazis]] in Europe, the return of property to its rightful owners, or even the discussion of financial reparations in the post-war period, met with strong resistance from the [[Federal government of the United States|American government]], particularly General [[Douglas MacArthur]].<ref name="Time">{{cite magazine |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,197704,00.html |title=A Legacy Lost |magazine=Time |first=Donald |last=Macintyre |date=4 February 2002 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=20 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720135513/https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,197704,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref>{{full citation needed|date=May 2023}}

According to several historians, MacArthur's disagreement was not based on issues of rights, ethics or morals, but on [[Realpolitik|political convenience]]. He spoke on the topic in a radio message to the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] in May 1948, the transcript of which was found by the magazine ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' in the [[National Archives and Records Administration|U.S. National Archives]]. In it, MacArthur states: "I am completely at odds with the minority view of replacing lost or destroyed cultural property as a result of military action and occupation". With the advent of the [[Cold War]], the general feared "embittering the Japanese people towards us and making Japan vulnerable to ideological pressures and a fertile ground for subversive action".<ref name="Time" />

Kyoichi Arimitsu, one of the last living survivors of the Japanese [[Archeology|archeological]] missions which operated on the Korean peninsula, which started early in the twentieth century, agrees that the plunder in the 1930s was out of control, but that researchers and [[Academy|academics]], such as himself, had nothing to do with it. However, he recognizes that the excavated pieces which were deemed to be most historically significant were sent to the Japanese governor-general, who then decided what would be sent to Emperor [[Hirohito]].<ref name="Time"/>

In 1965, when Japan and South Korea negotiated a treaty to reestablish diplomatic relations the issue of returning the cultural artifacts was raised. However, the then South Korean dictator, [[Park Chung Hee]], preferred to receive cash compensation that would allow him to build highways and [[Steel mill|steelworks]]; works of art and cultural goods were not a priority. As a result, at the time the Koreans had to settle for the return of only 1,326 items, including 852 rare books and 438 ceramic pieces. The Japanese claim that this put an end to any Korean claim regarding reparation for cultural goods (or of any other nature).<ref name="Time"/><ref name="Glosserman">{{Cite web |last=Glosserman |first=Brad |date=4 December 2002 |title=Japan slams the door on stolen artwork |url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2002/12/04/commentary/japan-slams-the-door-on-stolen-artwork/ |access-date=13 September 2020 |work=[[The Japan Times]] |archive-date=12 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201212141735/https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2002/12/04/commentary/japan-slams-the-door-on-stolen-artwork/ |url-status=live }}</ref> American journalist Brad Glosserman has stated that an increasing number of South Koreans are raising the issue of the [[repatriation]] of stolen cultural artifacts from Japan due to rising affluence among the general populace as well as increased national confidence.<ref name="Glosserman" />

Hundreds of [[Utsul]] Muslim houses and mosques in Sanya, Hainan were destroyed by the Japanese in order to build an airport.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Thurgood |first1=Graham |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xzDnBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA20 |title=A Grammatical Sketch of Hainan Cham: History, Contact, and Phonology |last2=Thurgood |first2=Ela |last3=Li |first3=Fengxiang |date=2014 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |isbn=978-1614516040 |edition=reprint |volume=643 of Pacific Linguistics [PL] |page=20 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=5 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231005004433/https://books.google.com/books?id=xzDnBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA20 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Perfidy===

Throughout the Pacific War, Japanese soldiers often [[Perfidy|feigned injury or surrender]] to lure approaching American forces before attacking them. An alleged example of this was the "[[Frank Goettge#Goettge Patrol|Goettge Patrol]]" during the early days of the [[Guadalcanal Campaign]] in August 1942. After the patrol believed they saw a [[white flag]] displayed on the west bank of [[Matanikau River]], [[United States Marine Corps|Marine Corps]] Lieutenant Colonel [[Frank Goettge]] assembled 25 men, primarily consisting of [[Military intelligence|intelligence]] personnel, to search the area. Unknown to the patrol, the white flag was actually a [[Flag of Japan|Japanese flag]] with the ''[[Hinomaru]]'' disc insignia obscured. A [[Japanese prisoners of war in World War II|Japanese prisoner]] was plied with alcohol and in his drunken state mistakenly revealed that there were a number of Japanese soldiers west of the [[Matanikau River]] who wanted to surrender.<ref name="EARNED">{{Cite book |last=Miller |first=Thurman |url=https://archive.org/details/earnedinbloodmyj0000mill/page/80 |title=Earned in Blood: My Journey from Old-Breed Marine to the Most Dangerous Job in America |date=21 May 2013 |publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]] |isbn=978-1-250-00499-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/earnedinbloodmyj0000mill/page/80 80]}}</ref> The Goettge Patrol landed by boat west of the [[Lunga Point]] perimeter, between [[Point Cruz]] and the Matanikau River, on a [[reconnaissance]] mission to contact a group of Japanese troops that American forces thought was willing to surrender. The Japanese soldiers were not in fact about to surrender and soon after the patrol landed the group of Japanese naval troops ambushed and almost completely wiped out the patrol. Goettge was among the dead. Only three Americans made it back to American lines in the Lunga Point perimeter alive.

News of the killing and supposed treachery by the Japanese outraged the American Marines:

{{blockquote|This was the first mass killing of the Marines on Guadalcanal. We were shocked. Shocked&nbsp;... because headquarters had believed anything a Jap had to say&nbsp;... The loss of this patrol and the particularly cruel way in which they had met death, hardened our hearts toward the Japanese. The idea of taking prisoners was swept from our minds. It was too dangerous.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thomas Gallant Grady |title=On Valor's Side |publisher=[[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]] |year=1963 |page=297}}</ref>}}

Second Lieutenant D. A. Clark of the [[7th Marine Regiment (United States)|7th Marines]] told a similar story while patrolling Guadalcanal:

{{blockquote|I was on my first patrol here, and we were moving up a dry stream bed. We saw 3 Japs come down the river bed out of the jungle. The one in front was carrying a white flag. We thought they were surrendering. When they got up to us they dropped the white flag and then all 3 threw hand grenades. We killed 2 of these Japs, but 1 got away. Apparently they do not mind a sacrifice to get information.<ref name="EARNED" />}}

[[Samuel Eliot Morison]], in his book, ''The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War'', wrote:

{{blockquote|There were innumerable incidents such as a wounded Japanese soldier at Guadalcanal seizing a [[scalpel]] and burying it in the back of a surgeon who was about to save his life by an operation; and a survivor of the [[Naval Battle of Vella Lavella|Battle of Vella Lavella]], rescued by [torpedo boat] ''PT-163'', pulling a gun and killing a bluejacket [enlisted sailor] in the act of giving a Japanese sailor a cup of coffee.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Samuel Eliot Morison |title=The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War |date=March 1, 2007 |publisher=[[United States Naval Institute]] |isbn=978-1-59114-524-0 |page=273}}</ref>}}

These incidents, along with many other perfidious actions of the Japanese throughout the Pacific War, led to an American tendency to shoot dead or wounded Japanese soldiers and those attempting to surrender and not readily take them as prisoners of war. Two Marines of [[Battle of Iwo Jima|Iwo Jima]] told cautionary tales. One confided:

{{blockquote|They always told you take prisoners but we had some bad experiences on [[Battle of Saipan|Saipan]] taking prisoners, you take them and then as soon as they get behind the lines they drop grenades and you lose a few more people. You get a little bit leery of taking prisoners when they are fighting to the death and so are you.}}

Another reported,

{{blockquote|Very few of them came out on their own; when they did, why, usually one in the front he'd come out with his hands up and one behind him, he'd come out with a grenade.<ref>Ulrich-Straus-116>[https://books.google.com/books?id=x1dQwuiEU3UC&dq=%22japanese+pows%22+american+hands&pg=PA206 Ulrich Straus, ''The Anguish Of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World War II'' (excerpts)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230411065225/https://books.google.com/books?id=x1dQwuiEU3UC&dq=%22japanese+pows%22+american+hands&pg=PA206 |date=11 April 2023 }} Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003 {{ISBN|978-0-295-98336-3}}, p. 116</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Galen Roger Perras |title=Stepping Stones to Nowhere: The Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and American Military Strategy, 1867–1945 |date=March 2003 |publisher=[[University of British Columbia Press]] |page=232}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rose |first=Kenneth |title=Myth and the Greatest Generation: A Social History of Americans in World War II |date=10 October 2007 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |page=264}}</ref>}}

===Attacks on hospital ships===

[[Hospital ship]]s are painted white with large [[Emblems of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement|red crosses]] to show they are not combat ships but vessels carrying wounded people and medical staff. Japan had signed the [[Hague Convention of 1907|Hague Convention X of 1907]] that stated attacking a hospital ship is a war crime.<ref name="hague10">{{Cite web |date=18 October 1907 |title=Convention for the adaptation to maritime war of the principles of the Geneva Convention |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hague10.asp |access-date=2 August 2009 |publisher=[[Yale University]] |archive-date=2 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151102180248/http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hague10.asp |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=16 June 2013 |title=Convention for the adaptation to maritime warfare of the principles of the Geneva Convention |url=http://www.minbuza.nl/en/key-topics/treaties/search-the-treaty-database/1899/7/002339.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130616131847/http://www.minbuza.nl/en/key-topics/treaties/search-the-treaty-database/1899/7/002339.html |archive-date=16 June 2013 |url-status=dead |publisher=Ministry of Foreign Affairs |location=Netherlands}}</ref>
* On 23 April 1945, {{USS|Comfort|AH-6|6}} was struck by a [[Kamikaze|Japanese suicide plane]].{{sfn|DANFS: ''Comfort''}} The plane crashed through three decks, exploding in surgery, which was filled with medical personnel and patients.{{sfn|Condon-Rall|Cowdrey|1998|p=392}} Casualties were 28 killed (including six nurses) and 48 wounded, with considerable damage done to the ship.{{sfn|DANFS: ''Comfort''}}<ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.39062 |title=Video U.S. Turns To Japan After German Defeat [ETC.] (1945) |publisher=Universal Newsreels |year=1945 |access-date=20 February 2012}}</ref><ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://archive.org/details/1945-05-10_Funeral_Pyres_of_Nazidom |title=Video: Funeral Pyres of Nazidom, 1945/05/10 (1945) |publisher=Universal Newsreels |date=10 May 1945 |access-date=20 February 2012}}</ref>
* {{USS|Hope|AH-7}} was attacked and damaged during the [[Battle of Leyte Gulf]] and the [[Battle of Okinawa]].<ref>{{DANFS|http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/h7/hope.htm}}{{dead link|date=May 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Condon-Rall |first1=Mary Ellen |title=The Technical Services—The Medical Department: Medical Service In The War Against Japan |last2=Cowdrey |first2=Albert E. |publisher=Center Of Military History, United States Army |year=1998 |series=United States Army in World War II |location=Washington, DC |lccn=97022644}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Clarence McKittrick |title=The Technical Services—The Medical Department: Hospitalization And Evacuation, Zone Of Interior |publisher=Center Of Military History, United States Army |year=1956 |series=United States Army in World War II |location=Washington, DC |lccn=55060005}}</ref>
* [[USS Relief (AH-1)|USS ''Relief'']] was attacked and damaged at [[Guam]] on 2 April 1945.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ICoDAAAAMBAJ&dq=true&pg=-PA35 "Modern Hospital Sails With U.S. Fleet"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230530202743/https://books.google.com/books?id=ICoDAAAAMBAJ&dq=true&pg=-PA35 |date=30 May 2023 }}. ''Popular Science Monthly'', August 1927, p. 35.</ref>
* On 19 February 1942, the Australian [[Manunda|HMHS ''Manunda'']] was [[Dive bomber|dive-bombed]] during the [[Bombing of Darwin|Japanese air raids on Darwin]]; twelve crew and hospital staff were killed and nineteen others were seriously wounded.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bombing of 2/1st Australian Hospital Ship Manunda in Darwin |url=https://www.battleforaustralia.asn.au/Hospital_Ship.php |website=battleforaustralia.asn.au |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=20 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230720135246/https://www.battleforaustralia.asn.au/Hospital_Ship.php |url-status=live }}</ref>
* On 14 May 1943, the Australian {{ship|AHS|Centaur}} was sunk by {{ship|Japanese submarine|I-177}} off [[Stradbroke Island, Queensland]] with 268 lives lost.<ref name="ozatwar.Centaur">{{Cite web |year=2010 |title=Sinking of the 2/3 hospital ship A.H.S. Centaur |url=http://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/centaur.htm |access-date=8 November 2011 |publisher=ozatwar.com |archive-date=29 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151129065702/http://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/centaur.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>
* The [[Royal Netherlands Navy]] hospital ship {{SS|Op Ten Noort}} was bombed on 21 February 1942, in the [[Java Sea]]. One surgeon and three nurses were killed, and eleven were badly wounded. After repairs, on 28 February 1942, she was commandeered by the {{ship|Japanese destroyer|Amatsukaze|1939|6}} near [[Bawean|Bawean Island]]. The Japanese forced her to transport their [[POW]]s. On 20 December 1942, she became the ''Tenno Maru'', a Japanese hospital ship, and the Dutch crew became POWs. As the war came to an end, the ship was first modified and later sunk to cover up the crime.<ref>{{Cite web |title=KPN SS Op Ten Noort an 6,000 ton 1927 Dutch Passenger-Cargo liner based in Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) |url=http://ssmaritime.com/SS-Op-Ten-Noort.htm |website=ssmaritime.com |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=7 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230607055933/http://ssmaritime.com/SS-Op-Ten-Noort.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Op ten Noort, hospitalship |url=https://www.netherlandsnavy.nl/Noort.htm |website=netherlandsnavy.nl |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=5 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405012946/https://www.netherlandsnavy.nl/Noort.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

===War crimes in Vietnam===

The [[Viet Minh]] had begun fighting the Vichy French in 1944, then began attacking the Japanese in early 1945 after Japan replaced the French government on 9 March 1945.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Truong |first=Chinh |title=Translations on North Vietnam, Volume 17 |date=1971 |publisher=U.S. Joint Publications Research Service. |others=Contributor United States. Joint Publications Research Service |series=JPRS (Series) |pages=14–16 |chapter=Revolution or Coup d'Etat, JPRS 53169 19 May 1971 Translations on North Vietnam No. 940 Documents on the August Revolution |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sTrcAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22The+Japanese+were+disarmed+in+many+places%22&pg=RA2-PA13 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019133949/https://books.google.com/books?id=sTrcAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22The+Japanese+were+disarmed+in+many+places%22&pg=RA2-PA13#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Japanese%20were%20disarmed%20in%20many%20places%22&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Aruong Chinh (chairman of the National Assembly). "Revolution or Coup d'Etat". Hanoi, Nhan Dan, Vietnamese, 16 August 1970, pp. 1, 3]. ''Co Giai Phong'' [Liberation Banner], No. 16, 12 September 1945.</ref>{{full citation needed|reason=Unclear what this source is. It's important for [[WP:V|verifiability]] that a reader is able to find it in principle|date=May 2023}} After the Viet Minh rejected Japanese demands to cease fighting and support Japan, the Japanese implemented the [[Three Alls]] policy (San Kuang) against the Vietnamese, pillaging, burning, killing, torturing, and raping Vietnamese women.

Japanese officers ordered their soldiers to behead and burn Vietnamese. Some claimed that Taiwanese and Manchurian soldiers in the Japanese army were participating in atrocities against the Vietnamese.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}

The Japanese on occasion attacked Vietnamese while masquerading as Viet Minh. They also tried to play the Vietnamese against the French by spreading false rumours that the French were massacring Vietnamese at the time to distract the Vietnamese from Japanese atrocities. Similarly, they attempted to play the Laotians against the Vietnamese by inciting Lao people to kill Vietnamese, as Lao murdered seven Vietnamese officials in Luang Prabang and Lao youths were recruited to an anti-Vietnam organization by the Japanese when they took over Luang Prabang.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}

The Japanese also started openly looting the Vietnamese. In addition to taking French-owned properties Japanese soldiers stole watches, pencils, bicycles, money and clothing.

Vietnam was in the grip of a famine in 1945 caused in part by Japanese requisition of food without payment; the Japanese beheaded Vietnamese who stole bread and corn while they were starving.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Truong |first=Chinh |title=Translations on North Vietnam |volume=17 |date=19 May 1971 |publisher=U.S. Joint Publications Research Service. |others=Contributor United States. Joint Publications Research Service |series=JPRS (Series) |pages=8–13 |chapter=Policy of the Japanese Pirates Towards Our people, JPRS 53169 19 May 1971 Translations on North Vietnam No. 940 Documents on the August Revolution |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sTrcAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22Wherever+they+went%2C+the+Japanese+forces+burned+down+homes%2C+murdered+law-abiding+citizens%2C+raped+women%2C+and+stole+possessions.%22&pg=RA2-PA9 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019133953/https://books.google.com/books?id=sTrcAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22Wherever+they+went%2C+the+Japanese+forces+burned+down+homes%2C+murdered+law-abiding+citizens%2C+raped+women%2C+and+stole+possessions.%22&pg=RA2-PA9#v=onepage&q=%22Wherever%20they%20went%2C%20the%20Japanese%20forces%20burned%20down%20homes%2C%20murdered%20law-abiding%20citizens%2C%20raped%20women%2C%20and%20stole%20possessions.%22&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Truong Chinh (chairman of the National Assembly). "Policy of the Japanese Pirates Towards Our people". Hanoi, Nhan Dan, Vietnamese, 17 August 1970, pp. 1, 3</ref>{{full citation needed|reason=Unclear what this source is. It's important for [[WP:V|verifiability]] that a reader is able to find it in principle|date=May 2023}} The Vietnamese professor Văn Tạo and Japanese professor Furuta Moto both conducted a study in the field on the Japanese induced famine of 1945 admitting that Japan killed two million Vietnamese by starvation.

On 25 March 2000, the Vietnamese journalist Trần Khuê wrote an article {{lang|vi|italic=no|"Dân chủ: Vấn đề của dân tộc và thời đại"}}({{trans|Democracy: A problem of the nation and the times}}) in which he harshly criticized ethnographers and historians in Ho Chi Minh City's Institute of Social Sciences such as Dr. Đinh Văn Liên and Professor Mạc Đường for trying to whitewash Japan's atrocities against the Vietnamese by, among other things, changing the death toll of two million Vietnamese dead at the hands of the Japanese famine to one million, calling the Japanese invasion as a presence and calling Japanese fascists as simply Japanese at the Vietnam-Japan international conference.<ref>{{Cite web |date=25 March 2000 |title=Dân chủ: Vấn đề của dân tộc và thời đại |url=https://hung-viet.org/a5222/doi-thoai-nam-2000 |website=Hưng Việt: TRANG CHÁNH - Trang 1 |publisher=Đối Thoại Năm 2000 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=28 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200928222053/https://hung-viet.org/a5222/doi-thoai-nam-2000 |url-status=live }}</ref>

==War crimes trials==

[[File:Japanese War Crimes Trials. Manila - NARA - 292613.jpg|upright|thumb|240px|General [[Tomoyuki Yamashita]] (2nd right) on trial in 1945 by a U.S. [[Military justice|military commission]] for the [[Manila massacre]] and other violations in Singapore. He was sentenced to death. The case set a precedent (the "[[Yamashita Standard]]") on the responsibility of commanders for war crimes.]]

Soon after the war, the Allied powers indicted 25 persons as [[International Military Tribunal for the Far East|Class-A war criminals]], and 5,700 persons were indicted as Class-B or Class-C war criminals by Allied criminal courts. Of these, 984 were initially condemned to death, 920 were actually executed, 475 received life sentences, 2,944 received prison terms, 1,018 were acquitted, and 279 were not sentenced or not brought to trial. These indicted war criminals included 178 ethnic Taiwanese and 148 ethnic Koreans people.<ref>Dower, John (2000). ''Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II'', p. 447</ref> Class A criminals were all tried by the [[International Military Tribunal for the Far East]], also known as "the Tokyo Trials". Other courts were held in numerous places across Asia and the Pacific.

===Tokyo Trials===
{{Main|International Military Tribunal for the Far East}}

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East was formed to try accused people in Japan itself.

High-ranking officers who were tried included [[Kōichi Kido]] and [[Sadao Araki]]. Three former (unelected) [[Prime Minister of Japan|prime ministers]]: [[Kōki Hirota]], [[Hideki Tojo]] and [[Kuniaki Koiso]] were convicted of Class-A war crimes. Many military leaders were also convicted. Two people convicted as Class-A war criminals later served as ministers in post-war Japanese governments.
* [[Mamoru Shigemitsu]] served as [[Minister for Foreign Affairs (Japan)|Minister for Foreign Affairs]] both during the war and in the post-war [[Ichirō Hatoyama|Hatoyama government]].
* [[Okinori Kaya]] was [[Minister of Finance (Japan)|Minister of Finance]] during the war and later served as [[Minister of Justice (Japan)|Minister of Justice]] in the government of [[Hayato Ikeda]]. These two had no direct connection to alleged war crimes committed by Japanese forces, and foreign governments never raised the issue when they were appointed.

[[Hirohito]] and all members of the [[Imperial House of Japan]] implicated in the war such as [[Prince Chichibu]], [[Prince Asaka]], [[Prince Takeda]] and [[Prince Higashikuni]] were exonerated from criminal prosecutions by [[Douglas MacArthur]], with the help of [[Bonner Fellers]] who allowed the major criminal suspects to coordinate their stories so that the Emperor would be spared from indictment.<ref>Kumao Toyoda, ''Senso saiban yoroku'', 1986, p.170–172, H. Bix, ''Hirohito and the making of modern Japan'', 2000, p.583, 584</ref>

Some historians criticize this decision. According to John Dower, "with the full support of [[Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers|MacArthur's headquarters]], the prosecution functioned, in effect, as a defense team for the emperor"<ref>Dower,''Embracing defeat'', 1999, p.326</ref> and even Japanese activists who endorse the ideals of the Nuremberg and Tokyo charters, and who have labored to document and publicize the atrocities of the [[Shōwa (1926–1989)|Showa regime]] "cannot defend the American decision to exonerate the emperor of war responsibility and then, in the chill of the [[Cold War]], release and soon afterwards openly embrace accused right-winged war criminals like the later prime minister [[Nobusuke Kishi]]."<ref>Dower, ''Hirohito'', p.562.</ref> For Herbert Bix, "MacArthur's truly extraordinary measures to save Hirohito from trial as a war criminal had a lasting and profoundly distorting impact on Japanese understanding of the lost war."<ref>Bix, ''Hirohito'', p.585, 583</ref>

MacArthur's reasoning was that if the emperor were executed or sentenced to life imprisonment, there would be a violent backlash and revolution from the Japanese from all social classes, which would interfere with his primary goal to change Japan from a militarist, semi-feudal society to a pro-Western modern democracy. In a cable sent to General [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] in February 1946, MacArthur said executing or imprisoning the emperor would require the use of one million occupation soldiers to keep the peace.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sebestyen |first=Victor |date=11 November 2015 |title=How the Emperor Became Human (and MacArthur Became Divine) |url=https://longreads.com/2015/11/11/how-the-emperor-became-human-and-macarthur-became-divine/ |access-date=21 April 2021 |website=Longreads |language=en |archive-date=17 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417041935/https://longreads.com/2015/11/11/how-the-emperor-became-human-and-macarthur-became-divine/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Other trials===

{{Main|Khabarovsk War Crime Trials|Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal|Yokohama War Crimes Trials}}

[[File:AWM 121782 sandakan.jpg|thumb|Sergeant Hosotani Naoji of the [[Kempeitai]] unit at Sandakan ([[North Borneo]]), is interrogated on 26 October 1945, by [[Squadron Leader]] F.G. Birchall of the Royal Australian Air Force, and Sergeant Mamo (a [[Nisei Japanese American|Nisei]] interpreter). Naoji confessed to shooting two Australian POWs and five ethnic Chinese civilians.]]

[[File:Japanese War Crimes Trial in Singapore SE6985.jpg|thumb|In Singapore, a hooded Lieutenant Nakamura is led to the scaffold after being convicted of beheading an [[Indian Army during World War II|Indian soldier]] on the [[Palau Islands]], March 1946.]]

Between 1945 and 1956, the Chinese, Americans, British, Australians, Dutch, French, and Filipinos held trials at forty-nine locations.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Drea |first=Edward |title=Researching Japanese War Crimes|url=https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf |publisher= National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group|year=2006 |pages=6–7}}</ref> Australian prosecutors collaborated with British and American courts to hold Japanese individuals accountable, conducting trials for numerous individuals in Amboina, Dutch East Indies, and Rabaul, New Britain. China prosecuted at least 800 individuals, including some linked to the Nanjing massacre, while France and the Netherlands tried several hundred others. The French prosecuted a Japanese civilian in Java for forcing many women into military prostitution, and the Dutch sentenced Japanese individuals to death for murdering local residents and Dutch prisoners. In late 1949, the Soviet Union also put twelve Japanese on trial in Khabarovsk for biological warfare offenses—six were from Unit 731, two from [[Unit 100]], and four from other groups. Later, several hundred Japanese people suspected of war crimes were handed over to the People's Republic of China, where they faced trials in the mid-1950s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Drea |first=Edward |title=Researching Japanese War Crimes |publisher= National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group |year=2006 |pages=6–7}}</ref>
Approximately 4,300 of the 5,379 Japanese, 173 Taiwanese, and 148 Koreans tried as Class B and C war criminals were convicted of conventional crimes, such as rape, murder, violations of the rules of war, and mistreatment of prisoners of war. Hundreds were given life sentences, while nearly 1,000 were given death sentences.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Drea |first=Edward |title=Researching Japanese War Crimes |publisher= National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group |year=2006|url=https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf |pages=6–7}}</ref>

The largest single trial was that of 93 Japanese personnel charged with the [[summary execution]] of more than 300 Allied POWs in the [[Laha massacre]] (1942). The most prominent ethnic Korean convicted was Lieutenant General [[Hong Sa Ik]], who orchestrated the organisation of prisoner of war camps in Southeast Asia. In 2006, the South Korean government "[[pardon]]ed" 83 of the 148 convicted Korean war criminals.<ref name="Breen" /> One hundred-sixty Taiwanese who had served in the forces of the Empire of Japan were convicted of war crimes; 11 were executed.<ref name="Harmsen, Peter 2012, p. 4" />

While [[Nuremberg trials|German doctors were prosecuted]] and their crimes made public, the U.S. kept details of Japanese biological warfare experiments hidden and granted immunity to those responsible. In contrast to the immunity given to those involved with Unit 731, the U.S. conducted a tribunal in [[Yokohama]] in 1948, where nine Japanese physician professors and medical students were charged with vivisecting captured American pilots. Two professors received death sentences, and the others were sentenced to 15–20 years in prison.<ref name="experimentation220">{{cite journal |pmc=4487829 |year=2014 |last1=Brody |first1=H. |last2=Leonard |first2=S. E. |last3=Nie |first3=J. B. |last4=Weindling |first4=P. |title=United States Responses to Japanese Wartime Inhuman Experimentation after World War II: National Security and Wartime Exigency |journal=[[Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics]] |volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=220–230 |doi=10.1017/S0963180113000753 |pmid=24534743}}</ref>

==Post-war events and reactions==

===The parole-for-war-criminals movement===

The British authorities lacked the resources and will to fully commit themselves to pursuing Japanese war criminals.<ref name="standard.co.uk" />

On 4 September 1952, President [[Harry S. Truman|Truman]] issued Executive Order 10393, establishing a Clemency and Parole Board for War Criminals to advise the President with respect to recommendations by the Government of Japan for clemency, reduction of sentence, or parole, with respect to sentences imposed on Japanese war criminals by military tribunals.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Harry S. Truman – Executive Order 10393 – Establishment of the Clemency and Parole Board for War Criminals |url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=78495 |access-date=13 April 2009 |archive-date=29 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090529013643/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=78495 |url-status=live }}</ref>

On 26 May 1954, Secretary of State [[John Foster Dulles]] rejected a proposed amnesty for the imprisoned war criminals but instead agreed to "change the ground rules" by reducing the period required for eligibility for parole from 15 years to 10.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Maguire |first=Peter H. |url=https://archive.org/details/lawwaramerican00magu |title=Law and War |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-231-12051-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/lawwaramerican00magu/page/255 255] |quote=parole war criminals. |url-access=registration}}</ref>

===Official apologies===
{{Further|List of war apology statements issued by Japan}}
{{Synthesis|section|date=October 2008}}

Several Japanese government officials and former Japanese emperors have acknowledged Japanese war atrocities committed in China.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/08/13/world/asia/japan-ww2-shinzo-abe.html,%20https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/08/13/world/asia/japan-ww2-shinzo-abe.html|title=Japan's Apologies for World War II|date=13 August 2015|via=NYTimes.com}}</ref>
The Japanese government considers that the legal and moral positions in regard to war crimes are separate. Therefore, while maintaining that Japan violated no international law or treaties, Japanese governments have officially recognised the suffering which the Japanese military caused, and numerous apologies have been issued by the Japanese government. For example, Prime Minister [[Tomiichi Murayama]], in August 1995, [[Murayama Statement|stated]] that Japan "through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations", and he expressed his "feelings of deep remorse" and stated his "heartfelt apology". Also, on 29 September 1972, Japanese Prime Minister [[Kakuei Tanaka]] stated: "[t]he Japanese side is keenly conscious of the responsibility for the serious damage that Japan caused in the past to the Chinese people through war, and deeply reproaches itself."<ref>Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (quoted on the Taiwan Documents Project), ''Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China'', [http://www.taiwandocuments.org/japan01.htm] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160702141131/http://www.taiwandocuments.org/japan01.htm|date=2 July 2016}}</ref>

However, apologizes made by Japanese officials have been criticized as insincere.<ref name="tandfonline.com">{{cite journal | doi=10.1080/12259276.2021.2025324 | title=Themes of the "comfort women" and "we" in K. Min's ''Herstory'' | date=2022 | last1=Lee | first1=Hyunsuk | journal=Asian Journal of Women's Studies | volume=28 | issue=1 | pages=131–142 | doi-access=free }}</ref> For example, in the [[Kono Statement]], while Japanese officials acknowledge the japanese military's involvement in the comfort women system, they denied the coercion and forced transportation of the woman and refused to offer compensation to the victims.<ref name="tandfonline.com"/>

The official apologies are widely viewed as inadequate or only a symbolic exchange by many of the survivors of such crimes or the families of dead victims. In October 2006, while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed an apology for the damage caused by its colonial rule and aggression, more than 80 Japanese lawmakers from the ruling [[Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)|Liberal Democratic Party]] paid visits to the [[Yasukuni Shrine]]. Many people aggrieved by Japanese war crimes also maintain that no apology has been issued for particular acts or that the Japanese government has merely expressed "regret" or "remorse".<ref>{{Cite web |title=PBS. Online NewsHour: I'm Sorry – December 1, 1998 |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/july-dec98/china_12-1.html |publisher=[[PBS]] |access-date=1 September 2017 |archive-date=22 February 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080222005155/http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/july-dec98/china_12-1.html }}</ref> On 2 March 2007, the issue was raised again by Japanese prime minister [[Shinzō Abe]], in which he denied that the military had forced women into sexual slavery during World War II. He stated, "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion." Before he spoke, a group of LDP lawmakers also sought to revise the Kono Statement.<ref name="Tabuchi" /><ref name="Associated Press" /> This provoked negative reaction from Asian and Western countries.

[[Emperor Showa]] initiated an official boycott of the Yasukuni Shrine after learning that Class-A war criminals had been covertly enshrined there after the war. This boycott remained in place from 1978 until his death and has been upheld by his successors, [[Akihito]] and [[Naruhito]].<ref>https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/why-yasukuni-shrine-is-controversial-symbol-japans-war-legacy-2021-08-13/ {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}}</ref>

On 31 October 2008, the [[chief of staff]] of Japan's [[Japan Air Self-Defense Force|Air Self-Defense Force]] [[Toshio Tamogami]] was dismissed with a 60 million yen allowance<ref name="Tamogami">{{Cite web |title=Tamogami ups Nationalist rhetoric |date=12 November 2008 |url=http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081112a1.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081216083653/http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081112a1.html |archive-date=16 December 2008}}</ref> due to an essay he published, arguing that Japan was not an aggressor during [[World War II]], that the war brought prosperity to China, Taiwan and Korea, that the [[Imperial Japanese Army]]'s conduct was not violent and that the [[Greater East Asia War]] is viewed in a positive way by many Asian countries and criticizing the [[Tokyo tribunal|war crimes trials]] which followed the war.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Text of original essay |url=http://www.apa.co.jp/book_report/images/2008jyusyou_saiyuusyu_english.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513223146/http://www.apa.co.jp/book_report/images/2008jyusyou_saiyuusyu_english.pdf |archive-date=13 May 2013 |access-date=21 July 2013}}</ref> On 11 November, Tamogami added before the Diet that the personal apology made in 1995 by former prime minister [[Tomiichi Murayama]] was "a tool to suppress free speech".<ref name="Tamogami" />

Some in Japan have asserted that what is being demanded is that the [[Prime Minister of Japan|Japanese Prime Minister]] or the [[Emperor of Japan|Emperor]] perform ''[[dogeza]]'', in which an individual kneels and bows his head to the ground—a high form of apology in East Asian societies that Japan appears unwilling to do.<ref>Freeman, Laurie A., "Japan's Press Clubs as Information Cartels," ''Japan Policy Research Institute'', (April 1996), [http://www.jpri.org/publications/workingpapers/wp18.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170317055305/http://www.jpri.org/publications/workingpapers/wp18.html|date=17 March 2017}}. Discusses impending visit in 1990 to Japan by Korean president Roh Tae Woo in which Japanese cabinet secretary Ozawa Ichiro reportedly said, "it is because we have reflected on the past that we cooperate with Korea economically. Is it really necessary to grovel on our hands and knees and prostrate ourselves any more than we already have?". This alleged remark is called the ''dogeza hatsugen'' (prostration comment).</ref> Some point to an act by [[Chancellor of Germany (Federal Republic)|West German Chancellor]] [[Willy Brandt]], who [[Warschauer Kniefall|knelt]] at a monument to the Jewish victims of the [[Warsaw Ghetto]], in 1970, as an example of a powerful and effective act of apology and reconciliation similar to dogeza.<ref>Facing History and Ourselves, ''Willy Brandt's Silent Apology'', {{Cite web |title=Archived copy |url=http://www.facinghistory.org/Campus/Memorials.nsf/0/DC396F572BD4D99F85256FA80055E9B1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060722112121/http://www.facinghistory.org/Campus/Memorials.nsf/0/DC396F572BD4D99F85256FA80055E9B1 |archive-date=22 July 2006 |access-date=30 July 2006}}</ref>

On 13 September 2010, Japanese Foreign Minister [[Katsuya Okada]] met in Tokyo with six former American POWs of the Japanese and apologized for their treatment during World War II. Okada said: "You have all been through hardships during World War II, being taken prisoner by the Japanese military, and suffered extremely inhumane treatment. On behalf of the Japanese government and as the foreign minister, I would like to offer you my heartfelt apology."<ref>Ito, Masami, "[http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100914a3.html Okada apologizes for U.S. POWs' treatment] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100916050041/http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100914a3.html |date=16 September 2010 }}", ''[[The Japan Times]]'', 14 September 2010, p. 2.</ref>

On 29 November 2011, Japanese Foreign Minister [[Kōichirō Genba]] apologized to former Australian POWs on behalf of the Japanese government for pain and suffering inflicted on them during the war.<ref>Martin, Alex, "[http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20111217f1.html Aussies recall POW ordeals, forgive] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120111080834/http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20111217f1.html |date=11 January 2012 }}", ''[[The Japan Times]]'', 17 December 2011, p. 3.</ref>

===Compensation===

The Japanese government, while admitting no legal responsibility for [[comfort women]], set up the [[Asian Women's Fund]] in 1995, which gives money to people who were forced into prostitution during the war. Though the organisation was established by the government, legally, it has been created such that it is an independent charity. The activities of the fund have been controversial in Japan, as well as with international organisations supporting the women concerned.{{Citation needed|date=June 2011}}

Some argue that such a fund is part of an ongoing refusal by the Japanese government to face up to its responsibilities, while others say that the Japanese government has long since finalised its responsibility to individual victims and is merely correcting the failures of the victims' own governments. California [[Congressman]] [[Mike Honda]], speaking before U.S. House of Representatives on behalf of the women, said that "without a sincere and unequivocal apology from the government of Japan, the majority of surviving Comfort Women refused to accept these funds. In fact, as you will hear today, many Comfort Women returned the Prime Minister's letter of apology accompanying the monetary compensation, saying they felt the apology was artificial and disingenuous."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Honda |first=Mike |date=15 February 2007 |title=Honda Testifies in Support of Comfort Women |url=http://honda.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=205 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130419123818/http://www.honda.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=205 |archive-date=19 April 2013 |publisher=U.S. House of Representative}}</ref>

====Compensation under the San Francisco Treaty====

{{Main|Treaty of San Francisco}}

=====Compensation from Japanese overseas assets=====
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: right; float: right; margin: 1em;"
|-
! colspan="10"| Japanese overseas assets in 1945
|-
! Country/region!! Value (1945, [[Yen|¥]]15=US$1) !! {{CURRENTYEAR}} US dollars{{inflation-fn|US}}
|-
| North East China || 146,532,000,000 || ${{formatprice|{{Inflation|US|9768800000|1945}}}}
|-
| Korea || 70,256,000,000 || ${{formatprice|{{Inflation|US|4683733333.33|1945}}}}
|-
| North China || 55,437,000,000 || ${{formatprice|{{Inflation|US|3695800000|1945}}}}
|-
| Taiwan || 42,542,000,000 || ${{formatprice|{{Inflation|US|2836133333.33|1945}}}}
|-
| Central South China || 36,718,000,000 || ${{formatprice|{{Inflation|US|2447866666.67|1945}}}}
|-
| Others || 28,014,000,000 || ${{formatprice|{{Inflation|US|1867600000|1945}}}}
|-
| '''Total''' || '''¥379,499,000,000''' || '''${{formatprice|{{Inflation|US|25299933333.33|1945}}}}'''
|}

"Japanese overseas assets" refers to all assets which were owned by the Japanese government, firms, organizations and private citizens, in colonized or occupied countries. In accordance with Clause 14 of the San Francisco Treaty, Allied forces confiscated all Japanese overseas assets, except those in China, which were dealt with under Clause 21.

=====Compensation to Allied POWs=====
According to historian Linda Goetz Holmes, many funds used by the government of Japan were not Japanese funds but relief funds contributed by the governments of the US, the UK and the Netherlands and sequestered in the [[Yokohama Specie Bank]] during the final year of the war.<ref>{{Cite web |date=4 June 2012 |title=Compensation to Allied POWs|url=http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/rc20090222a4.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120604102422/http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/rc20090222a4.html |archive-date=4 June 2012 |access-date=29 January 2020 |website=archive.ph}}</ref>

=====Allied territories occupied by Japan=====

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: right; float: right; margin: 1em;"
|-
! colspan="10"| Japanese compensation to countries occupied during 1941–45
|-
! Country !! Amount in Yen !! Amount in US$ !! {{CURRENTYEAR}} US dollars{{inflation-fn|US}} !! Date of treaty
|-
| Burma || 72,000,000,000 || 200,000,000 || ${{formatprice|{{Inflation|US|200000000|1955}}}} || 5 November 1955
|-
| Philippines || 198,000,000,000 || 550,000,000 || ${{formatprice|{{Inflation|US|550000000|1956}}}} || 9 May 1956
|-
| Indonesia || 80,388,000,000 || 223,080,000 || ${{formatprice|{{Inflation|US|223080000|1958}}}} || 20 January 1958
|-
| South Vietnam || 14,400,000,000 || 38,000,000 || ${{formatprice|{{Inflation|US|38000000|1959}}}} || 13 May 1959
|-
| '''Total''' || '''¥364,348,800,000''' || US$1,012,080,000 || ||
|}

Clause 14 of the treaty stated that Japan would enter into negotiations with the Allied nations whose territories were occupied and suffered damage by Japanese forces, with a view to Japan compensating those countries for the damage.

=== Historical negationism and denialism in Japan ===
In numerous historical debates within the region, Japan has been criticized for its failure to adequately address its imperial past.<ref name="jstor.org">{{cite journal |title=The Japanese History Textbook Controversy in East Asian Perspective|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25098016|journal=The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science |volume=617|pages=107–122|jstor=25098016 |last1=Schneider |first1=Claudia |date=2008 |issue=1 |doi=10.1177/0002716208314359 }}</ref> Key issuess include the visits of Japanese prime ministers to the contentious Yasukuni Shrine, ongoing denials of state involvement in the system of forced wartime prostitution, efforts to justify the Asia-Pacific War, legal rulings rejecting state compensation for forced labor, and the positive assessments of Japan's colonial period.<ref name="jstor.org"/> These issues have periodically strained Japan's relations with its crucial neighbors, particularly the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Korea.<ref name="jstor.org"/>

[[Nippon Kaigi]] is an influential ultra-right-wing lobby group that wields considerable power in shaping Japanese politics. As of 2015, its membership boasts prominent figures such as former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, approximately 80% of the cabinet, and nearly half of the country's parliamentarians.<ref name="abc.net.au">{{cite news | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-02/nippon-kaigi-and-the-rise-of-nationalism-in-japan/6994560 | title=Ultra-nationalistic group trying to restore the might of the Japanese Empire | newspaper=ABC News | date=2 December 2015 }}</ref> This organization is infamous for its [[historical negationism]] and denial of certain war crimes<ref name="abc.net.au"/> The organization denies the Nanjing Massacre, labelling it as exaggerated or fabricated.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/opinion/tea-party-politics-in-japan.html | title=Opinion &#124; Tea Party Politics in Japan | work=The New York Times | date=12 September 2014 | last1=Kato | first1=Norihiro }}</ref>
Historical negationism concerning the comfort women issue has been predominantly led by the Nippon Kaigi since the mid-1990s, with significant efforts notably observed during both the initial and second Abe administration.<ref name="divinity.uchicago.edu">{{cite web | url=https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/japanese-religions-and-issue-comfort-women | title=Japanese Religions and the Issue of "Comfort Women" - the University of Chicago Divinity School }}</ref>

Following a Cabinet meeting during Shinzo Abe's initial tenure as prime minister in 2007, the administration said that there was no documented evidence supporting the coerced recruitment of comfort women. This stance was the official position of the administration and is reinforced through collaboration with Japanese right-wing media outlets.<ref name="divinity.uchicago.edu"/>

==== Textbook controversy ====

The existing regulations regarding textbooks grant the government absolute authority to determine which textbooks should be adopted by local schools.<ref name="thediplomat.com">{{cite web | url=https://thediplomat.com/2015/04/why-japans-textbook-controversy-is-getting-worse/ | title=Why Japan's Textbook Controversy is Getting Worse }}</ref> School boards, teacher unions and local citizens, traditionally more left-leaning groups that have opposed government-approved books, have experienced a significant erosion of their autonomy in selecting textbooks, compelling them to adopt government-censored textbooks.<ref name="thediplomat.com"/>

In 1952, the Japanese government instructed Japanese historian [[Ienaga Saburo]] to eliminate information and references from his textbook regarding Unit 731, despite having his claims corroborated by other scholars.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/dec/03/guardianobituaries.japan | title=Saburo Ienaga | newspaper=The Guardian | date=3 December 2002 | last1=Watts | first1=Jonathan }}</ref> While Ienaga's legal action against the Japanese government initially compelled them to publish his textbooks detailing Japanese war crimes, the Japanese Supreme Court overturned this decision in 1993.<ref name="nytimes.com">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/08/obituaries/saburo-ienaga-who-insisted-japan-disclose-atrocities-dies-at-89.html | title=Saburo Ienaga, Who Insisted Japan Disclose Atrocities, Dies at 89 | work=The New York Times | date=8 December 2002 | last1=Lewis | first1=Paul }}</ref> The Supreme Court's 1993 ruling affirmed the government's authority to compel Mr. Ienaga to remove unsettling specifics concerning the Japanese invasions of Machuria and Korea, as well as the rapes and killings committed by Japanese military personnel during their occupation of East and Southeast Asia.<ref name="nytimes.com"/>

Textbooks approved for junior high schools in 1997 typically presented relatively high estimates of the number of victims, but those published in 2005 often refrained from providing specific numbers altogether. Similarly, the term "massacre" was largely replaced with the term "incident."<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Japanese History Textbook Controversy in East Asian Perspective|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25098016|journal=The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science |volume=617|pages=116|jstor=25098016 |last1=Schneider |first1=Claudia |date=2008 |issue=1 |doi=10.1177/0002716208314359 }}</ref>

In 2014, the Japanese government attempted to pressure [[McGraw Hill]], an American publishing company, to remove two paragraphs addressing the issue of comfort women from one of their textbooks. McGraw Hill rejected the demands from the Japanese government, and American historians condemned Japan's attempt to alter the historical account of comfort women.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/american-academics-condemn-japanese-efforts-to-revise-history-of-comfort-women/2015/02/09/e795fc1c-38f0-408f-954a-7f989779770a_story.html {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}}</ref>

In 2015, other alterations involve six out of seven textbooks reducing the criticism of the Japanese military's role in mass suicides among Okinawans in 1945. Additionally, only one textbook addressed the topic of comfort women.<ref name="thediplomat.com"/>

In 2022, the Japanese government made changes to 14 textbooks covering Japanese and world history. The ministry replaced the words "forced arrest" and "forced conscription" with "mobilization" and "conscription" when recounting the history of forced laborers in Japan, including Koreans during the period of Japanese annexation of Korea from 1910 to 1945.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2022/03/31/national/diplomacy/korea-japan-comfort/20220331142935505.html | title=Tokyo tweaks history books again, Seoul protests | date=31 March 2022 }}</ref>

===Later investigations===

As with investigations of [[Nazi war crimes|Nazi war criminals]], official investigations and inquiries are still ongoing.{{As of?|date=April 2021}} During the 1990s, the South Korean government started investigating some people who had allegedly become wealthy while [[Collaboration with Imperial Japan|collaborating with the Japanese military]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=List of Japanese Collaborators Released |url=https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/nation_view.asp?newsIdx=23332&categoryCode=117 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004181952/https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/nation_view.asp?newsIdx=23332&categoryCode=117 |archive-date=4 October 2012 |website=[[The Korea Times]]}}</ref><ref name="koreatimes.co.kr">{{Cite web |title=Government to Seize Assets of Collaborators in Colonial Era |url=https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/nation_view.asp?newsIdx=2202&categoryCode=117 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004182014/https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/nation_view.asp?newsIdx=2202&categoryCode=117 |archive-date=4 October 2012 |website=[[The Korea Times]]}}</ref> In South Korea, it is also alleged that during the political climate of the [[Cold War]], many such people or their associates or relatives were able to acquire influence with the wealth they had acquired collaborating with the Japanese and assisted in the covering-up, or non-investigation, of war crimes in order not to incriminate themselves. With the wealth they had amassed during the years of collaboration, they were able to further benefit their families by obtaining higher education for their relatives.<ref name="koreatimes.co.kr" />

Further evidence has been discovered as a result of these investigations. It has been claimed that the Japanese government intentionally destroyed the reports on Korean comfort women.<ref name="autogenerated1">{{Cite news |last=Horsley |first=William |date=9 August 2005 |title=World {{pipe}} Asia-Pacific {{pipe}} Korean WWII sex slaves fight on |work=BBC News |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4749467.stm |access-date=21 July 2013 |archive-date=15 January 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070115032249/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4749467.stm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="autogenerated2">{{Cite web |title=Ex-sex slave narrates: "Japan Boiled Comfort Woman to Make Soup". Japanese Army Ran "Comfort Woman System" |url=http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=%2FST%2Fdb%2Fread.php%3Fidx%3D1846 |access-date=21 July 2013 |website=The Seoul Times |archive-date=28 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928041645/http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=%2FST%2Fdb%2Fread.php%3Fidx%3D1846 |url-status=live }}</ref> Some have cited Japanese inventory logs and employee sheets on the battlefield as evidence for this claim. For example, one of the names on the list was of a comfort woman who stated she was forced to be a prostitute by the Japanese. She was classified as a nurse along with at least a dozen other verified comfort women who were not nurses or secretaries. Currently, the South Korean government is looking into the hundreds of other names on these lists.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition): Daily News in English About Korea. ''Military Record of "Comfort Woman" Unearthed'' |url=http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200501/200501110028.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090825083558/http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200501/200501110028.html |archive-date=25 August 2009}}</ref>

In 2011, it was alleged in an article published in the ''[[The Japan Times|Japan Times]]'' newspaper by Jason Coskrey that the [[Government of the United Kingdom|British government]] covered up a Japanese massacre of British and Dutch [[Prisoner of war|POW]]s to avoid straining the [[Japan–United Kingdom relations|recently re-opened relationship with Japan]], along with their belief that Japan needed to be a post-war bulwark against the spread of [[communism]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Coskrey |first=Jason |title=Britain covered up Japan massacre of POWs |url=http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081017a3.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606151927/http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081017a3.html |archive-date=6 June 2011 |access-date=21 July 2013 |website=[[The Japan Times]]}}</ref>

[[Tamaki Matsuoka]]'s 2009 documentary ''[[Torn Memories of Nanjing]]'' includes interviews with Japanese [[veteran]]s who admit to raping and killing Chinese civilians.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lee, Min |date=31 March 2010 |title=New film has Japan vets confessing to Nanjing rape |work=Salon |url=http://www.salon.com/2010/03/31/as_film_japan_massacre_documentary/ |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=1 April 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170401212422/http://www.salon.com/2010/03/31/as_film_japan_massacre_documentary/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Concerns of the Japanese imperial family===

Potentially in contrast to Prime Minister Abe's example of his Yasukuni Shrine visits, by February 2015, some concern within the [[Imperial House of Japan]] — which normally does not issue such statements – over the issue was voiced by then-[[Naruhito|Crown Prince Naruhito]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Yamamoto |first=Arata |date=9 April 2015 |title=Japan's Experiments on U.S. POWs: Exhibit Highlights Horrific History |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/japanese-experiments-u-s-pows-exhibit-shows-brutal-history-n338231 |access-date=9 April 2015 |publisher=NBC News |archive-date=9 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150409090613/http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/japanese-experiments-u-s-pows-exhibit-shows-brutal-history-n338231 |url-status=live }}</ref> who succeeded [[Akihito|his father]] [[Japanese imperial transition, 2019|on 1 May 2019]]. Naruhito stated on his 55th birthday (23 February 2015) that it was "important to look back on the past humbly and correctly", in reference to Japan's role in World War II-era war crimes, and that he was concerned about the ongoing need to "correctly pass down tragic experiences and the history behind Japan to the generations who have no direct knowledge of the war, at the time memories of the war are about to fade".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Itasaka |first=Kiko |date=24 February 2015 |title=World War II Should Not Be Forgotten, Japan's Prince Naruhito Says |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/world-war-ii-should-not-be-forgotten-japans-prince-naruhito-n311561 |access-date=9 April 2015 |publisher=NBC News |archive-date=9 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150409090612/http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/world-war-ii-should-not-be-forgotten-japans-prince-naruhito-n311561 |url-status=live }}</ref> Two visits to the [[Yasukuni Shrine]] in the second half of 2016 by Japan's former foreign minister, [[Masahiro Imamura]], were again followed by controversy that still showed potential for concern over how Japan's World War II history may be remembered by its citizens<ref>"[http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/11/national/politics-diplomacy/reconstruction-minister-visits-war-linked-yasukuni-shrine Reconstruction minister visits war-linked Yasukuni Shrine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190107220848/https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/11/national/politics-diplomacy/reconstruction-minister-visits-war-linked-yasukuni-shrine/ |date=7 January 2019 }}" (Japan Times – 11 August 2016)</ref><ref>[http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2057841/japan-defence-minister-visits-yasukuni-war-shrine-one-day-after "Japan defence minister visits Yasukuni war shrine, one day after visiting Pearl Harbour with Abe"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180615135303/http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2057841/japan-defence-minister-visits-yasukuni-war-shrine-one-day-after |date=15 June 2018 }}, [[Agence France-Presse|AFP]] via ''[[South China Morning Post]]'', 29 December 2016. Retrieved 28 December 2016.</ref> as it entered the [[Reiwa]] era.

[[Hirohito|Emperor Shōwa]] upheld an official boycott of Yasukuni Shrine after he discovered that Class-A war criminals had been secretly enshrined after the war. This boycott lasted from 1978 until his death, and his successors, [[Akihito]] and [[Naruhito]], have continued the boycott.<ref>{{cite news |title=Explainer: Why Yasukuni shrine is a controversial symbol of Japan's war legacy |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/why-yasukuni-shrine-is-controversial-symbol-japans-war-legacy-2021-08-13/ |publisher=Reuters |date=15 August 2021 |access-date=11 July 2023}}</ref>

==List of major crimes==
<!-- PLEASE LEAVE LINKS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER -->
* [[Japanese occupation of the Andaman Islands|Andaman Islands occupation]]
* [[Japanese occupation of Attu]]
* [[Japanese occupation of Kiska]]
* [[Balalae Island|Balalae Island occupation]]

{{col-begin}}
{{col-break}}
'''Massacres'''
* [[Alexandra Hospital massacre]]
* [[Akikaze massacre]]
* [[Arakan massacres in 1942]]
* [[Balalae Island mass graves]]
* [[Balikpapan massacre]]
* [[Bangka Island massacre]]<ref name="Bangka" />
* [[Changjiao massacre]]
* [[Chaqui'an Massacre Site]]
* [[Fena Massacre]]
* [[Gando massacre]]
* [[Homfreyganj massacre]]
* [[Kalagon massacre]]
* [[Laha massacre]]<ref name="Laha" />
* [[Manila massacre]]
* [[Nanjing Massacre]]
* [[Nanshitou massacre]]
* [[Palawan massacre]]
* [[Panjiayu massacre]]
* [[Pantingan River massacre]]
* [[Parit Sulong massacre]]
* [[Pig-basket atrocity]]
* [[Pontianak Incident|Pontianak Massacre]]
* [[Sook Ching massacre]]
* [[St. Stephen's College massacre]]
* [[Battle of Rabaul (1942)#Tol Plantation massacre|Tol Plantation massacre]]
* [[Wake Island massacre]]
'''Units'''
* [[Unit 100]]
* [[Unit 516]]
* [[Unit 543]]
* [[Unit 731]]
* [[Unit 1644]]
* [[Unit 1855]]
* [[Unit 8604]]
* [[Unit 9420]]
{{col-break}}
'''War crimes'''
* [[Bataan Death March]]
* [[Burma Railway]]
* [[Changteh chemical weapon attack]]
* [[Chichijima incident]]
* [[Niihau incident]]
* [[Comfort women]]
* [[Contest to kill 100 people using a sword]]
* [[Hell ship]]s
* [[Kaimingye germ weapon attack]]
* [[Romusha]]
* [[Sandakan Death Marches]]
* [[Selarang Barracks incident]]
* [[Battle of Shanghai|Shanghai gas attacks]]
* [[Three Alls Policy]]
* [[War crimes in Manchukuo]]
{{col-end}}

==See also==<!-- Please leave in alphabetical order -->
* [[American cover-up of Japanese war crimes]]
* [[Eugenics in Japan]]
* [[Japan during World War II]]
* [[Military history of Japan]]
* [[Taiwanese Resistance to the Japanese Invasion (1895)]]
* [[Tanaka Memorial]]
* [[Japanese nationalism]]
* [[Japanese settlers in Manchuria]]
* ''[[Japanese War Crimes: Murder Under the Sun]]'', historical film
* [[Political extremism in Japan]]
* [[Racism in Japan]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Sources==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{Cite news |agency=Agence France-Presse |date=31 October 2007 |title=A life haunted by WWII surgical killings |work=The Brunei Times |url=http://www.bt.com.bn/focus/2007/10/31/a_life_haunted_by_wwii_surgical_killings |access-date=16 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141213021214/http://www.bt.com.bn/focus/2007/10/31/a_life_haunted_by_wwii_surgical_killings |archive-date=13 December 2014 }}
* {{Cite news |date=28 October 2007 |title=Japanese veteran haunted by WWII surgical killings |agency=Agence France-Presse |url=https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ht5P8U54dLa7dH9mqjKyurq0zQMw?hl=en |access-date=16 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140317024425/https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ht5P8U54dLa7dH9mqjKyurq0zQMw?hl=en |archive-date=17 March 2014 }}
* {{Cite web |last=Borneman |first=John |title=Can Public Apologies Contribute to Peace? An Argument for Retribution |url=http://condor.depaul.edu/~rrotenbe/aeer/v17n1/Borneman.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060824134052/http://condor.depaul.edu/~rrotenbe/aeer/v17n1/Borneman.pdf |archive-date=24 August 2006 |access-date=29 July 2006 |website=Cornell University }}
* [[Bix, Herbert]]. ''[[Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan]]''. New York: HarperCollins, 2000.
*{{cite web |ref={{sfnRef|DANFS: ''Comfort''}} |url=http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/c11/comfort-ii.htm |title=Comfort |author=Naval History And Heritage Command |work=Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships |publisher=Naval History And Heritage Command |access-date=9 July 2013 |archive-date=13 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131013235948/http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/c11/comfort-ii.htm |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Cook |first1=Haruko Taya |url=https://archive.org/details/japanatwaroralhi00cook_0 |title=Japan at War: An Oral History |last2=Cook |first2=Theodore F. |publisher=New Press |year=1993 |isbn=1-56584-039-9 }}- Compilation of interviews with Japanese survivors of World War II, including several who describe war crimes that they were involved with.
* {{Cite web |last=Chalmers |first=Johnson |date=20 November 2003 |title=The Looting of Asia |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n22/john04_.html |website=London Review of Books |access-date=25 April 2005 |archive-date=19 November 2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031119071557/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n22/john04_.html |url-status=live | author-link= Chalmers Johnson}}
* {{Cite book |last=De Jong |first=Louis |title=The collapse of a colonial society. The Dutch in Indonesia during the Second World War |publisher=KITLV Press |others=translation J. Kilian, C. Kist and J. Rudge, introduction J. Kemperman |year=2002 |isbn=90-6718-203-6 |series=Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 206 |location=Leiden, The Netherlands}}
* Dower, John W. ''[[Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II]]''. New York: New Press, 1999.
* Felton, Mark. ''Japan's Gestapo: Murder, Mayhem and Torture in Wartime Asia'' (Casemate Publishers, 2009).
* Felton, Mark. ''Slaughter at Sea: The Story of Japan's Naval War Crimes'' (Casemate Publishers, 2007).
* Felton, Mark. "The Perfect Storm: Japanese military brutality during World War Two." ''The Routledge History of Genocide'' (Routledge, 2015) pp.&nbsp;105–121.
* {{Cite news |last=Fields |first=Liz |title=South Korean Comfort Women Threaten to Sue Japan for $20 Million in the U.S |url=https://news.vice.com/article/south-korean-comfort-women-threaten-to-sue-japan-for-20-million-in-the-us |access-date=20 August 2015 |archive-date=19 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180819234510/https://news.vice.com/article/south-korean-comfort-women-threaten-to-sue-japan-for-20-million-in-the-us |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite web |title=Forive but Never Forget |url=http://en.gsbc.or.kr/category/sub3/sub3_2_view.asp?sn=152 |access-date=20 August 2015 |website=GSBC }}{{dead link|date=May 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
* {{Cite web |last=L |first=Klemen |date=1999–2000 |title=Massacres of POWs, Dutch East Indies, 1941–1942 |url=https://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/massacres.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110919092423/http://www.dutcheastindies.webs.com/massacres.html |archive-date=19 September 2011 |website=Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941–1942 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Landas |first=Wiley |title=The Fallen A True Story of American POWs and Japanese Wartime Atrocities |publisher=John Wiley |year=2004 |isbn=0-471-42119-7 |location=Hoboken}}
* {{Cite journal |last1=Legault |first1=Barbara |last2=Prescott |first2=John F. |year=2009 |title='The arch agitator:' Dr. Frank W. Schofield and the Korean independence movement |journal=The Canadian Veterinary Journal |volume=50 |issue=8 |pages=865–72 |pmc=2711476 |pmid=19881928}}
* {{Cite news |last=McCurry |first=Justin |title=Japanese PM Shinzo Abe Stops Short of New Apology in War Anniversary Speech |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/14/shinzo-abe-japan-no-new-apology-second-world-war-anniversary-speech |access-date=20 August 2015 |archive-date=28 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200128204645/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/14/shinzo-abe-japan-no-new-apology-second-world-war-anniversary-speech |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite news |last=Noh |first=Jooeun |title=The Great Kantō Earthquake |url=http://www.harvard-yenching.org/the-great-kanto-earthquake |access-date=20 August 2015 |newspaper=Harvard-Yenching Institute |archive-date=28 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200128210031/https://harvard-yenching.org/the-great-kanto-earthquake |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite news |last=Ozawa |first=Harumi |date=6 November 2007 |title=Japanese war veteran speaks of atrocities in the Philippines |page=9 |work=Taipei Times |url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/11/06/2003386494 |access-date=16 May 2014 |archive-date=20 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190820144936/http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/11/06/2003386494 |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite news |last=Parry |first= Richard Lloyd |date=26 February 2007 |title=Dissect them alive: chilling Imperial that order could not be disobeyed |work=The Australian |url=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/dissect-them-alive-chilling-imperial-that-order-could-not-be-di/story-e6frg6so-1111113061584 |archive-date=14 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150214145048/http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/dissect-them-alive-chilling-imperial-that-order-could-not-be-di/story-e6frg6so-1111113061584 |url-status=dead }}{{pb}}{{Cite news |last=Parry |first=Richard Lloyd |date=25 February 2007 |title=Dissect them alive: order not to be disobeyed |work=The Times |url=http://www.forties.net/japconfession.html |access-date=16 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130101040816/http://www.forties.net/japconfession.html |archive-date=1 January 2013 }}{{pb}}{{Cite news |last=Parry |first=Richard Lloyd |date=25 February 2007 |title=Dissect them alive: order not to be disobeyed |work=The Times |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article2606909.ece |access-date=16 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070228095300/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1438491.ece |archive-date=28 February 2007 }}{{pb}}{{Cite news |last=Richard Lloyd Parry |date=25 February 2007 |title=Dissect them alive: order not to be disobeyed |work=The Times |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1438491.ece |access-date=10 December 2009 |archive-date=23 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110523225449/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1438491.ece |url-status=dead }}
* Ramsey, Edwin, and Stephen Rivele. (1990). Lieutenant Ramsey's War. Knightsbridge Publishing Co., New York. ASIN: B000IC3PDE
* Schmidt, Larry. (1982). [https://web.archive.org/web/20110509140327/http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADB068659&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf American Involvement in the Filipino Resistance on Mindanao During the Japanese Occupation, 1942–1945]. (PDF). M.S. Thesis. U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. 274 pp.
* {{Cite book |last1=Takai |first1=Kōji |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4p1pDSXzZZUC&q=Raid+on+Yawata |title=B-29 Hunters of the JAAF |last2=Sakaida, Henry |publisher=Osprey Publishing |year=2001 |isbn=1-84176-161-3 |series=Aviation Elite Units |location=Oxford }}{{Dead link|date=June 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
* {{Cite book |last=Tanaka |first=Yuki |title=Hidden Horrors |publisher=Westview press |year=1996}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Tanaka |first=Yuki |title=Poison Gas, the Story Japan Would Like to Forget |journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists |date= October 1988 |volume=44 |issue=8 |page=10 |doi=10.1080/00963402.1988.11456210 |bibcode=1988BuAtS..44h..10T }}
* {{Cite book |title=The Knights of Bushido: A Short History of Japanese War Crimes |publisher=Greenhill Books |year=2006 |isbn=1-85367-651-9}}
* Cheung, Raymond. ''OSPREY AIRCRAFT OF THE ACES 126: Aces of the Republic of China Air Force''. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2015. {{ISBN|978 14728 05614}}.
* {{Cite book |last=Tillman |first=Barrett |url=https://archive.org/details/whirlwindairwara00till |title=Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan 1942–1945 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4165-8440-7 |location=New York City |author-link=Barrett Tillman }}
* {{Cite book |last=Sissons |first=D. C. S. |url=http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~changmin/documents/Sissons%20Final%20War%20Crimes%20Text%2018-3-06.pdf |title=The Australian War Crimes Trials and Investigations 1942–51 |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-date=17 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190817235704/https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~changmin/documents/Sissons%20Final%20War%20Crimes%20Text%2018-3-06.pdf |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite web |title=Wartime Cabinet Document Discloses Conscription of 290,000 Koreans in 1944 |url=http://www1.korea-np.co.jp/pk/033rd_issue/98031103.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160413200013/http://www1.korea-np.co.jp/pk/033rd_issue/98031103.htm |archive-date=13 April 2016 |access-date=20 August 2015 |website=The People's Korea }}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* Barnaby, Wendy. ''The Plague Makers: The Secret World of Biological Warfare'', Frog Ltd, 1999. {{ISBN|1-883319-85-4}} {{ISBN|0-7567-5698-7}} {{ISBN|0-8264-1258-0}} {{ISBN|0-8264-1415-X}}
* Bass, Gary Jonathan. ''Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Trials''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
* Bayly, C. A. & Harper T. ''Forgotten Armies. The Fall of British Asia 1941-5'' (London: Allen Lane) 2004
* Bergamini, David. ''Japan's Imperial Conspiracy,'' William Morrow, New York, 1971.
* [[Arnold Brackman|Brackman, Arnold C.]]: ''The Other Nuremberg: the Untold Story of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial''. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1987. {{ISBN|0-688-04783-1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Dower |first=John W. |url=https://archive.org/details/warwithoutmercy00john_0 |title=War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War |publisher=[[Pantheon Books|Pantheon]] |year=1987 |isbn=0-394-75172-8 |location=New York |author-link=John W. Dower |url-access=registration }}
* Endicott, Stephen and Edward Hagerman. ''The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea'', Indiana University Press, 1999. {{ISBN|0-253-33472-1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Felton |first=Mark |title=Slaughter at Sea: The Story of Japan's Naval War Crimes |publisher=Naval Institute Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-59114-263-8 |location=Annapolis, Maryland}}
* {{Cite book |last=Frank |first=Richard B. |title=Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire |publisher=Penguin Books |year=1999 |location=New York |author-link=Richard B. Frank}}
* Gold, Hal. ''Unit 731 Testimony'', Charles E Tuttle Co., 1996. {{ISBN|4-900737-39-9}}
* Handelman, Stephen and Ken Alibek. ''Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World—Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It'', Random House, 1999. {{ISBN|0-375-50231-9}} {{ISBN|0-385-33496-6}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Harries |first1=Meirion |title=Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army |last2=Harries |first2=Susie |publisher=[[Random House]] |year=1994 |isbn=0-679-75303-6 |location=New York}}
* Harris, Robert and Jeremy Paxman. ''A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Chemical and Biological Warfare'', Random House, 2002. {{ISBN|0-8129-6653-8}}
* Harris, Sheldon H. ''Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932–45 and the American Cover-Up'', Routledge, 1994. {{ISBN|0-415-09105-5}} {{ISBN|0-415-93214-9}}
* {{Cite book |last=Holmes |first=Linda Goetz |title=Unjust Enrichment: How Japan's Companies Built Postwar Fortunes Using American POWs |publisher=Stackpole Books |year=2001 |location=Mechanicsburg, PA, USA}}
* {{Cite book |last=Holmes |first=Linda Goetz |title=Guests of the Emperor: The Secret History of Japan's Mukden POW Camp |publisher=Naval Institute Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-59114-377-2}}
* Horowitz, Solis. "The Tokyo Trial" ''International Conciliation'' 465 (November 1950), 473–584.
* {{Cite book |last=Kratoksa |first=Paul |title=Asian Labor in the Wartime Japanese Empire: Unknown Histories |publisher=M.E. Sharpe and Singapore University Press |year=2005 |isbn=0-7656-1263-1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Lael |first=Richard L. |title=The Yamashita Precedent: War Crimes and Command Responsibility |publisher=Scholarly Resources |year=1982 |location=Wilmington, Del, USA}}
* Latimer, Jon, ''Burma: The Forgotten War'', London: John Murray, 2004. {{ISBN|0-7195-6576-6}}
* {{Cite book |last=MacArthur |first=Brian |url=https://archive.org/details/survivingswordpr00maca |title=Surviving the Sword: Prisoners of the Japanese in the Far East, 1942–45 |publisher=Random House |year=2005 |isbn=1-4000-6413-9 |author-link=Brian MacArthur }}
* Lingen, Kerstin von, ed. ''War Crimes Trials in the Wake of Decolonization and Cold War in Asia, 1945-1956.'' (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2016) [https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319827100 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308143028/https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319827100 |date=8 March 2021 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Minear |first=Richard H. |title=Victor's Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1971 |location=Princeton, NJ, USA |author-link=Richard Minear}}
* {{Cite book |last=Maga |first=Timothy P. |title=Judgment at Tokyo: The Japanese War Crimes Trials |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |year=2001 |isbn=0-8131-2177-9}}
* Neier, Aryeh. ''War Crimes: Brutality, Genocide, Terror and the Struggle for Justice,'' Times Books, Random House, New York, 1998.
* O'Hanlon, Michael E. ''The Senkaku Paradox: Risking Great Power War Over Small Stakes'' (Brookings Institution, 2019) [http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55868 online review] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217095037/https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55868 |date=17 February 2022 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Piccigallo |first=Philip R. |title=The Japanese on Trial: Allied War Crimes Operations in the East, 1945–1951 |publisher=University of Texas Press |year=1979 |location=Austin, Texas, USA}}
* Rees, Laurence. ''Horror in the East'', published 2001 by the British Broadcasting Company
* Seagrave, Sterling & Peggy. ''Gold Warriors: America's secret recovery of Yamashita's gold''. Verso Books, 2003. {{ISBN|1-85984-542-8}}
* {{Cite book |last=Sherman |first=Christine |title=War Crimes: International Military Tribunal |publisher=Turner Publishing Company |year=2001 |isbn=1-56311-728-2}} Detailed account of the [[International Military Tribunal for the Far East]] proceedings in Tokyo
* Trefalt, Beatrice . "Japanese War Criminals in Indochina and the French Pursuit of Justice: Local and International Constraints." ''Journal of Contemporary History'' 49.4 (2014): 727–742.
* {{Cite book |last=Tsurumi |first=Kazuko |url=https://archive.org/details/socialchangeindi0000tsur |title=Social Change and the Individual: Japan before and after defeat in World War II |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1970 |isbn=0-691-09347-4 |location=Princeton, USA }}
* Williams, Peter. ''Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II'', Free Press, 1989. {{ISBN|0-02-935301-7}}
* {{Cite book |last=Wilson |first=Sandra |title=Japanese War Criminals: The Politics of Justice After the Second World War |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2017 |isbn=9780231179225 |location=New York City |display-authors=etal}}
* {{Cite book |last=Yamamoto |first=Masahiro |title=Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity |publisher=Praeger Publishers |year=2000 |isbn=0-275-96904-5}} A rebuttal to Iris Chang's book on the Nanking massacre.
{{refend}}

===Audio/visual media===
{{refbegin}}
* Minoru Matsui (2001), ''Japanese Devils'', a documentary which is based on interviews which were conducted with veteran soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army (Japanese ''Devils sheds light on a dark past'') CNN
** [http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/japdevil.shtml ''Japanese Devils''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120506170411/http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/japdevil.shtml |date=6 May 2012 }}, Midnight Eye,
* {{Cite AV media |title=Japanese War Crimes: Murder Under The Sun |year=2000 |type=Video documentary (DVD & VHS) |publisher=A & E Home Video |people=The History Channel}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
<!-- Please alphabetize according to display title -->
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070609112646/http://home.pacbell.net/fbaldie/Battling_Bastards_of_Bataan.html Battling Bastards of Bataan]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080113004217/http://www.sjwar.org/ "Biochemical Warfare – Unit 731". Alliance for Preserving the Truth of Sino-Japanese War.] No date.
* [http://www.warbirdforum.com/cannibal.htm "Cannibalism". Dan Ford, "Japan at War, 1931–1945"] September 2007.
* [http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/confess/index.html "Confessions of Japanese war criminals".] No date.
* [https://fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/bw/ "History of Japan's biological weapons program"] [[Federation of American Scientists]], 2000-04-16
* [http://www.systemclub.co.kr/ Ji Man-Won's website (in Korean)] Various dates.
* [https://www.theguardian.com/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1338296,00.html Justin McCurry, "Japan's sins of the past"] in ''[[The Guardian]]'', 2004-10-28
* [https://www.archives.gov/iwg/ Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG) ] U.S. [[National Archives and Records Administration]] (NARA). No date.
* [http://www.skycitygallery.com/japan/japan.html "The Other Holocaust"] No date.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20041009171355/http://www.kimsoft.com/2002/jp-rape.htm "Rape of Queen MIN"] 2002
* [http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM R.J. Rummel, "Statistics Of Japanese Democide: Estimates, Calculations, And Sources" ] [[University of Hawaii]], 2002
* [http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/28/1030508070534.html Shane Green. "The Asian Auschwitz of Unit 731" ] in ''[[The Age]]'', 2002-08-29
* [http://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/press/pm/murayama/9508.html "Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama"] 1995-08-15
* {{Cite web |title=Steven Butler, "A half century of denial: the hidden truth about Japan's unit 731" |url=http://www.technologyartist.com/unit_731/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061119053825/http://www.technologyartist.com/unit_731/ |archive-date=19 November 2006 |access-date=31 October 2004}} in ''[[U.S. News & World Report]]'' 1995-07-31
* [http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww2/pow/pow-jap.html Japanese Treatment of World War II POWs]

{{JapanEmpireNavbox}}
{{IJA special research units}}{{War crimes}}{{Anti-Chinese sentiment}}
{{World War II}}

[[Category:Japanese war crimes| ]]
[[Category:Anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan]]
[[Category:Anti-Korean sentiment in Japan]]
[[Category:Historical negationism]]
[[Category:History of Asia]]
[[Category:History of Oceania]]
[[Category:Human rights abuses in Japan|War]]
[[Category:Imperial Japanese Army]]
[[Category:Imperial Japanese Navy]]
[[Category:Incidents of cannibalism]]
[[Category:Cannibalism in Asia]]
[[Category:Cannibalism in Oceania]]
[[Category:Japanese imperialism and colonialism]]
[[Category:Military history of Japan]]
[[Category:Racially motivated violence in Japan]]
[[Category:Shōwa Statism]]
[[Category:War crimes committed by country]]
[[Category:Genocides in Asia]]
[[Category:Ethnic cleansing]]