How did the Japanese army gain its reputation for brutality and who were the real war criminals among them? The Japanese army had not always behaved as badly as its reputation in World War 2 and China suggest. World War 2 was the exception rather than the rule and in most parts stems from deliberate policy decisions. During the Russo-Japanese war and in their WW1 actions such as the conquest of the German colony of Tsing Tao in China, there were few, if any, acts of misbehavior serious enough to be worth reporting. Thus the true spirit and intentions of Bushido were upheld during this period. The German and Russian prisoners were treated decently and with respect. In both cases there were enough foreign observers present to notice any systematic abuse. The code of Bushido was in intention and general principles quite similar to feudal Europe's code of chivalry and for the most part served similar purposes, namely to curb the power of the warrior class. Both codes emphasize loyalty, honorable behavior, courage and compassion. The differences between the codes can be ascribed to the local influences on society and thus indirectly Bushido, namely Confucianism, Shintoism and Zen Buddhism. Confucianism brought an almost "renaissance man" interest and dedication to the arts among the upper class in particular, thus going a long way towards alleviating the almost stereotypical dimwitted thug caricature of the European knighthood. Shintoism's major influence on Japanese culture was the greater emphasis on loyalty to family and superiors than even Confucianism provided for, with the emperor becoming the ultimate father figure. It is from Zen Buddhism that the most unfortunate influence comes, the goal of achieving a stoic disposition and fatalistic outlook on matters of life and death. It is through Shinto and Zen Buddhism that Bushido would be perverted. The perversion of the honorable intentions enshrined in the Japanese Bushido doctrine seems to have begun in earnest after General Araki Sadao (Army minister) inaugurated a policy of brutality towards defeated foes, at the time applying only in China. In some ways this brutality could be explained as a normal reaction to the guerilla campaign, never a pleasant experience for an army. Most armies have had their soul corrupted by the demands of occupation duties. However this does not provide sufficient reason, as the guerilla war was only in its infancy, with the Chinese Communist Party weak and facing the Long March. Other factors contributing to General Araki's decision were a lack of clear politi cal objectives for this second war in China - there was no specific plan to create a "second Manchuoko" and a desire to instill fear in their enemy. Since the Japanese army was normally heavily outnumbered by the Nationalist Chinese forces, the further weakening of Chinese morale could only exaggerate the quality difference between the two sides. Since it was not a standard practice in other theatres before the Pacific war broke out, the army's willing participation in this behavior must lie in Japanese society's deeply seated racist attitude towards their Chinese neighbors. The stunning victories during the Sino-Japanese war triggered a complete reversal of attitudes towards China. Prior to the war, the Chinese were considered by the to be of the same race and Imperial China the center of culture. The early chapters of Saburo lenaga's excellent work Japan's Last War gives a disturbing account of how the state fostered this racism through the education system. He clearly documents how all grade school subjects and even popular culture developed a militaristic and anti-Chinese focus. This would prove to be immensely important as compulsory education was still in its infancy and very few people continued their education past these six compulsory years. As western interference and complaints about events in China (such as the rape of Nanking) grew, the government steadily assumed greater control over the media by its increasingly rigid enforcement of antisedition and censorship laws. The media was used to begin building anti-western sentiment while eliminating any criticism of the Imperial military. When the liberal Chuo Koron monthly news magazine included the story "Living Soldiers" by Ishikawa Tatsuzu in March 1938, the Special Higher Police ordered the pages cut out. "Living Soldiers" was the author's eyewitness report of the Rape of Nanking the previous December. In May 1939 a meeting attended by most news outlets was held where the censorship process was changed from the reactive censorship in place to a pro-active process whereby all articles had to have prior approval. Later in 1939 the censorship was extended to include blacklisting liberal authors and requiring pre-approval of the topics for future editorials. The media censorship grew to such an extent that late war issues of the Chuo Koron, before being shut down in July 1944, had become more militaristic than any of the papers in 1939, while maintaining its comparative attitude with its peers. Many "western" entertainments such as baseball and ballroom dancing were first discouraged by ever-stricter controls and then suppressed entirely. The last dance hall was closed on October 30 1940 although some of the instructors continued to teach Naval officers until mid 1941. When the Pacific war kicked off after Pearl Harbor, this perversion of Bushido had not gone far. There were still many Generals who insisted on their troops behaving honorably. They were, however, fighting a losing battle for the soul of their Army. It is truly sad that two of the Generals who had tried the hardest to stop the perversion were convicted of war crimes while a self-confessed war criminal out-waited the Allied occupation and was elected to parliament. With the Pacific war, the Japanese started to experience a new problem: hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war in the first few months. General Hideki Tojo was now firmly in control of Japan and solved the problem quite simply: an order was issued to POW camp commandants that they were not to be bound by the Geneva conventions. This was followed shortly by another order, which would be a direct and specific breach of the conventions: everyone including prisoners was to work for the good of the Empire. Since the POW service was regarded as a punishment station, it was staffed by what was considered the dregs of the army. The order removing any legal constraints added a veneer of official sanction to their brutal proclivities. At this time, the corruption of Bushido had its first important effects on the civilian population as well. In late 1941, senior high school was shortened from three to two and a half years. Student exemptions from military service were cancelled in the fall of 1941. The most serious consequences of these orders were not to be felt for another two years - most of the Special Attack Forces (popularly known as Kamikazes) were volunteered straight from the universities. After another two years of indoctrination and steady degradation of the Bushido Code, coinciding with the turn in war fortunes and the beginning of the collapse of the military logistics system, the entire armed forces were infected with the new corrupt version of Bushido. A willingness to sacrifice ones life for Nippon and the Emperor was replaced with a commitment to suicide as the first and only choice. From late 1943, retreat would cease to be a valid military maneuver at any level. The era of the Kamikaze had begun and with their popularization, the perversion started embedding itself in the collective consciousness of the Japanese population. There were several flavors of suicidal "Special Attack Forces". Considering the resources and effort expended on these programs, as in all such barbaric and disgusting wastes of human life, the payoff was very slim. The most tragic aspect for Japanese society was that these programs relied heavily on volunteers from the universities. While the "Supreme Council for the Direction of the War" made Special Attack Forces official policy and ordered production focused on the various programs on the 18th of January 1945, they were already in use before then. Kamikaze aircraft attacks began in October 1944 during the Marianas campaign and were used again en mass at Leyte Gulf. Until the US forces adapted, the Kamikaze met with some success, although overall it is arguable if the results exceeded those obtainable if conventional tactics had been used. The Navy Minister Yonai Mitsumasa ordered the establishment of the Kaiten human torpedo program on the 31st of August 1944, which had its operational debut on the 20th of February 1945. 106 Kaiten were lost in the few brief months before the end of the war. Seventeen of these were lost due to training accidents but US records indicate three vessels were damaged. Other Special Attack programs included the Oka rocket bomb, both the Koryu and Kairyu submarines and Shinyo boats. The final and most horrific program of all was the "arming" of the entire Japanese society. The intention was to recreate horrors of Saipan on a massive scale. Civilians were to be armed at all times. Women attended work bearing their bamboo spears. In many ways this was like Hitler's hope that the German race would resist fanatically and effectively commit racial suicide. In Japan's case, with forty years of indoctrination behind it, the military leadership may just have succeeded. The effects would have been akin to mass suicide as these poorly armed civilians would have had no hope against the well trained and lavishly equipped Allied forces. IN GAME TERMS China: There should always be a danger that the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) goes on a rampage, normally as part of a successful attack that results in Japanese casualties. If the game does not use step losses for both sides, a high odds exchange result is a good candidate. There should be a limit of one "rampage" per season and it should prevent the units involved from performing any other actions for the turn (e.g. exploitation movement) or some other similar penalty such as not serving as a supply source or beachhead site. Pacific: The large haul of prisoners in the early months gave the Japanese a large pool of labor to exploit. Historically it was used for a large logistics improvement (the Burma-Thai railway) and should allow the Japanese to create a supply connection that the Allies cannot. This connection should be minor in effect and small in capacity. On the downside this logistic benefit must either be plotted several turns in advance or take time to build up to its full benefits. Other minor one off non-combat benefit choices could be designed depending on the game system. The main advantage in game terms is that it is effectively free. It is important to remember that any benefit would be minor and slow to obtain, in many ways too much trouble for the payoff. Bushido: Late in the war, with suicidal behavior being more prevalent, there are several possible effects that can be modeled. In tactical and lower scale operational games, Japanese units should be less likely to retreat. Instead there should be a mechanism to potentially inflict a small additional loss on the enemy while being automatically eliminated. At a strategic scale, the ground unit's tendency to stand and die is less obvious but could still be reflected by turning some retreat results into counterattacks. Since these are normally going to be low odds attacks, the small potential for a benefit at the cost of elimination should already be reflected by the CRT. It is the Kamikaze that can best be modeled at the strategic level. There should be points of no return specified where any new Japanese air and later naval units are a Kamikaze attack unit instead. These are slightly cheaper single use equivalents of the normal unit. After the first few turns of use, they lose any real combat effects and instead are treated as a movement obstacle. The civilian defenders of the Home Islands, contrary to their portrayal as a special ability in some Risk variants, would have been almost useless - a single free Infantry piece for each battle would be more realistic. In most large scale hex based games, the armed civilian population could be treated as a movement penalty the first time an Allied unit enters each hex. Empire of the Rising Sun does not specifically deal with the Special Attack Forces. The mass draft and arming of civilians is treated in a similar way to the German Volkssturm in its companion game Third Reich, whereby a large number of cheap and almost useless infantry units become available for construction. The divisional level Command magazine game Samurai Sunset is the only game I am aware of that covers the whole range of Special Attack forces, although at a high level. A fair proportion of the Japanese counter mix consists of "suicide" Special Attack units including three naval units, one advanced technology (e.g. jets and rockets) air unit and ten other Kamikaze air units. For the ground forces there are seven partisan / samurai units which can be replaced. The best reflection of the horrors Allied planners were expecting is the "mass suicide" rule whereby occupied cities are worth fewer victory points to the invaders and also become less useful to the Japanese defender. GENERAL YAMASHITA The example of General Tomoyuki Yamashita of Malaya fame is enlightening. After a relatively minor incident of rape and pillage at Penang early in the Malaya campaign, General Yamashita had the Okabe regimental commander confined to quarters for a month, despite the fact his units were by then in the forefront of fighting at the time. This demonstration of high-level disapproval, putting honor before victory, deeply shamed the unit involved. The message was clearly understood by everyone in both the 5th and 18th Divisions. Yamashita also issued orders that allied wounded be treated by the medical services, unlike the standard callous behavior towards the enemy in China where the divisions had recently been released from. The Imperial Guards commander, Major General Toshio Nishumura, was one of the believers in the new brutality doctrine and encouraged misbehavior. This culminated in a massacre at the Alexandra Military Hospital in the last days of the Malayan campaign. While it is not disputed that Indian troops fired on the attacking guardsmen from within the hospital's grounds on the 14th before withdrawing, there is little evidence they made any attempt to use the buildings as strongpoints. In any case the line in this area was only held for a short time that day. While not on the same scale as the St Stevens College incident in Hong Kong, it was a sufficient blot for any army. General Yamashita had Major Gen. Nishimura forcibly retired and ensured that the Guards Division was publicly insulted by being the only formation not to receive an Imperial Rescript for the Malayan campaign. The Imperial Rescript was equivalent of a US Presidential Unit Citation and the granting of a Battle Honor, so the failure of the Guards to receive any, while the other divisions and many of their component formations received one sent another clear message. What is particularly noteworthy in this punishment is that Nishimura was one of the `in crowd' of Prime Minister Tojo's military faction. Of course, since Yamashita was second only to Yamamoto in prestige in early 1942, he could not be punished for this indirect attack on Tojo. Instead he was "kicked upstairs", banished to command of the 1st Army Group on the Siberian border which with the decision to "strike south" had become a career ending backwater. With the American invasion of the Philippines imminent, he was dispatched there to take charge although saddled with an almost impossible chain of command. This chain of command, whereby he was responsible for all forces in the archipelago but not in direct command, particularly of the navy, earned him more War Crimes charges. The main cause was the refusal of naval ground forces to obey direct orders to abandon the superb port of Manila and their rampages against civilians during the Americans efforts to drive them out. GENERAL HOMMA While General Masaharu Homma does not seem to have done anything specific to prevent misbehavior, he did issue specific orders to treat the Filipinos well. His failures to secure a quick victory in the Philippines lead to his removal from any important military or administrative post. A new garrison General and sinister aides such as Lt. Col. Masanobu Tsuji soon arrived to replace Homma. Honorably intentioned, although inadequate as it turned out, preparations to move the prisoners of war had been started under General Homma, with the Bataan Death March as one of the results. The army he left behind also went on to perpetrate many outrages against the hapless Filipino people. He was executed on April 3, 1946 after MacArthur rejected an appeal for clemency. The British did nothing despite General Homma being well known to them. He had spent time with them on the Western Front in 1918 where they rewarded him for bravery. LT. COLONEL TSUJI Lt. Colonel Tsuji had served as the director of Operations and Planning on the staff of General Yamashita during the Malayan campaign before being part of the contingent replacing General Homma in the Philippines. He later served in other theatres such as a brief visit to Guadalcanal, with a career that reads like a tour of the Japanese army's battlefronts. He has never denied personally shooting prisoners during the Bataan Death March without any kind of duress, among other war crimes such as playing a leading role in the death of about 5000 Singapore Chinese soon after the conquest. He was officially cleared of all charges while in hiding at the end of the war, out-waiting the Allied occupation of Japan by hiding in the jungles of South East Asia until 1948 before returning to his homeland. He was elected to the Japanese parliament (Diet) in 1951. Masanobu Tsuji wrote the excellent account of the Malayan campaign published in English as Singapore or Singapore: the Japanese version. The Japanese title was Shonan, the Hinge of Fate, reflecting both the Japanese wartime name for Singapore (Shonan) and Tsuji's respect for volume five of Churchill's History of World War Two. JUSTICE? Unfortunately, since the two generals had inflicted such embarrassments on their enemies, they were tried and found guilty of war crimes. They were judged guilty for crimes committed either against their specific orders, such as General Homma's conviction over the bombing of Manila after MacArthur declared it an open city, or for crimes committed after they were removed from that command, such as the Bataan Death March, or events in Singapore and on the Burma railway. The strangest irony of all is that the facade of legal process protected the criminals such as Tsuji, because hearsay was normally inadmissible. MAIN REFERENCES Singapore by Masanobu Tsuji, specifically page 150 for the wounded allies anecdote and page 179 for the Penang incident. General Gordon Bennett's introduction confirms that Tsuji was cleared of war crimes. Japan's Last War by Saburo Ienaga for specifics on political atmosphere and some details of the Special Attack programs. Japan at War by Karuko Taya Cook and Theodore Cook, specifically the sections "Towards a new order" and "Special Attack" Back to Table of Contents -- Against the Odds vol. 2 no. 2 Back to Against the Odds List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by LPS. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com * Buy this back issue or subscribe to Against the Odds direct from LPS.