[PDF] RESEARCHING JAPANESE WAR CRIMES - National Archives

is the place to begin. CAROL GLUCK, George Sansom Professor of History, Columbia University This volume will be both essential reading and a

major reference tool for those interested in the war

Finally, after sixty years, our records on Japan have been indexed, and some documents that have been hiding in plain sight can now be located with superb finding aids. Pacific War veterans and their descendants will especially appreciate this roadmap to America's very personal war.

LINDA GOETZ HOLMES, author of Unjust Enrichment: How Japan's Companies Built Postwar Fortunes Using American POWs and 4000 Bowls of Rice: A Prisoner of War Comes Home

Finally, after sixty years, our records on Japan have been indexed, and some documents that have been hiding in plain sight can now be located with superb finding aids. Pacific War veterans and their descendants will especially appreciate this roadmap to America's very personal war.

LINDA GOETZ HOLMES, author of Unjust Enrichment: How Japan's Companies Built Postwar Fortunes Using American POWs and 4000 Bowls of Rice: A Prisoner of War Comes Home

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Researching Japanese War Crimes Records

Introductory Essays

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Researching Japanese War Crimes Records Introductory Essays

Edward Drea Greg Bradsher

Greg Bradsher Robert Hanyok

Robert Hanyok James Lide

James Lide Michael Petersen

Michael Petersen Daqing Yang

Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group

Daqing Yang

Washington, DC

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Published by the National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, 2006

Researching Japanese war crimes records : introductory essays / Edward Drea ... \[et al.\]. p. cm.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references. ISBN: 1-880875-28-4

ISBN: 1-880875-28-4

1. World War, 1939-1945—Atrocities — Japan--Sources. 2. World War, 1939-1945— Destruction and pillage—Japan—Sources. 3. War crimes--Japan--Sources. 4. United States. National Archives and Records Administration. I. Drea, Edward J., 1944- II. United States. Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group. D804.J3R396 2006 940.54’05072—dc22

2006027580

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“In a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”

— Albert Camus

— Albert Camus

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Contents

About the Cover: Diary of a Japanese Army Medical Doctor, 1937..... ix Daqing Yang

1. Introduction ..... 3 Edward Drea

2. Documentary Evidence and the Studies of Japanese War Crimes: An Interim Assessment.....21 Daqing Yang

3. Recently Declassified Records at the U.S. National Archives Relating to Japanese War Crimes.....57 James Lide

4. Japanese War Crimes Records at the National Archives: Research Starting Points .....79 NARA staff

5. Wartime COMINT Records in the National Archives about Japanese War Crimes in the Asia and Pacific Theaters, 1978-1997 .....111 Robert Hanyok

6. The Exploitation of Captured and Seized Japanese Records Relating to War Crimes, 1942-1945.....151 Greg Bradsher

7. A “Constantly Recurring Irritant”: Returning Captured and Seized Japanese Records, 1946-1961.....169 Greg Bradsher

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About the cover

Diary of a Japanese Army Medical Doctor, 1937

Daqing Yang

The diary was compact: a total of fifty-six pages in a 3x5” notebook that fit easily inside a pocket.\* Its author, Hosaka Akira, was an army medical doctor attached to the 3rd Infantry Battalion, 20th Regiment, 16th Division in the Shanghai Expedition Army.

The diary begins on August 24, 1937, when “mobilization was ordered at 4 pm.” It ends on December 7, a day when fighting lasted from morning till night, and soldiers became very tired. At that time, Hosaka’s unit was in the vicinity of Nanjing, the capital of China, which would fall a week later and subsequently draw world attention for the massive atrocities committed there by the Japanese troops, an event widely known as the “Rape of Nanking.” Roughly a week before the diary ended abruptly, Hosaka recorded the following:

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Roughly a week before the diary ended abruptly, Hosaka recorded the following:

At 10:00 on 29 November 1937 we left to clean out the enemy in Chang Chou and at noon we entered the town. An order was received to kill the residents and eighty (80) of them, men and women of all ages, were shot to death \[at dusk\]. I hope this will be the last time I’ll ever witness such a scene. The people were all gathered in one place. They were all praying, crying, and begging for help. I just couldn’t bear watching such a pitiful spectacle.

Soon the heavy machine guns opened fire and the sight of those people screaming and falling to the ground is one I could not face even if I had had the heart of a monster. War is truly terrible. \[Allied Translator and Interpreter Section translation.\]

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In late 1945, Hosaka sent the diary by registered mail to Col. Alva C. Carpenter, head of the legal section of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). He left his return address on the envelope. To make his handwriting legible, Hosaka copied the November 29 entry in clearer handwriting on a separate sheet of paper, which was then attached to the opposite page in the diary. The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal investigated atrocities committed by the Japanese

The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal investigated atrocities committed by the Japanese Army in the Rape of Nanking. SCAP dispatched Col. Carpenter to China to gather evidence. Hosaka’s diary was apparently not included in the evidence for the prosecution.

Despite his reference to a major atrocity against Chinese civilians a week before the battle of Nanjing and in the general vicinity, officially the Rape of Nanking began on December 13th, the day the city fell, and was spatially confined to Nanjing and its immediate vicinity. In the early 1980s, Japanese journalist Honda Katsuichi claimed that the brutal

In the early 1980s, Japanese journalist Honda Katsuichi claimed that the brutal behavior of Japanese troops in Nanjing was by no means an isolated incident as some in Japan claimed. Instead, it fit into a pattern of Japanese atrocities in the Lower Yangtze area against Chinese since the battle of Shanghai. Honda came to this conclusion after extensive interviews with Chinese survivors and examining existing Japanese records. Hosaka’s diary of the Japanese atrocity in Changzhou has been corroborated by several

Hosaka’s diary of the Japanese atrocity in Changzhou has been corroborated by several Japanese sources that became available in recent years. The diary of Makihara Nobuo was discovered by a Japanese citizen group and published in 1988 together with the diaries of several other veterans. Makihara, a twenty-two year old private first class belonging to the 3rd Platoon of the Machine Gun Company of the 20th Infantry Regiment, 16th Division, wrote on November 29, 1937:

Depart from the village at 9:00 a.m. Various units compete to enter the town. The tank unit also starts. In contrast with yesterday, there are no traces of the enemy at all. Enter the town magnificently, passing an impressive temple (even though there are many temples in China)… Because Wu Jing is an anti-Japanese stronghold, we carry out “mopping up” \[sōtō\]

Because Wu Jing is an anti-Japanese stronghold, we carry out “mopping up” \[sōtō\] operations in the entire town, killing all men and women without distinction. The enemy is nowhere to be seen, either because they have lost the will to fight after their defense line at Wu Xi was breached or they are holding strong positions further ahead. So far I haven’t seen a town so impressive as this one… sightseeing near the hills. However, Kitayama did write that “our comrades did something atrocious.” He then noted, “people of the enemy country are really pitiful. I don’t even want to hear such tales.” When Japanese journalist Shimozato Masaki interviewed Kitayama in 1987, he admitted that the machine gun company had killed several dozen Chinese civilians in Changzhou. The diary of Hosaka Akira establishes beyond any reasonable doubt that a massacre

The diary of Hosaka Akira establishes beyond any reasonable doubt that a massacre of some eighty Chinese civilians was carried out by order by a Japanese unit equipped with heavy machine guns. The same unit almost certainly also took part in the battle of Nanjing. It reconfirms the argument, first advanced by Japanese journalist Honda Katsuichi, that the Rape of Nanking was not an isolated incident, but fit into a pattern of atrocities since the battle of Shanghai.

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Researching Japanese War Crimes Records Introductory Essays

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1 Introduction

Edward Drea

Japanese war crimes committed in Asia and the Pacific between 1931 and 1945 concerned few Americans in the decades following World War II. Japan’s crimes against Asian peoples had never been a major issue in the postwar United States, and—with the notable exceptions of former U.S. prisoners of war held by the Japanese—even remembrance of Japanese wartime atrocities against Americans dimmed as years 1 passed. American attitudes about Japanese war crimes changed markedly following the

American attitudes about Japanese war crimes changed markedly following the 2 1997 publication of Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking. Chang’s moving testament to the Chinese victims of the sack of Nanjing in 1937 graphically detailed the horror and scope of the crime and indicted the Japanese government and people for their collective amnesia about the wartime army’s atrocious conduct. The bestselling book spurred a tremendous amount of renewed interest in Japanese wartime conduct in China, Korea, the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific.

The Rape of Nanking raised many issues that demanded further explanation. Why

The Rape of Nanking raised many issues that demanded further explanation. Why were the Japanese not punished as severely as the Nazis for their crimes? Did the United States suppress evidence of the criminal responsibility of activity by the emperor to ensure a smoothly running occupation of Japan? Did the U.S. government protect Japanese medical officers in exchange for data on human experimentation?

Chang also charged the U.S. government with “inexplicably and irresponsibly”

Chang also charged the U.S. government with “inexplicably and irresponsibly” returning confiscated wartime records to Japan before microfilming them, making it 3 impossible to determine the extent of Japan’s guilt. Others were convinced that the U.S. government retained highly classified documents that would prove Japanese guilt beyond doubt and implicate the highest levels of Japanese government and society in the crimes.

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These issues led concerned parties to investigate Japanese wartime records among the holdings at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in College Park, Maryland, and at other U.S. government agencies. Thorough documentation of Japanese war crimes and criminal activities among these holdings seemed unavailable, leading to speculation of an official cover-up. Suspicions that the U.S. government was deliberately concealing dark secrets were fueled when, instead of finding the records they sought, researchers encountered a card stating the records had been “withdrawn for security reasons,” as well as when they received a notice that requested information could not be located.

Motivated by Chang’s assertions, disparate groups who had struggled to raise

Motivated by Chang’s assertions, disparate groups who had struggled to raise awareness of Japanese crimes and win justice for the victims were galvanized in their pursuit of answers and documentation. Armed with this latest evidence and capitalizing on a heightened consciousness in the United States about Japanese wartime crimes, victims and advocates pressed their cases with more determination and with greater popular and political support than had been the case in years prior.

American veterans who had been held captive by the Japanese renewed claims for

American veterans who had been held captive by the Japanese renewed claims for justice and recompense, and wanted an official apology from the Japanese government for the institutionalized brutality under which they suffered during their long years in captivity. Others asserted that they had been the victims of diabolical human experiments conducted under the auspices of the Japanese Army’s notorious Unit 731, whose military medical doctors and specialists, under the command and direction of Lt. 4 Gen. Ishii Shirō, carried out army-sponsored experiments on humans for the purpose of 5 developing effective biological warfare weapons.

The controversy over the Japanese Army’s system of coercing young women to work as prostitutes in army field brothels, the so-called “comfort women” issue, had been simmering, especially in South Korea. The 1994 publication of George Hicks’ The Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War presented the issues in the English language and described the coerced women’s attempts 6 to gain restitution from Japan. By the late 1990s, the plight of “comfort women” had erupted into front-page news in the United States and became a lodestone for women’s rights advocates and other groups demanding the Japanese government acknowledge responsibility for these wartime abuses of human rights. The People’s Republic of China, which unquestionably suffered the worst depredations

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Manchuria, and Chinese-Americans also found their pent-up grievances expressed in Chang’s narrative. Japan was also called to account for its wartime use of slave labor or coerced workers.

Japan was also called to account for its wartime use of slave labor or coerced workers.

During the war years, the Japanese government forcibly removed workers from Korea, China, and elsewhere in Asia and shipped them to Japan as unpaid labor for dangerous work in coal mines and for heavy construction. American POWs were also subjected to brutal labor details that were illegal according to the Geneva Convention protocols governing the rights of prisoners. Filipino, Indonesian, and Dutch victims added their voices to a swelling protest against the Japanese government’s refusal to acknowledge these crimes.

When confronted by advocacy and human rights groups, the Japanese government

When confronted by advocacy and human rights groups, the Japanese government insisted these issues had been settled by stipulations of the peace treaty signed in San 7 Francisco in September 1951. Nothing more needed to be said on the matter. Not only did Japanese authorities refuse to acknowledge any wartime responsibility, but several conservative politicians and senior bureaucrats went so far as to publicly denounce the accusations as groundless historical revisionism and Japan bashing. There was, of course, a domestic political dimension to the accusations (no candidate from the conservative ruling party could win an election by blaming Japan for a war of aggression), but the hardline official Japanese position created the impression in the United States that Japanese war crimes and related subjects such as war guilt or the role of Emperor Hirohito in the war were taboo subjects in Japan.

Ian Buruma’s the Wages of Guilt (1994) compares responses to war crimes in postwar

Ian Buruma’s the Wages of Guilt (1994) compares responses to war crimes in postwar 8 Germany and Japan. According to Buruma, Germany publicly accepted responsibility for the evils perpetrated by the Nazi regime and educated future generations by discussing its sordid Nazi history in school textbooks and classes. Germany apologized to various European nations and Israel. Conversely, Japan rejected responsibility, downplayed the historical evidence of aggression and atrocity in its schools with sophistry and euphemism, and apologized to no one. Worse yet, ultra-conservative Japanese commentators insisted the war crimes, if they happened at all, were exaggerated to embarrass the Japanese people.

Although the Japanese have not confronted their wartime conduct as the Germans

Although the Japanese have not confronted their wartime conduct as the Germans have, there has been a popular and an academic reaction to the Japanese government’s denials. As Daqing Yang points out in chapter 2, scholars and special interest groups in Japan have pursued the topic of Japanese war crimes with academic rigor, fervor, and commitment. Such views appear regularly in mainstream Japanese publications, although most of this work has had little impact in the West because it remains untranslated.

A notable exception is Honda Katsuichi’s graphic and highly controversial description of Japanese Army atrocities in central China, which was published in 1972 in Japan, but not translated into English until 1999. Japanese writers, historians, and authors freely publish their work in mass circulation media where it is widely read and openly commented upon in a wide variety of opinion journals and the press. The rise of concern about Japanese war crimes in the 1990s reinforced the notion that

The rise of concern about Japanese war crimes in the 1990s reinforced the notion that most Japanese war criminals escaped punishment, either because the U.S. government needed their cooperation against the Soviet Union during the early days of the Cold War, or to appease current Japanese economic and commercial interests. Unfortunately, some Japanese war criminals were not punished. Perhaps the most notorious was Gen. Ishii of Unit 731, who escaped postwar prosecution in exchange, apparently, for supplying the U.S. government with details of his gruesome human experiments. Other suspected Japanese war criminals who were never indicted include three postwar prime ministers: Hatoyama Ichirō (1954–1956), Ikeda Hayato (1960–1964), and Kishi Nobusuke (1957). A convicted Class A war criminal, Shigemitsu Mamoru, a senior diplomat and foreign minister during the war years, regained the foreign minister portfolio in 1954.

The controversial treatment of Emperor Hirohito by occupation authorities was a subject of debate in Japan and elsewhere since the late 1940s, and especially since the early 1990s in the United States.

Although many notorious war criminals went unpunished and lived prosperous

in the United States.

Although many notorious war criminals went unpunished and lived prosperous and prestigious lives, it is important to recognize that thousands of Japanese war crimes were prosecuted. Twenty-eight Class A war criminals accused of crimes against peace, conventional war crimes, and crimes against humanity included many of Japan’s wartime leaders, such as Prime Minister Gen. Tōjō Hideki. The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, the counterpart of Nuremberg, began in May 1946 and ended in November 1948 with the conviction of twenty-five of these defendants. Seven, including Tōjō, were hanged, sixteen were sentenced to life imprisonment (of whom four died in prison), and two received lesser terms. Of the three remaining, two died during the proceedings, and one was declared unfit for trial. The Japanese government paroled all those imprisoned by 1956 and the Foreign Ministry released them unconditionally in April 1958. Allied nations also held war crimes trials throughout Asia and the Pacific. Americans, British, Australians, Dutch, French, Filipinos, and Chinese held trials at forty-nine locations between October 1945 and April 1956. The British prosecuted numerous Japanese for war crimes in Southeast Asia, including those involved in the construction of the Thai- Burma railway of death, immortalized as the Bridge over the River Kwai. Australian prosecutors worked in conjunction with British and American courts to bring Japanese to justice and tried large numbers of Japanese at Amboina, Dutch East Indies, and at Rabaul, New Britain. China tried at least 800 defendants, including some involved in the Nanjing massacre. France and the Netherlands tried several hundred more. The French brought to justice a Japanese civilian on Java who forced dozens of women into prostitution for the military authorities, and the Dutch condemned Japanese to death 9 for the murder of indigenous people and Dutch prisoners. In late 1949 at Khabarovsk, the Soviet Union also put twelve Japanese on trial for biological warfare crimes—six were members of Unit 731, two of Unit 100, an independent biological warfare entity, and four from elsewhere—and later transferred several hundred Japanese ex-servicemen suspected of war crimes to the People’s Republic of China, where Chinese authorities judged them in the mid-1950s. Of 5,379 Japanese, 173 Taiwanese, and 148 Koreans tried as class B and C war criminals for conventional crimes, violations of the laws of war, rape, murder, maltreatment of prisoners of war, about 4,300 were convicted, almost 10 1,000 sentenced to death, and hundreds given life imprisonment. Documentation of these trials has never been compiled into one source, or at one site.

Documentation of these trials has never been compiled into one source, or at one site.

The Allied nations naturally gathered Japanese documents for their respective tribunals, resulting in the disbursement of Japanese records among the various nations of the Allied World War II coalition. Japanese unit records and documents held by the People’s Republic of China or the former Soviet Union were, with few exceptions, unobtainable in the West because of Cold War realities. Even the handful that reached the West during this period was so encumbered with communist Cold War propaganda that many questioned their veracity. For example, when the Soviets published the official court proceedings in 1950 of the December 1949 trials in Khabarovsk, they included Unit 731 related documents, but many in the West dismissed the verdicts along with the evidence 11 as another in a series of long-running Stalinist show trials. With the dissolution of the former Soviet Union in December 1991 and positive change in United States–China relations, information about war crimes became somewhat more accessible, but still very limited. Diligent efforts in Japan have uncovered extensive documentation related to Unit 731 and other war crimes, but the amount of material still remaining classified is unknown. By the late 1990s, many people focused on whether the U.S. government still had classified material about Japanese war crimes, and, if so, whether it would implicate other Japanese who had escaped justice.

Responding to these concerns, on December 6, 2000, Congress passed the Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act (Public Law 106-567), which put to rest any doubt that U.S. records relating to Japanese war crimes were included under the aegis of the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act (Public Law 105-246). The implementing directive ordered the Interagency Working Group (IWG) “to locate and disclose, subject to the statute’s exceptions,” any classified U.S. government documents pertaining to Japanese war crimes and to recommend their declassification and release to the public.

President Clinton appointed IWG members from the major government agencies holding classified records as well as three outside members to represent the public. The Japanese Imperial Government Records Disclosure Act provided for a fourth public member, but none was appointed. IWG public members, Thomas H. Baer, Richard Ben-Veniste, and Elizabeth Holtzman, gave willingly of their valuable time. Their shared characteristic was a determination to make the record available to the American people. It is in large measure thanks to their efforts that the work of the IWG met with cooperation and success. It was due to their persistence that the CIA redoubled its search efforts and released additional information on Japanese war criminals. Special acknowledgment is due to Senators Mike DeWine and Dianne Feinstein and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who supported the IWG’s work in Congress and worked with the IWG to elicit the full cooperation of the CIA in the search effort. The NARA staff members who worked on the Japanese portion of the IWG project under the able direction of David Van Tassel were responsive to authors’ queries, unfailingly provided requested materials, and searched collections meticulously to identify still-classified items. In particular, without the professional expertise of Senior Archivists William Cunliffe and Richard Myers and their superior working knowledge of the massive collections, the IWG could not have accomplished its goals. The distinguished IWG Historical Advisory Panel (HAP), chaired by Gerhard Weinberg, always provided sound guidance as the IWG navigated among record groups, constituencies, and politics. Professor Carol Gluck, a member of the HAP, provided insight into Japan’s wartime experience and also suggested the substantive approach of this volume. Steven Garfinkel, chair of the IWG, unfailingly identified sensitive issues during the search period, brought them to the attention of the public members and HAP, and acted to ensure they were expeditiously addressed. Larry Taylor, IWG executive director, skillfully managed the multiple day-to-day administrative responsibilities of the IWG, ensuring it functioned smoothly. The government agencies that reviewed their classified record holdings for

An estimated 8 million pages of documents were declassified under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, whereas significantly fewer pages—100,000—were released under the Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act. There are many reasons for this discrepancy, most of which fall under two overarching explanations. First, the United States originally confiscated fewer documents pertinent to Japanese war crimes than to Nazi war crimes. Second, by the time the disclosure laws were signed, far fewer World War II Japanese documents than Nazi documents remained classified by U.S. agencies.

Factors Influencing the Number of Documents in U.S. Possession U.S. government agencies held far fewer records pertaining to Japanese war crimes than to

U.S. government agencies held far fewer records pertaining to Japanese war crimes than to Nazi war crimes. A major reason is that at war’s end, the Japanese destroyed or concealed important documents, which dramatically reduced the amount of evidence available for confiscation by U.S. authorities. How could this happen? At the time the Third Reich surrendered in May 1945, Allied armies occupied almost every inch of Germany.

Document collection teams and specialists were on the scene and already confiscating Nazi records for use in announced war crimes trials. While the Germans, beginning in 1943, did engage in substantial efforts to obliterate evidence of such crimes as mass murder, and they destroyed a great deal of potentially incriminating records in 1945, a great deal survived, in part because not each one of the multiple copies had been burned.

The situation was different in Japan. Between the announcement of a ceasefire on August 15, 1945, and the arrival of small advance parties of American troops in Japan on August 28, Japanese military and civil authorities systematically destroyed military, naval, and government archives, much of which was from the period 1942–1945. Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo dispatched enciphered messages to field commands throughout the Pacific and East Asia ordering units to burn incriminating evidence of war crimes, especially offenses against prisoners of war. The director of Japan’s Military History Archives of the National Institute for Defense Studies estimated in 2003 that as much as 12 70 percent of the army’s wartime records were burned or otherwise destroyed.

A report filed by the 27th Marines, 5th Marine Division, on September 24, 1945, documents the systematic destruction of records by the Japanese after the initial surrender to the Allies but before Allied troops arrived. NA, RG 127, entry 1011, box 23, folder: Intelligence–Japanese.

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Nevertheless, some important records survived by chance. Documents discovered in an old safe in the burned-out Navy Ministry turned out to be Imperial Navy planning and policy papers from the 1930s. The salvaged materials reposed with the Metropolitan Police Agency in Tokyo, which transferred them in 1955 to the cabinet archives. They remained there until 1968, when the Defense Agency’s National Institute for Defense 13 Studies took control of the collection. Japanese authorities also willfully concealed other wartime records. During the Allied

Japanese authorities also willfully concealed other wartime records. During the Allied occupation, former Col. Hattori Takushirō, a wartime senior staff officer at Imperial General Headquarters, ordered subordinates to conceal key policy and operational documents from occupation authorities. Once the occupiers departed, Hattori intended to write a factual history of Japan’s war based on the important concealed materials. Individuals also hid official documents or personal diaries, some of which came to light only decades later. For example, in 1989, Kaikōsha, the association of former Imperial Japanese Army officers, published a history of the Nanjing operations together with a 14 two-volume collection of contemporary military documents pertinent to the campaign. These had not been previously available to the public. Disturbing excerpts from December 1937 entries in the diary of Lt. Gen. Nakajima Kesago, commander of the 16th Division at Nanjing, were published in a mass circulation monthly magazine in the early 1980s, 15 with permission of the family. These enormously valuable documents, however, had never been in the possession of U.S. authorities.

The compartmentalization of the war in Asia also diminished the possibility that one

The compartmentalization of the war in Asia also diminished the possibility that one nation would end up with the lion’s share of Japanese documentation. Unlike the German case, there was no one central repository for Asia-specific war crimes documentation.

British Empire forces, for example, took charge of Japanese materials in Southeast Asia.

Returning colonial authorities in Indochina and the Dutch East Indies gathered material for their war crimes trials. As many as 40,000 U.S. Marines garrisoned transportation centers in north China from October 1945 into 1947 and accepted the surrender of Japanese units, but otherwise there was little U.S. presence in the huge country, and U.S. units collected relatively few Japanese documents from China. The continuation of the civil war between the central government and the Communists complicated efforts to secure documentation in China. The Chinese central government confiscated Japanese material in 1945; the victorious Chinese Communists, in turn, seized it from them in 1949. The Soviet Union also captured important records about Unit 731 and the Japanese Army when it overran Japanese forces in Manchuria in August 1945. Sixty years later some of this documentation was still coming to light. In August 2005, for instance, the Chinese publicized detailed research findings based on previously unavailable Unit 731 documents, and in Japan two of Gen. Ishii’s notebooks with brief entries for

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16 August 1945 and January through November 1946 were made public. Thus, archival material remains fragmented, and while the United States might hold a large amount of Japanese navy or government archival material, many Japanese Army files apparently remained in the possession of other Allied nations or in Japanese hands concealed from the Occupation authorities.

Factors Influencing the Number of Documents Still Classified Many records relating to the war in Asia were declassified long before the Disclosure Acts

Many records relating to the war in Asia were declassified long before the Disclosure Acts were passed, leaving fewer classified records to review. Because much of the material from the European Theater dealt with the former Soviet Union or its eastern European satellites, it was regarded as useful after the War; records that concerned intelligence sources and methods were considered indispensable during the Cold War. As a result, an enormous number of these documents remained security classified until the IWG’s review. The case in the Asia-Pacific Theaters was different. The United States perceived no immediate threat from the region in 1945. By the time perceptions changed with the Chinese Communist victory on the mainland in 1949 and the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950, the great bulk of the Japanese records had already been declassified.

A second reason is that declassification agreements with foreign governments affected

A second reason is that declassification agreements with foreign governments affected the ease with which documents could be opened. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) gathered intelligence in the European Theater, often in cooperation with Allied governments. Before declassifying these documents, the CIA, as successor to the OSS, had to obtain agreement from the nations that had equities in them. However, the U.S. military—not the OSS—had control of most of the Asian Theater records. It created, captured, or confiscated records without the involvement of Allied foreign governments, which enabled the United States to declassify documents unilaterally. Most of these Japan-related records, including wartime intelligence records, were routinely declassified in the 1970s and 1980s by the Army, Navy, and other Department of Defense entities in the course of their regular review programs. In short, the United States could declassify and release Japanese records much earlier than it could German records, but the quantity and quality of the Japanese cache was also inferior to the German.

Furthermore, there were few still-classified postwar records relating to Japanese war

Furthermore, there were few still-classified postwar records relating to Japanese war criminals because there was not a continuing hunt for Japanese perpetrators as there was for Nazis; therefore, the Army Counterintelligence Corps, CIA, and FBI did not create dossiers on large numbers of Japanese individuals as possible intelligence assets, suspected spies, or prospective immigrants. This is not to say the U.S. Army did not employ unsavory characters in Japan, but for intelligence about the Soviet Union the U.S. government relied less on ex-Imperial Japanese Army officers than it did on former Nazis in Europe.

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Finally, the United States focused on its war against Japan at the expense of other major combat theaters in Asia, especially China. This emphasis resulted in less scrutiny of Japan’s treatment of fellow Asians and the Imperial Army’s conduct on the Asian mainland. One might compare the situation to the attention given to the Holocaust, the genocidal campaign against Jews and other “undesirables.” The enormity of these Nazi crimes stamped an indelible mark on the collective consciousness, yet Americans displayed only vague awareness of the even larger scale of the Nazi barbarities inflicted on the people of the Soviet Union beginning in June 1941. Both the Chinese and the Soviets dealt with Nazi and Japanese war criminals as they saw fit, and the United States demonstrated little concern about how they did it, unless Washington complained that the tribunals were being used as propaganda forums to embarrass the West for complicity in Axis crimes.

In sum, the U.S. government acted quickly to declassify Japanese wartime documents

In sum, the U.S. government acted quickly to declassify Japanese wartime documents in its possession. By the time the IWG began its work, there were relatively few postwar records related to Japanese war criminals that remained classified.

Disposition of Japanese Documents While the Japanese destroyed sensitive documents at the end of the war, during the first

While the Japanese destroyed sensitive documents at the end of the war, during the first half of 1942 the Imperial Japanese Army relocated many of its records to an underground government storage facility in the Minami Tamagawa suburb of Tokyo. The purpose was to protect the documents from destruction by enemy air raids, but the unintended result was that the records cache of an estimated 7,000 cubic feet (18 million pages) fell intact into American hands. The bulk of these materials, however, predate the 1931–1945 period specified in IWG guidelines.

Elsewhere in the operational areas of the Pacific and Southwest Pacific Theaters, U.S.

Elsewhere in the operational areas of the Pacific and Southwest Pacific Theaters, U.S. forces captured hundreds of thousands more pages of Japanese military materials. The U.S. government returned all of these documents to Japan beginning in the late 1950s.

Once back in Japanese hands, the Japanese government returned the records to

(1) The Archives of the Imperial Japanese Army, Navy, and other government agencies. This collection from the Tamagawa storage complex comprises

Once back in Japanese hands, the Japanese government returned the records to their respective ministries of origin; that is, the Defense Agency received confiscated Imperial Army and Navy documents, the Foreign Ministry diplomatic records, and so forth. Before returning the confiscated documents, 5–15 percent were microfilmed, at the expense of either the U.S. government or private foundations. At least six major collections of Japanese-language materials were microfilmed:

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reels) predate 1931; the material runs to mid-1942. Materials from “other government agencies” are mainly police records of the Interior Ministry.

The original military records form the basis of the Defense Agency’s military archives in Tokyo, and are today open to public researchers, although this was not always the case. Microfilm sets are available at the U.S. Library of Congress and the Japan National Diet Library, among other institutions. Non-readers of Japanese may obtain a sense of the collection from James W. Morley, “Check List of Seized Japanese Records in the National Archives,” Far Eastern Quarterly, IX:3 (May 1950). There is an English-language finding aid to the collection, John Young, comp., Checklist of Microfilm Reproductions of Selected Archives of the Japanese Army, Navy, and Other Government Agencies, 1868–1945 (Georgetown University Press, 1959). On behalf of the IWG, researchers with Japanese language proficiency

On behalf of the IWG, researchers with Japanese language proficiency examined documents in this collection with titles suggestive of possible war crimes.

Among those investigated were archives relating to Jewish activity in Manchuria and to maintaining internal security in occupied zones, and a technical report on Soviet chemical warfare. One collection contains Japanese rules and regulations pertaining to prisoners of war captured in the Philippines, but it consists mainly of administrative instructions and has no evidence of war crimes.

(2) The Japan Foreign Ministry Archives are more than 2 million pages on 2,116

(2) The Japan Foreign Ministry Archives are more than 2 million pages on 2,116 reels of microfilm. Included in this set is the complete file of documentary evidence produced for the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. The originals are available to the public at the Japan Foreign Ministry Archives in Tokyo. A microfilm edition is available at the U.S. Library of Congress and at the Japan National Diet Library.

(3) Another collection is comprised of documents used to support the U.S.

(3) Another collection is comprised of documents used to support the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), documents related to the Pacific War (1941–1945), and records pertaining to the so-called Fifteen Years War (1931–1945) that U.S. government historians used to write the official account of the war in the Pacific. These Japanese-language documents were discovered in a warehouse in Alexandria, Virginia, in the early 1960s. The originals form the basis of the Japan National Archives in Tokyo and are available to researchers, subject to privacy restrictions. Microfilm copies of the USSBS (46 reels) and the Pacific War (34 reels) are available at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, while the Fifteen Years War materials (138 reels) are available at the U.S. Library of Congress. The entire microfilm collection is also available in unexpurgated form at Waseda University in Tokyo.

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(4) The South Manchurian Railway Company (SMRC) original documents were not returned to Japan, and about 70 percent of all SMRC records remain at the Library of Congress. Others are scattered among six American and forty- 17 four Japanese institutions. The Japan National Diet Library has microfilmed the Library of Congress holdings. These materials include Japanese studies of Manchurian terrain, natural resources, geography, geology, and so forth, as well as analytical papers on political and economic affairs. (5) International \[Military\] Tribunal for the Far East (The Tokyo War Crimes

(5) International \[Military\] Tribunal for the Far East (The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal) exhibits are indexed. The Library of Congress Law Library has a microfilm copy of “Prosecution documents which were either not offered or were rejected” (1952) and “Rejected defense documents,” produced by Harvard University. In 1975, the National Archives and Records Service (predecessor of NARA) compiled “Preliminary inventory of the records of the International Military Tribunal Far East: record group 230,” a copy of which is available at the Library of Congress as well as at College Park. The documents themselves are found on microfilm in Record Group 331 at College Park.

(6) Japanese documents seized by the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section

(6) Japanese documents seized by the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) amounted to 350,000 captured documents of which 18,000 were fully translated. ATIS relied on Japanese-language documentation to produce Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s official report of his wartime operations in the Southwest Pacific. Some 13,800 files of original documents were returned to Japan by MacArthur’s headquarters via the Japanese Demobilization Bureaus, but the disposition of others, such as the original Japanese-language Unit 731 reports of human experimentation that were translated into English, remains unknown. In addition, Japanese-language documents held by the Pacific Military Intelligence Research Service (PACMIRS) were returned to the Japanese government. For the most part, these were operational and technical reports. English-language translations of the originals are available in record group 165 (P-File) at College Park. The U.S. Navy also confiscated thousands of Japanese naval operational documents and reports. These are available on microfilm (about 230 reels) at the Naval Historical Center. The originals of all of the above military documents repose in the Defense Agency archives in Tokyo, Japan.

Topics of Special Interest In addition to adhering to the IWG’s guidelines when conducting their searches for

In addition to adhering to the IWG’s guidelines when conducting their searches for classified records pertinent to the Disclosure Acts, agencies also paid particular attention to records that might contain information about Japanese atrocities perpetrated on civilians, such as the Rape of Nanking, “comfort women,” the mistreatment of POWs and civilian internees, medical experimentation on humans, Unit 731, and records related to the U.S. decision not to prosecute Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal. It is important to note, however, that during World War II and its immediate aftermath, not all areas of Japanese war criminality were explored in depth. For example, while the “comfort women” issue is of great current importance, the U.S. government did not systematically 18 collect or create records related to the topic during or after the war. As a consequence, there are very few documents pertaining to the topic in the archives. The same is true for records related to the Rape of Nanking. The atrocities at Nanjing occurred four years before the United States entered the war.

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.

Immediately after the war, American attention focused on the Japanese responsible

the National Archives.

Immediately after the war, American attention focused on the Japanese responsible for the Pearl Harbor attack, those involved in mistreatment of U.S. prisoners of war, and Japanese military and civilian officials implicated in war crimes, including rape (especially of Filipina women) or forced prostitution of Caucasian women. There was also knowledge of the Imperial Japanese Army’s field brothel system, as shown in scattered reports declassified during the 1960s. However, the scope of the brothel network (particularly in China) and the Japanese Army’s official sponsorship of the system were not well understood. Licensed prostitution was legal in prewar Japan, and Allied officials viewed the small part of the overseas system they uncovered as an extension of homeland practices. Prosecuting Japanese soldiers for rape, a notorious crime everywhere the army set foot, took precedence over investigating the circumstances of “comfort women,” who were seen as professional prostitutes, not as unwilling victims coerced into brothels by employees of the Japanese military. For instance, a significant document that linked the Japanese government with the military field brothel system, “Amenities in the Japanese 19 Armed Forces,” was translated in November 1945 by ATIS and declassified in the 1960s. Although available to the public for years, it received little attention until the “comfort women” issue focused attention on these wrongdoings in the 1990s. As for Unit 731, researchers found no new classified evidence related to Gen. Ishii’s

As for Unit 731, researchers found no new classified evidence related to Gen. Ishii’s experiments or the unit’s treatment of POWs. The small amount of newly released material adds more evidence to the already well-documented facts about Japanese abuse of prisoners. As for the primary question of Unit 731’s alleged experimentation on captured American servicemen, multiple government agencies conducted exhaustive searches in intelligence, military, and diplomatic records but found no definitive evidence.

This was not surprising, because repeated Congressional inquiries about Japan’s alleged use of American prisoners in experiments resulted in extensive examination of U.S. Army and other government agency records in the 1970s, 1980s, and again in early 1990s. In other words, Congressional interest in Japanese war crimes, especially those perpetrated against American POWs, had already opened the existing Unit 731 documents in the possession of the U.S. government and made them available to the public. Finally, allegations arose that the U.S. government engaged in a cover-up to conceal

Finally, allegations arose that the U.S. government engaged in a cover-up to conceal incriminating documents pertaining to war crimes in order not to embarrass the Japanese government. Exhaustive searches by several agencies for classified materials, conducted independently of outside political interference of any sort, followed the guidelines imposed by the IWG. They found no evidence to support such assertions. There were miscarriages of justice—Ishii’s case being the most obvious and disturbing—and the question of Emperor Hirohito’s war responsibility remains a source of controversy in the United States and elsewhere. U.S. government archives, however, yielded no new information on these controversial topics. This result may not satisfy those who insist incriminating or embarrassing documents remain hidden, but disinterested parties will appreciate that the IWG has managed to open the remaining classified files pertinent to Japanese war crimes and to make that evidence available to the public. Archival holdings in Japan, China, and the former Soviet Union also offer the possibility of files that may clarify or lead to reinterpretation of our understanding of Japanese atrocities.

Exploiting the Records During the search for classified records, it soon became apparent that historians,

During the search for classified records, it soon became apparent that historians, researchers, and concerned parties have not fully exploited the many records about Japanese war crimes previously declassified and made available at the National Archives. The fault lies less with the public, however, than with the organization of the massive collection. Records came from more than a dozen U.S. government agencies, each of which employed diverse filing systems and exercised multiple functions between 1931 and 2005. This led to a divestiture of central records into smaller agency collections, a standard archival practice that unintentionally complicated the researcher’s task. Captured or seized Imperial Japanese military and naval records are found in at least twelve separate record groups at NARA and fill thousands of boxes.

Furthermore, except for the records pertaining to war crimes trials (none of which remains classified), there was no one central finding aid to help researchers navigate the Japanese collection. Moreover, for whatever reasons, records reasonably expected to be at NARA are not

Moreover, for whatever reasons, records reasonably expected to be at NARA are not there and turn up in unlikely places. Three important documents, translated from Japanese to English and each more than 100 pages long, detail Unit 731’s clinical observations of the day-by-day spread of various pathogens through the bodies of helpless prisoners whom Japanese doctors subjected to experiments. The U.S. government declassified these key documents, titled “The Report of A” (anthrax), “The Report of G” (glanders), and “The Report of Q” (bubonic plague) in 1960. They are available to the public at the U.S. Library of Congress. With relevant documents interfiled among a dozen record groups and others available—but not at the National Archives—the researcher’s task is a formidable one. Greg Bradsher’s 1700-page finding aid on the CD that accompanies this volume

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Greg Bradsher’s 1700-page finding aid on the CD that accompanies this volume remedies this problem. His searchable finding aid brings coherence to the collections, enables researchers to consult a single reference to begin their search, and introduces first-time users to the variety of materials available at NARA on Japanese war crimes.

The hope of all those involved in this project is that introducing the available material and making it accessible will stimulate new interest in these underused collections and encourage historians, advocates, writers, researchers, and citizens with an interest in these important issues to make use of the collections. Study of the mass of unclassified material will undoubtedly turn up documents relevant to Japanese war crimes and perhaps resolve some outstanding issues. The huge number of documents declassified under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure

The huge number of documents declassified under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act allowed the IWG’s first book on the records, U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis, to take the form of historical case studies based on the newly released documentary material. But the comparatively small number of Japanese documents declassified, coupled with the larger problem of open Japanese records being underused, mandated a different format.

Contributors to this volume adopted an approach to make the enormous number of heretofore underused Japanese wartime documents more user friendly. Their purpose throughout the volume is to make us aware of how much is available by introducing these records to readers and explaining where the records are located. Their goal is to stimulate interest in these records in the hope that researchers will be encouraged to exploit them efficiently and produce a fuller record of the Asia-Pacific War.

Daqing Yang’s interim assessment of documentary evidence and Japanese war crimes

Daqing Yang’s interim assessment of documentary evidence and Japanese war crimes discusses the destruction of wartime Japanese documents and surveys the changing treatment of Japan’s war crimes in Chinese, English, and Japanese literature. He explains reasons for the heightened interest in crimes committed against POWs, the forced prostitution of “comfort women,” and Unit 731’s nefarious activities. Yang concludes with a plea for sustained and intense international collaboration to improve the level of research on Japanese war crimes.

James Lide summarizes the war-crimes–related materials located in the recently

James Lide summarizes the war-crimes–related materials located in the recently declassified records at NARA. His focus is on the limited number of documents pertinent to war crimes and their often vague or incomplete information. No large corpus of documentation remained classified on the Nanjing massacre, the “comfort women” issue, or Unit 731, although scattered references to bacteriological/chemical warfare and the kidnapping of women and girls by Japanese troops were noted.

NARA staff writers offer starting points for future research. The authors describe

NARA staff writers offer starting points for future research. The authors describe in general terms the availability of archival material spanning twelve record groups on the subject of Japanese war crimes, and then illustrate the scope of the collections by highlighting documents pertinent to their three case studies: Japanese treatment of Allied prisoners of war in Manchuria, Unit 731 activities, and Japanese atrocities committed against U.S. airmen on Chichi-Jima in 1945.

Robert Hanyok’s illuminating essay explains the U.S. military communications

Robert Hanyok’s illuminating essay explains the U.S. military communications intelligence system during World War II, noting its successes and limitations. He devotes most of his essay to National Security Agency materials available to the public at NARA and offers an explanation for their organization, detailing different types of records: army, navy, diplomatic, military attaché, and so forth. He pays special attention to communication intelligence attempts to discover the fate of American POWs held by the Japanese. He also describes how eavesdropping on Japanese military and naval radio communications unintentionally produced evidence of Japanese war crimes and hints of the biological and chemical warfare programs.

Greg Bradsher’s two chapters are part of his larger study to be published separately.

Greg Bradsher’s two chapters are part of his larger study to be published separately.

His first essay explains the wartime system for gathering documentation concerning alleged Japanese war crimes. Through the experience of the Southwest Pacific Area’s ATIS, he shows how the system developed and expanded, how it exploited captured Japanese documents, and how this material was employed during war crimes trials. His second essay examines the disposition of Japanese-language records in U.S. control. He describes the process for returning the confiscated or captured records, the extensive interagency cooperation to establish a policy for the return of records to Japan, and Congressional approval for the restitution of documents. Together with his finding aid on the enclosed CD, Bradsher has given unparalleled ease of access to those interested in serious historical research of U.S. records on Japan.

The book concludes with a chapter by Michael Petersen on the topic of U.S. use of declassified CIA material, provides an example of the kind of historical interpretation that can arise from a study of the new and previously released materials.

The work of the IWG has made it possible for the public to access a wide variety of

The work of the IWG has made it possible for the public to access a wide variety of documents related to Japanese war crimes committed in Asia and the Pacific. Subsequent investigation and study of these materials will provide a clearer appreciation of the claims and allegations surrounding Japanese war crimes. Noteworthy is the fact that the previously declassified documents corroborate much that is already known about Japan’s wartime record. Furthermore, the material goes beyond the subject of war crimes and provides a wealth of historical information about the Axis nations. The range of Japanese-related documents, U.S. government as well as translated and original Japanese documents, merits extensive exploitation by academics, researchers, writers, veterans, and others interested in history. The files are filled with stories waiting to be told.

Notes

01. A few researchers (such as Professor Sheldon Harris) investigated the activities of the Japanese Army’s Unit 731 during the 1980s.

02. Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (New York: BasicBooks, 1997).

03. Japanese names are rendered as given name followed by surname.

04. Chang, 177.

05. George Hicks, The Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War (New York: Norton, 1994).

06. The treaty was formally implemented on April 28, 1952.

07. Sheldon Harris, Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932–1945, and the American Cover-up (New York: Routledge, 2002 rev ed). Harris published his original volume in

09. George Hicks, The Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the

10. The treaty was formally implemented on April 28, 1952.

11. Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1994).

12. Robert Barr Smith, “Japanese War Crime Trials,” World War II (September 1996).

13. Philip R. Piccigallo, The Japanese on Trial (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1979)

14. Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1950).

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Japan (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1998), 19.

14. Kaikōsha, ed., Nankin senshi shiryō-shū (Nanjing campaign chronology primary source collection) (Kaikosha, 1989).

15. Kuninori Kimura, “Nankin kōryakusen ‘Nakajima dai 16 shidanchō nikki’” (The capture of Nanjing: Diary of 16th division commander Nakajima) (Zōkan Rekishi to jimbutsu, December 1984), 252–71.

16. “Identities of Unit 731 Victims Unearthed,” 3 August 2005, [englishnews@chosun.com](mailto:englishnews@chosun.com), [http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news](http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news); “Nana san ichi butai chōmei no-to hakken,” (Unit 731 commander’s notebook discovered) Asahi shimbun, 4 August 2005.

17. Sadao Asada, ed., Japan & The World, 1853–1952: A Bibliographic Guide to Japanese Scholarship in Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 41–42.

18. In February 1948, the Dutch tried twelve Japanese for the forced prostitution of Dutch women held in internment camps in the Dutch East Indies. Narrelle Morris, review of Yuki Tanaka, Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the U.S. Occupation” (New York: Routledge, 2002), [http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/](http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/) intersections/issue9/morris\_review.html/.

// SOURCE: https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf