WAR CRIMES AND ATROCITIES (True Crime) (25 page)

Wake Island

1941

Wake Island, also known as Wake Atoll, is a ring-shaped coral atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. The battle that took place on Wake Island is a compelling story, which started on the same day as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The garrison on Wake Island consisted of 449 US Marine officers and men and 68 naval personnel, all commanded by Major James Devereux. The base’s weapons were minimal – twelve 76.2 mm

(3 in) anti-aircraft guns, six 127 mm (5 in) cannons, which had been salvaged from an old cruiser, and 50 machine guns which were not all in working order.

In 1939, the US Congress allocated $2 million to the Secretary of the Navy to develop Wake Island into an efficient air station and, after its completion, it became a regular stopping point for servicing and refuelling of the famous Pan Am ‘Clippers’, four-engined flying boats. However, at the time of the Japanese attack in 1941, the development of the naval air base was still under way and far from being completed. Although a number of structures had been constructed, the defensive systems were incomplete, in that there was no radar and a number of the gun batteries lacked the height finders or the gun directors. Consequently, Wake Island was ill-prepared for the attack that was about to hit the small atoll.

WORD OF WAR

The news broke about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 8 December, 1941, just as one of the huge silver-winged Pan Am Clippers roared off the water bound for Guam, a flight that was destined to never reach its destination. Major Devereux immediately ordered a ‘Call to Arms’ and assembled his officers to inform them that the war with Japan had started and that Wake could ‘expect the same thing in a very short time’. Little did he realize as he said this that it was to be a very short time indeed.

Meanwhile, the senior officer on Wake Island, Commander Winfred S. Cunningham, called Pan Am’s airport manager, requesting him to recall his Clipper. The pilot on board the Clipper was told about the outbreak of war and he immediately turned his plane around and returned to the lagoon he had left just 20 minutes earlier. Cunningham requested that the pilot carry out a reconnaissance flight and the Clipper was unloaded and refuelled with a planned take-off time of about 1.00 p.m., to be accompanied by a two-plane escort.

By midday, Japanese bombers who had taken off from Marshall Islands shortly after dawn, started to attack the small naval base. Although the base was prepared for attack, the sound of the pounding surf drowned out the noise of the approaching planes and the alarms were not sounded until the planes were just a few hundred yards from the atoll’s south shore.

The first attack concentrated on the airfield, destroying all but four of the F4F Wildcat fighter planes, the majority of the fuel tanks, aviation spare parts and oxygen, which severely diminished the effect of the US air cover. Pan Am’s facilities were totally wrecked and an attack from the Japanese bombers had set fire to the hotel in which five Chamorro employees died. Out of the 66 Pan Am staff, nine lay dead and two of the Clipper crew were badly wounded.

Many of the US pilots were trapped as the Japanese bombs turned their planes into balls of fire. The explosions rattled the windows of Commander Cunningham’s office and he quickly ordered his troops to open fire. However, their small guns were ineffective against the Japanese aircraft, and in about seven minutes they had rendered the air base inoperable.

FIRST ATTEMPT AT LANDING

Three days later, on 11 December, under the command of Rear Admiral Sadamichi Kajioka, the Japanese attempted to land on Wake Island. It was a small contingent of only 450 assault troops as Kajioka had thought the operation would be fairly simple.

The US troops played a waiting game and withheld their fire until the Japanese vessels were well within their range and then fired their cannons. In the ensuing battle, the US managed to sink the Japanese destroyer
Hayate
and seriously damaged most of the others in the fleet, including their flagship
Yubari
.

The US assault was sufficient to force the Japanese to abort their landing attempt. The retreating vessels were attacked by the four remaining US Wildcats, who succeeded in sinking another destroyer, the
Kisaragi
. This battle went down in history as the first time an amphibious assault was foiled by land-based guns.

The Japanese were determined to effect a landing on Wake Island and in the next few days they continued to bombard the atoll relentlessly in an effort to render their forces useless.

RELIEF OPERATION

Aware that another landing attempt was imminent and that the situation on Wake Island had become untenable, naval strategists at Pearl Harbor decided to send a relief force to resupply the island with aircraft, ammunition and men. The plans were complicated, however, because the forces that were left afloat after the attack on Pearl Harbor were now widely scattered. It was decided to send USS
Tangier
with an accompanying oil cargo ship to be escorted by Admiral Frank Fletcher’s
Saratoga
Task Force 16, who were currently approaching from Hawaii. However, Task Force 16 was making slow progress and the
Tangier
was forced to leave Pearl Harbor with no escort, followed the next day by
Saratoga
and her escorts.

By 21 December, 11 days after the marines on Wake Island had managed to repel the Japanese landing, the relief force were still 965 km (600 miles) away. Wake Island was now bereft of any air defence, and the promised relief was nowhere in sight. Little did they know that Fletcher’s force were refuelling and, due to heavy seas, had sailed away from Wake. Fearing that the relief force was sailing into a trap, they were ordered to go no closer than 320 km (200 miles) of Wake Island.
Tangier
, who was closer and ready to land reinforcements and supplies, was ordered to evacuate. It is still a matter of conjecture why the Task Force ships and planes returned when they were so close, as they could have provided much-needed support in the second confrontation with Japanese forces.

SUCCESSFUL SECOND ATTEMPT

The second landing attempt by the Japanese came at 2.30 p.m. on 23 December, and consisted mostly of the same ships from the first attempt with a few additions, including 1,500 Japanese marines. Once again the Japanese met with heavy resistance, but this time they were taking no chances. The Japanese succeeded in getting their landing crafts to the shore and a desperate battle was fought across the island, with groups of men fighting with rifles, bayonets, grenades and some simply using their fists. The fighting lasted through the night but the US troops were seriously outnumbered and were driven towards the centre of the island. Cunningham made the decision to surrender by mid-afternoon on the 24th. The Japanese took captive all the remaining men on the island, the majority of whom were civilian contractors employed by the Morrison-Knudsen Company.

The total number of casualties on Wake Island from the onset of the fighting was 81 marines, eight sailors and 82 civilian workers who had been either killed or wounded. The Japanese, however, paid a heavier price for their victory; it cost them two destroyers, one submarine, seven ships were damaged, 21 aircraft were shot down, and almost 1,000 of their men were killed.

WAR CRIMES

The Japanese were angry and they took it out on their prisoners of war, both military and civilian. Fearing a counter-attack on the island, the Japanese started to build defences on Wake. The US prisoners were forced to build a series of bunkers and other fortifications. During this initial period, one civilian was beheaded to set an example to the others and one civilian died. Two others had set out in a stolen boat, however, they perished at sea.

Early in the morning on 23 December, 1,603 captives, including 1,150 civilian contractors, were taken to the northern end of the island and ordered to strip naked. Most of them had their hands tied behind their backs with wire, with an additional wire looped tightly around their necks, so that if they lowered their arms they would strangle themselves. They were then blindfolded and jammed into two claustrophobic concrete ammunition bunkers. Later that day they were all herded out onto the airstrip and made to sit, naked, in the blistering heat of the midday sun. The prisoners watched the Japanese set up machine guns close by, expecting to be shot at any minute. However, their ordeal was not over as the heat of the sun was replaced by the bone-chilling winds of night. They remained sitting on the airstrip for two days without food, water or any medical supplies.

The original plan was to murder each one, but through the intervention of Rear Admiral Sadamichi Kajioka, their lives were spared. They were given food and water, despite the fact that it had been contaminated by the heat and the unclean gasoline drums. Their clothes were returned to them and Kajioka read out a proclamation that said, ‘The Emperor has gracefully presented you with your lives.’ They were marched back to their barracks and for the first time the Japanese treated their captives with due consideration.

This was not to be the case for 98 contract workers, because fearing an imminent invasion, Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered their execution. They were all blindfolded and gunned down before being buried in a mass grave. One of the captives managed to escape and carved an inscription on a large coral rock near the site of the grave. It said, ‘98 US PW 5-10-43’. This inscription is still visible today on Wake Island and has become a famous landmark. This unknown American was captured again within a few weeks and personally beheaded by Sakaibara.

The Japanese finally surrendered to US marines on 4 September, 1945, and all the officers were taken into custody. While some of them committed hara-kiri, others told of the massacre. Sakaibara and his immediate subordinate were convicted of war crimes, and Sakaibara was hanged on Guam while his subordinate had his sentence commuted to life. Until the end, Sakaibara maintained, ‘I think my trial was entirely unfair and the proceeding unfair, and the sentence too harsh, but I obey with pleasure.’

Port Blair

1942

The Andaman Islands are located 960 km (596 miles) off the east coast of India, and they make up a group of more than 200 islands. The islands, which share history and traditions with each other, are inhabited by ancient tribes that today remain some of the most traditional in the world. Today Port Blair, the main town for the islands, is a prime tourist spot, offering luxurious hotels along with fascinating rainforests and unspoilt beaches.

During World War II, Port Blair was the main military objective on Andaman, consisting of 300 Sikh militia and 23 British officers, boosted in 1942 by a Gurkha detachment. After Rangoon fell to the Japanese on 8 March, the British became aware that Port Blair was becoming impossible to safeguard. When the Gurkhas withdrew to the Arakan peninsula on 10 March, the garrison at Port Blair were even more exposed. With only the one British company to maintain law and order, the islands did not have any elaborate defence structures and, with no hope of defending the island, the British evacuated, leaving a skeleton staff.

Wishing to secure their sea defences, the Japanese sent a sizeable force to seize the islands on 23 March. They met no resistance from the British or the local population, and within hours the Sikh militia were disarmed and placed under captivity without the firing of one single bullet. The British militia were sent to Singapore as prisoners of war, while the officers were held on the island in Port Blair’s prison, the Cellular Jail. The prison is named after the shape of its construction, which was started in 1896 and completed in 1906. It was built with seven wings with a central tower and turret. Connected to this were seven wings, each three storeys high, with 698 isolated cells.

The Japanese soon started to assume their control of the islands, with the army commander taking the position of governor of the civilian population. At first, the Japanese were welcomed by the islanders, many finding new and higher positions that had been vacated by the British officers. In return, the Japanese treated them with respect and paid fair prices for goods purchased in their shops.

After one year in occupation, the Japanese established the ‘Andaman Miniseibu’, with the prime objective of:

To protect the local population and also to promote their welfare, maintenance of public peace and order, development of industries, repairing of roads and prevention of epidemics in the islands but its main work to increase the production of food stuff, by establishing a self-sufficient system, on the other hand recognizing their religious freedom much attention was given to education and also attempts were made to make the local people happy by encouraging whole sale amusement . . .

A Japanese school was opened as well as the Government High School, which was originally run by the British. Roads were constructed across the island, and the previously unfinished airstrip was finished within three months. However, underneath their seemingly friendly facade, there is evidence that the Japanese committed many atrocities during their term of occupation.

NUMEROUS ATROCITIES

Although some of the evidence is a little vague, due to the fact that the Japanese destroyed all their records when they left the Andaman Islands, there are reliable stories of people who witnessed the atrocities. The first victim came after just four days of Japanese occupation. A young man, by the name of Zulfiqar Ali, became enraged when some Japanese soldiers chased some of his chickens into his house. After Ali fired an airgun at the soldiers, he was taken captive and marched in front of the Browning Club, where his arms were twisted until they broke and then he was shot.

Over the next few months the situation for the locals deteriorated as the Japanese soldiers started holding unthinkable orgies in the towns and villages, with young girls being forcibly raped and young boys sodomized. In Port Blair, eight high-ranking Indian officials were tortured and then buried up to their chests in pits, which they had been forced to dig themselves. Each time a Japanese soldier walked past the men, they prodded their heads and eyes with bayonets, and after a few hours the helpless victims were pumped full of bullets.

In an effort to try and protect the local civilians, a group of locals (mostly officials and doctors) were encouraged to become members of Rash Behari Bose’s Indian Independence League. They formed a Peace Committee, headed by Dr Diwan Singh, which made every effort to try and alleviate the pain and suffering of the population at the hands of the Japanese. However, their efforts were to little avail, and Dr Singh was arrested along with approximately 2,000 of his Peace Committee associates. They were taken to the Cellular Jail, where they were subject to water torture, electric shocks and many other unimaginable forms of torture for a period of 82 days. Any survivors were taken off the island and shot and buried.

One of the British captives, Major A. G. Bird, who had imprisoned in Singapore, was used as an example by the Japanese. They used a fellow convict, Sarup Ram, to set Bird up in front of an improvised ‘trial’, where he was accused of spying. Wireless parts had been planted in the house where Bird had been held prisoner. Bird was found guilty, and his arms and legs were twisted and broken before he was decapitated by a sword in the hands of Colonel Bucho.

After the massacre of the majority of the Peace Committee, the Japanese resorted to inflicting terror on the women. They were abducted from their homes and taken to the officers club, where they would be raped by high-ranking officers. Shiploads of Korean girls were also brought in to appease the sexual appetite of the Japanese soldiers.

Towards the end of their three and a half years of occupation, the Japanese resorted to more desperate measures. It is believed that about 700 people from the south of Andaman were deported to an uninhabited island to grow food. According to one of the survivors, almost half of these people died as a result of drowning or being eaten by sharks, as they were pushed out into the darkness in inadequate boats. Others died of starvation or at the hands of Burmese pirates. A rescue mission went to the island after the Japanese left, and although they found only 12 survivors more than 100 skeletons were lying along the edges of the shore.

GOVERNMENT OF CHANDRA BOSE

In December 1943, political control of the islands came under the Azad Hind government of Subhas Chandra Bose. There is much controversy as to how much Bose was really aware of at the time, although the judgement of some was that he had ‘failed his people’. On the only visit he ever made to the Andaman Islands, Bose went to Port Blair to raise the tricolour flag of the Indian National Army. The Japanese army made sure that he was sufficiently shielded from the local population so that information didn’t leak out regarding their treatment of the locals. There were quite a few attempts made by the Andamans to let him know about their suffering, and also that local Indian Nationalists were being tortured at the Cellular Jail. Bose placed the islands under the governorship of Lieutenant-Colonel Loganathan, and it is thought he had little involvement in the administration of the territory.

After the war Loganathan said that he only had partial authority over the islands, as the Japanese retained control of the police force and large areas of the government. He emphasized that he was powerless to prevent the worst atrocity of the occupation, which was the massacre of 44 members of the Indian Independence League in January 1944.

By the time the British regained control in 1945, it is estimated that as many as 30,000 of the 40,000 population of Port Blair had been brutally murdered, and the islands of the Andamans were a scene of complete devastation.