One Man's Justice

by Akira Yoshimura

On the twelfth of November, Takuya heard that verdicts had been reached in the trials of the Class A war criminals, and that seven of the defendants, including former prime minister Tojo Hideki, had been condemned to death by hanging. Another sixteen, including former navy minister Shimada Shigetaro, had been sentenced to life imprisonment. Two men were given fixed terms of imprisonment. Only seven received the death sentence, which was fewer than Takuya had expected, giving him a faint glimmer of hope that he might escape the noose.

  Day after day, he and the other defendants rode in the bus from Sugamo prison to the military court in Yokohama. No one spoke along the way, so there was nothing for him to do but cast his mournful gaze out of the little windows at the outside world, or hang his head and close his eyes, thinking of the past. Occasionally he visualised himself stepping out of the command centre and seeing Fukuoka consumed by flames, or remembered the sight of the two B-29s heading towards Nagasaki, then that shrill voice over the radio from Ohmura air base minutes later, reporting the devastation of the city. But these images were now no more than vague memories from days long gone by. There wasn’t a hint of emotion involved in their recollection. The anger he had once felt at the American bombers who had obliterated Japan’s cities with incendiaries was all but gone.

  By the time the American soldier wielding the steel helmet knocked him unconscious as he clutched his handcart on the edge of the paddy field, he had probably already joined the rest of his countrymen living in a new, postwar world, he thought. Even then he had felt no hatred of them, only an obsequious terror. And now, in his hazy memory of it all, his strongest feeling was relief that he’d been lucky enough to get away as lightly as he had. He remembered the fawning look he had directed toward the American soldiers in the lorry just before being struck with the helmet, and knew that that expression had become a virtual fixture on his face since he had entered prison.

  They were allowed to wash themselves in the bath twice a week, but most of the time the MP guarding them screamed for them to get out of the bathtub after what seemed like only a few moments. Takuya and his fellow inmates would strip while they waited in the corridor, ready to rush into the bathroom when the MP gave the word, and shave and wash themselves frantically in the short time available. Some sat there leisurely washing themselves, but more often than not Takuya was flustered by the guard’s shouts, and left before he could soak in the bath. In the morning, too, he leapt out of bed the moment he heard the guard yelling and the crash of a boot against the steel cell door. Not a day went by when Takuya did not feel intimidated by his captors’ overpowering physical presence.

  He often thought about his father, reduced to a sobbing wreck in the police station. He had aged dramatically, the skin of his face loose around the jowls. Takuya sent two postcards to his family. Outgoing messages were limited to one hundred and fifty characters, but nothing that required more space to write about came to mind, so this posed no problem. His father had spoken of wanting to be dead, but Takuya was reassured knowing that his strong-willed mother and loyal brother and sister were there to provide support.

  Most inmates had family problems. Anyone accused of being a war criminal sullied the family name, so the relatives of those in Sugamo were not received kindly by those around them. Takuya had heard of marriage arrangements for sons and daughters being called off, job offers rescinded and children being refused entry into schools and universities because their father was in Sugamo. The wife of Takuya’s friend Himuro had returned to her parents’ house while her husband was on the run, and filed for divorce as soon as she heard he was in Sugamo. Like so many other inmates who had been married, Himuro put his seal on the papers and sent them back as requested.

  There were even cases in which the parents or wife of an inmate had been so distressed that they had committed suicide. In the early weeks, because many inmates succeeded in taking their own lives, the Americans had instituted considerably more rigorous body searches and left the corridor and cell lights on through the night. As a precaution against the transfer of poison or razors, those who were yet to be sentenced were refused visits from people outside the prison.

  On two occasions, from inside his cell Takuya sensed fellow inmates being taken out to be executed. Apparently, notification that the sentence was to be carried out always occurred on Thursdays, when the prisoner was moved to a special cell for his last night before being executed the next day. That summer, five new sets of gallows were constructed in the execution compound.

  One Thursday Takuya overheard a prison guard calling out the name of an inmate in a cell a few doors down from his. He heard the door being unlocked and the man stepping out into the corridor, saying his last farewells to the men in adjacent cells. The footsteps soon faded out of earshot and silence was restored after the steel door in the corridor leading to the adjoining wing was shut behind them. Takuya later heard that the man had been executed the next day.

  About two weeks after that, Takuya again heard someone quietly bidding the other inmates farewell, then breaking out into an old Imperial Army song as he disappeared down the corridor. That man was one of four hanged the next day.

  News travelled quickly around Sugamo on the twenty-fourth of December that seven people, including former prime minister Tojo Hideki, had been executed the previous night. There were showers that day, and through his cell window Takuya could see raindrops against an otherwise clear sky.

  The trial of those from Western Regional Command was entering its final stages.

  Takuya felt as if he were playing a part in a bizarre stage play. It was as though each of the accused was frantically trying to climb on top of the others to keep from drowning. As each day passed the atmosphere among the men became more tense, their expressions betraying a growing desperation. Takuya was no different from the others, aware that he was tied into a life-and-death struggle with the rest of the accused. When he heard another defendant’s answers to the prosecutor’s questions being framed to compromise his own position, and therefore edge him closer to the gallows, Takuya felt himself stiffen and his mouth go dry. When he in turn made a statement, he could almost feel the other defendants’ gazes burning into the back of his neck. By this stage, like all the other accused, Takuya was focused on nothing but his own chances of survival. Any difference in status that had previously existed between superiors and subordinates had long since disappeared. It was every man for himself.

  When he was alone in his cell he sometimes imagined the moments before his death – the noose being slipped round his neck, the trapdoor falling open and his body dropping half through the hole with a jolt. If only he could avoid the pain that must come the moment before death, he thought, hoping that it would all end the very instant the trapdoor swung open. When Takuya thought of the minutes before stepping up to the gallows, he was filled with trepidation. He wondered if he would be able to hold himself together long enough to walk up the steps unassisted. Those who kept their composure to the very end would be eulogised, he told himself. He, too, must keep his dignity and stay calm until the moment he died.

  He recalled the scene in the bamboo grove before the American airmen were executed. They must have been terrified by the prospect of death, but they all did exactly as they were told, walking off through the undergrowth and kneeling down to await their fate. Was it pride, or perhaps even vanity, he wondered, that stopped them from causing a commotion? The instant the sword touched the man’s neck, his body had jerked upward, as though his legs had unleashed the last action of his mortal coil. Would something similar happen when a man was hanged, Takuya wondered, and were the stories true about faeces and urine being released at the moment of death?

  That night Takuya got no sleep, tossing and turning for hours on his straw mattress. It was rumoured that suicides among inmates yet to be sentenced were on the rise, and as Takuya’s sentencing approached he felt that, if the opportunity arose, he would like to end it all himself.

  The deliberations in court dre
w to a close, and it was announced that the sentences of those from Western Regional Command would be passed on December the twenty-ninth.

  That day Takuya was taken from his cell, handcuffed and led out into the rear courtyard. Some inmates were already standing in neat lines, others were being led out by MPs to join the assembly. Many had bloodshot eyes and puffy faces, so it was obvious that Takuya was not the only one going without sleep.

  They were ushered on to a waiting bus, and escorted by Jeeps at the front and rear carrying armed MPs. When everyone was seated the bus moved off, picking up speed once they left the Sugamo compound and drove through the streets of Tokyo and then down the main road toward Yokohama. Takuya gazed out of the window along the way, but nothing caught his eye.

  Eventually the bus came to a halt in front of the court building, from where they were all led into an anteroom. Takuya avoided looking at the others, instead staring down at the polished wooden floor.

  After a short wait an MP told them to move out of the room. When Takuya got up from his chair his knees and ankles felt strangely weak, as though all the strength in his legs had drained away. They were made to form a line and file down the corridor, the commander-in-chief ’s diminutive figure walking in front of Takuya. The former lieutenant-general’s close-cropped hair was now completely white, as thin and soft as baby’s down, and the skin on his neck hung loose, deep wrinkles moving ever so slightly with each step.

  As always, their handcuffs were removed in the corridor before they filed into the courtroom. A large United States flag took pride of place high on the wall behind the judge’s seat. Below it was a framed photograph of President Truman, flanked by photographs of General MacArthur, Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan, and General Walker, commander of the United States Eighth Army. Takuya and his fellow accused remained standing as the lawyers, public prosecutors and judge entered the court. Out of the corner of his eye he could see an MP in a white helmet standing beside the door behind the seats for the defendants. The US Army colonel in charge of the proceedings started to speak, at first addressing the court, but soon looking down at the documents in front of him as he read out the verdicts in a monotone. Takuya sat motionless and stared at the deadpan expression on the man’s face.

  The colonel looked up again and, turning his head slightly toward the defendants’ seats, began to speak. The interpreter repeated the verdict in Japanese.

  Takuya recognised the commander-in-chief ’s name despite the colonel’s peculiar American pronunciation. His heart pounded as he stared at the colonel’s lips reading the charges, the verdict and the sentences. Takuya understood very little English, but knew that it was a guilty verdict and recognised the words ‘death by hanging’ at the very end. The translation that followed confirmed that he was not mistaken.

  Suddenly Takuya was overwhelmed by a feeling of suffocation, as though a trapdoor had swung open underneath him and a noose were closing on his neck. The deputy chief of staff ’s name was read out in a perfunctory tone amid a familiar-sounding stream of English, and again the words ‘death by hanging’ rang in the court. In quick succession, the names of the other high-ranking officers were read out, including that of the former colonel in charge of the tactical operations centre. All of them were sentenced to death by hanging.

  His knees started to tremble. He shuddered, and staying on his feet became a painful struggle. The sentences of the soldiers from Ishigaki Island who had beheaded and then bayoneted the bodies of three American pilots came to his mind. Forty-one of the forty-five accused had been sentenced to death. Takuya and his comrades from Western Command had killed a total of thirty-three men, so it went without saying that their crime was much worse than that of the coastguards, and therefore the words ‘death by hanging’ would surely be read out after each of their names.

  As they moved down through the ranks, next came the lieutenants. Both legal affairs officers were condemned to death, and after their names and sentences had been read out Takuya recognised the name of Lieutenant Howa Kotaro. He had thought the fact that Howa’s mother had been killed in the fire raids on Fukuoka might have been seen as an extenuating circumstance, but again the words ‘death by hanging’ rang out.

  By now Takuya had lost all hope. His own action had been no less extreme than those of the two legal affairs officers or Lieutenant Howa. His name would be next, he thought, but instead the name of the young officer cadet was read out in the same American pronunciation, again followed by the death sentence. Takuya’s head started to spin. His legs went numb and his knees felt as though they would buckle any second.

  Next came the name of the staff officer who had ordered Takuya to take part in the executions. The set English expressions describing the charges were read out in the same sombre tone, but the words at the end were different. Takuya was sure that rather than an expression mentioning ‘death’, he heard the word ‘life’. As he tried to understand the difference, the interpreter translated it as a ‘life sentence’.

  Himuro’s name was read out next. Takuya concentrated as hard as he could on each individual word, and again he picked out the expression ‘imprisonment for life’.

  ‘Ta-ku-ya Ki-yo-ha-ra,’ said the chief of the military tribunal. Takuya gazed intently at the colonel’s lips. His sense of time seemed to have deserted him, because the space between one moment and the next seemed like an aeon. The charges were read in full and again Takuya thought he heard the word ‘life’ among the words explaining the sentence.

  Another wave of shaking came over him and he felt a chill run down his spine, then barely controllable nausea. The culmination of years and months of unrelenting suspense had passed in an instant. He was not going to be strung up after all. A wave of emotion pushed the physical sensations into the background, but for a fleeting moment, until the interpreter confirmed it, he thought that maybe he had misheard his sentence.

  The remaining defendants’ sentences continued to be announced in the same monotone English followed by the interpreter’s Japanese, but by now the words no longer registered with Takuya. He stared at the American flag, at the same time repeating to himself the words ‘life sentence’.

  After a short while the tenor of the announcements seemed to change, and the words ‘not guilty’ could be heard following the charges.

  Realising that the English announcements had come to an end, Takuya returned his gaze to the chief of the military tribunal. The American colonel shuffled his papers into order on his desk and rubbed his cheeks slowly with both hands.

  Suddenly a voice could be heard from down in front of Takuya. Incredulous, the chief of the tribunal turned to see what was happening.

  Takuya could just make out a muffled sobbing two rows down, as well as the sound of someone breathing hard and trying to keep back tears. Looking toward the front, Takuya saw a little old man moving forward from the line of seats, his head quivering slightly.

  The old man was pleading tearfully that he hadn’t given any orders to kill POWs. His voice trembled as he spoke. Obviously the strain had got the better of him, for he stood ramrod straight, almost as though someone had inserted a board down the back of his shirt.

  Takuya felt ashamed to see this old man grovelling before the court, insisting to the members of the tribunal that, though he might have been sentenced to death in the earlier trial of those involved in the vivisection of POWs at Kyushu Imperial University, and had now received the same sentence in this trial, he had never given anyone orders to do such things, and that this decision was regrettable in the extreme.

  Takuya felt he had witnessed something he would have preferred not to see, and looked away. He shut his eyes, but could still hear sniffling from the former commander-in-chief. The old man Takuya had respected as a famous general was now openly weeping.

  A different American voice said something in English, which the interpreter quickly translated as the announcement of the end of the proceedings.

  Takuya and the others tur
ned to the right and, after being handcuffed once again by the MPs, filed out of the courtroom.

  In the makeshift holding-room down the corridor, they were given their evening meal in army-issue mess tins. Takuya had no appetite, but he knew that he must eat. He dug his spoon into the white rice mixed with barley and chewed away at the pieces of tasteless dried fish.

  Three hours after leaving Tokyo they were back on the bus to Sugamo. The sun was starting to set and the western sky was tinged with red.

  Out of the left side of the bus Mount Fuji was visible in the distance as they crossed the Rokugo Bridge over the Tama river. With the sun sinking behind it, the snow on the mountain took on a light shade of purple.

  9

  Takuya was moved into a different cell to begin serving his sentence.

  Soon after New Year 1949 his father and brother came to visit him. Through the three layers of heavy wire mesh separating them Takuya had only a blurred view of their faces, but he could see his father blinking uncomfortably, wiping his eyes repeatedly with a handkerchief. Seeing them stare at the handcuffs and the leather band wrapped round them made Takuya feel decidedly uncomfortable.

  When their time was up an MP came over and led Takuya’s two visitors out of the interview room.

  In the end nine people, including the commander-in-chief, had been sentenced to death, five to life imprisonment, one to forty years of hard labour, four to thirty years, three to twenty-five years, four to twenty years, one to ten years, and one to five years. Seven were found not guilty. Evidently, four of the men who had taken part in the executions, Howa being one of them, were sentenced to death because their involvement was judged to be voluntary, whereas Takuya and the others who received various prison terms were deemed to have been acting in response to orders passed down the chain of command. That night, the nine men sentenced to death were moved to another wing of the prison.