The International Military Tribunal for the Far East

81

Inukai sought peace in 1931, son tells Tokyo tribunal

TOKYO (UP) – Japan’s premier in 1931 tried in vain to get Emperor Hirohito to withdraw his troops from Manchuria, a prosecution witness told the international war crimes tribunal today.

“My father recommended withdrawal of the Japanese Army from Manchuria by imperial rescript, but the proposal was not successful,” said Ken Inukai, son of Premier Inukai, who was assassinated in 1932.

As the emperor’s name was drawn for the first time into the trial of former Premier Hideki Tojo and 26 other wartime leaders, a defense attorney questioned Inukai closely.

Counsel for Marquis Kido, former intimate adviser to the emperor, said the statement by Inukai could mean the Japanese ruler was to blame for the action of the army in Manchuria.

“His majesty,” Inukai replied, “was a strong advocate of peace and a strong advocate of peaceful settlement of the Manchurian incident. That’s what I meant to say.”

The major reason for the failure of his father’s attempt to recall the troops, Inukai continued, was the opposition of the army.

82

The Pittsburgh Press (June 27, 1946)

Axis pact signer dies in Japan

TOKYO (UP) – Yosuke Matsuoka, 66, former Jap foreign minister, who concluded the neutrality pact with Russia in 1941 and currently was a defendant in the war crimes trials, died today. He was a signer of the Axis pact with Germany and Italy.

Matsuoka had not attended any sessions of the trial, although he appeared in the courtroom for the reading of the indictment. A medical examination showed him suffering from tuberculosis. The tribunal granted the defense request at that time to transfer him to a hospital.

His death left the trial with 27 defendants.

In March 1933, Matsuoka, as head of the Jap delegation to Geneva, triumphantly announced Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations.

83

Day 22

84

The Pittsburgh Press (June 28, 1946)

Adm. Nagano takes blame for attack on Pearl Harbor

Jap war crimes defendant quoted as backing sneak blow prepared by Yamamoto

TOKYO (UP) – Former Jap Fleet Adm Osami Nagano, a defendant in the war crimes trial, has assumed “entire responsibility” for the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the newspaper Mainichi said today.

The Mainichi said Nagano made his admissions in a letter addressed to Defense Counsel Hachiro Okuyama.

Nagano was indicted largely because of “murder” resulting from the Pearl Harbor attack and he wished to state his attitude toward the raid, the paper said.

Mainichi said it had been revealed that Adm. Isoruko Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the combined fleet, originally proposed the Pearl Harbor attack but the General Staff, with Nagano as its chief, opposed the plan as a risky gamble.

Yamamoto, however, was adamant and Nagano finally decided in favor of the attack, Mainichi said.

Although the attack was intended as a surprise, Yamamoto stressed at an Imperial Headquarters conference that Japan should notify the United States that it had severed relations before the raid took place, the newspaper continued. Notification that relations were broken originally was scheduled to be made to Washington one hour before the attack.

The margin, however, was shortened 30 minutes for some reason and when finally the message was cabled from Tokyo near the deadline it arrived garbled, Mainichi said. The decoding took such time at the Jap embassy in Washington that the message was not delivered to American authorities until 40 minutes after the attack.

Mainichi said that Nagano himself was unaware why the time notification was reduced to 30 minutes. He said that “this is a mystery that should be solved by the war crimes trial proceedings.”

85

Smashing of plot in 1931 told by Jap

TOKYO (UP) – Gen. Kazushige Ugaki, former Jap war minister, testified in the war crimes trial today that a militarist plot to seize the Jap government in March 1931 failed because of his personal opposition.

The plot was the brainchild of Shumei Okawa, archdean of Jap super-patriots, Ugaki said. Okawa, one of the original 28 defendants in the current trial, was taken recently to a mental hospital suffering from paresis.

Ugaki said he received a threatening letter from Okawa urging him to head the Army-controlled regime he proposed to install after the coup. Ugaki said he immediately ordered his assistants in the war ministry to forbid the army to have anything to do with the movement.

Okawa’s letter, which was admitted in evidence, made it clear that he was one of the leaders in a series of plots which later resulted in the Manchurian conquest and the war with China.

86

Day 23

87

The Pittsburgh Press (July 1, 1946)

Japs accused of plots in ‘20s

TOKYO (UP) – Japanese war criminal suspects heard themselves accused today of plotting as far back as the late 1920s to extend Jap power in Asia.

Opening the second phase of the prosecution case against the 27 defendants, Assistant U.S. Attorney General John Dorsey of Washington said Jap aggression on the Asiatic mainland began long before 1928 when Japan acquired a strong position in South Manchuria.

Mr. Dorsey said that Jap aggrandizement was pushed despite attempts to restrain that country by the League of Nations and the United States.

Rumors persisted that the trial will adjourn for six weeks or so to allow the defense and prosecution time for more adequate preparation.

88

Day 24

89

The Evening Star (July 2, 1946)

U.S. approval of Jap moves in Manchuria charged by Okada

TOKYO (AP) – Adm. Keisuke Okada told the international war crimes tribunal today he understood there was a “gentlemen’s agreement’’ between the United States and Japan to permit Nippon’s westward expansion into Manchuria for “living space.”

He said the American ban on Japanese immigration had caused Japan to attempt to solve its overpopulation problems by moving into the Asiatic mainland. In 1927 Japan acquired substantial rights in Manchuria through treaties, he declared, and decided to develop these rights as fully as possible.

Okada, former premier and commander in chief of the Japanese Navy, was a prosecution witness in the war crimes trial of 27 alleged warmongers.

The 77-year-old witness did not elaborate his statement that he had heard of a “tacit understanding” between the United States and his country to allow Japanese movement into Manchuria. Sir William Webb, president of the tribunal, said the testimony “shocked the court.”

Cross-examination of Okada brought up the first mention of the Tanaka memorial, the reported plan for world aggression written by one-time Premier Baron Giichi Tanaka.

Okada testified he seriously doubted if the Tanaka memorial ever existed.

He said the army in Manchuria had become dissatisfied with Tanaka’s policy of negotiating with Manchurian collaborationists, thought the negotiations were going too slowly, and decided to use force and occupy that rich and strategic land.

Okada said it was Tanaka’s plan to advance into Manchuria “by degrees” – peacefully, if possible – when the United States acted to avoid Japanese immigration under the 1924 Oriental exclusion law.

However, radical young army leaders, he said, defied both the emperor and the government and pushed the country into armed conquest.

90

The Pittsburgh Press (July 2, 1946)

Jap ‘understanding’ with U.S. charged

War crimes trial hears ex-admiral

TOKYO (UP) – The United States had a tacit understanding with the Japanese government that Japan could expand “peacefully” into Manchuria, a prosecution witness indicated today in the war crimes trial.

The witness was former Adm. Keisuke Okada who was called in the prosecution of 27 leading Japanese war criminal suspects. The prosecution is attempting to trace the steps of Japanese aggression in Asia.

In cross examination, Okada said one of the great problems confronting Japan at the time of the Manchurian incident of 1931 was overpopulation. Her most pressing need was to find a population outlet somewhere, he said.

Okada said that since the United States would not permit Japanese immigration into its territories, he understood there was a “tacit understanding that Japan could expand into Manchuria peacefully.”

Lost control of army

The former admiral bluntly told the court that the Japanese civilian government entirely lost control of the Japanese Army during the months preceding and following the Manchurian incident in 1931. Later cabinets, he said, were “completely dominated and controlled” by the army.

He also described the army itself as completely under the domination of Japanese ultranationalists and extremists who did whatever they pleased without bothering to inform either the emperor or the series of cabinets that rose and fell in Tokyo.

“It gradually became apparent to everyone in Japan… that it was only a matter of time until the army should undertake the occupation of Manchuria,” Okada said.

Chang infuriated Japs

He recalled that during 1928 when War Lord Chang invaded North China and established his Peking headquarters, his action infuriated the Japanese Army in Manchuria because it did not have its consent.

91

Day 25

92

The Evening Star (July 3, 1946)

Jap admiral charges army officers plotted Manchurian invasion

TOKYO (AP) – While former Premier Hideki Tojo and 26 others accused as warmongers listened, Adm. Keisuke Okada told the international war crimes court today that a group of young army officers and “not these defendants” plotted the occupation of Manchuria in 1931.

The aged, 1934-1936 premier, a prosecution witness for the second day, said his cabinet had no policy regarding Manchuria, but added that by 1934, Manchuria already was overrun by the Kwantung army and “I could do nothing to stop it.”

Anyway, he said, he considered the Japanese puppet setup in Manchuria a benevolent move for that part of China. Back in 1932, as a member of the Privy Council, he had voted for formal recognition of Manchukuo, the puppet state, in the hope of “bringing happiness to the people of Japan and Manchuria.”

Okada was cross-examined closely on his statement yesterday that he had heard that Japan and the United States had a “gentlemen’s agreement” which sanctioned Japanese expansion into Manchuria.

No other nations participated in the purported agreement, he said. He never actually saw the document and didn’t know any details but heard about it, he said, from Premier Giichi Tanaka.

93

Wiener Kurier (July 4, 1946)

Tagebuch beweist Tojos Kriegsschuld

Der Kriegsverbrecherprozeß in Japan

Tokio (UP) - Ministerpräsident Tojo erhielt von Kaiser Hirohito im Februar 1942 den Befehl, den Krieg „mit allen Mitteln so bald als möglich zu Ende zu bringen“. Dies geht aus einem Tagebuch Marquis Koiyhi Kidos hervor, dessen Inhalt in der Verhandlung gegen die japanischen Kriegsverbrecher teilweise enthüllt wurde.

Marquis Kido war Lord-Siegelbewahrer des Kaisers von Japan in der Zeit zwischen Juni 1940 und Dezember 1945 und stand Hirohito in beratender Funktion bei. Seine Aufzeichnungen, die beinahe 4500 Seiten umfassen, geben ein genaues Bild über die Rolle, die Kaiser Hirohito in der Lenkung des Krieges Japans spielte. Mach dem Tagebuch war es Kido selbst, der dem Kaiser vorschlug, Tojo mit der Regierungsbildung zu betrauen, „nicht wegen des Krieges, sondern um die Armee als politische Stabilisationskonstante einzusetzen“. Unmittelbar nach der Besprechung mit Tojo erklärte Hirohito am 11. Februar 1942 seinem Lord-Siegelbewahrer, daß er „Tojo gegenüber betont habe, es sei für den Frieden und für die Menschheit überhaupt von größter Wichtigkeit, daß der Krieg nicht unnötig verlängert wird. Tojo solle diesen Gedanken stets vor Augen behalten und den Krieg mit allen Mitteln möglichst schnell beenden“.

94

Day 26

95

The Evening Star (July 5, 1946)

Jap general says order to halt Mukden plot wasn’t delivered

TOKYO (AP) – A prosecution witness at Tokyo’s war crimes trial testified today that a Japanese general was dispatched to Mukden on September 18, 1931, to call off the Kwantung Army’s Manchurian plot, but failed to deliver the explicit orders of the war minister.

Spectators laughed as Ryukichi Tanaka, a former major general, related that the messenger, Lt. Gen. Yoshitsugu Tatekawa, was locked in a restaurant by the plotters, who thought he wanted to stop the attack.

Tatekawa, who wanted the army to go ahead with its plans for the attack anyway, whiled away the hours with geisha girls, Tanaka went on. At midnight the army guns roared attack on Chinese barracks.

“The gunfire so frightened the geishas that they trembled, but Tatekawa told them not to worry while they were with him,” Tanaka testified.

“He slept soundly until morning and then it was too late to stop the incident.”

The orders to call off the plot, Tanaka said, were from the then war minister, Jiro Minami, one of the defendants.

Tanaka, in a four-and-a-half-hour testimony on the Manchurian episode, said the internal situation in Japan caused the expansionists to decide to develop Manchuria as a new state of high economic level. A powerful army clique, he said, forced the government to accept its program by threatening to assassinate dissenters.

Tanaka named Col. Kingoro Hashimoto, former chief of staff of the Kwantung army, as the chief instigator of the program of Japanese domination without openly admitted army control, “to avoid international incident.”

Names two others

Others in the plot, which it was earlier testified was pushed through against the expressed opposition of Emperor Hirohito, were named as Gen. Seishiro Itagaki and Shumei Okawa, propaganda agent. All three are defendants at the trial.

Excerpts from the previously secret diary of Marquis Koichi Kido, wartime keeper of the Privy Seal and the emperor’s closest adviser, were read to the tribunal explaining the emperor’s position.

Four days after the Mukden Railway explosion was engineered as a pretext for the Manchurian incident, in September 1931, Kido wrote: “The army is so strongly determined in its positive policy toward Manchuria that orders given by central authorities may not be carried out.

“The emperor has expressed satisfaction and approval to the prime minister and minister of war for a governmental policy striving not to extend further the Manchurian incident. However, the army is reported to be indignant. … The emperor had better not say anything further about Manchuria policy.”

Threatened assassination

Tanaka testified that Hashimoto had told him that if the government disapproved the Manchurian expansion some of the leaders of the cabinet of Premier Baron Reijiro Wakatsuki would be assassinated and a new government formed which would rally the people behind the army policy.

Tanaka credited propagandist Okawa with originating the complaint that all of Asia outside Japan was being oppressed by the whites and developing the program for driving them out. However, Okawa was unable to convince China’s young marshal, Chang Hsueh-liang, he should follow the Japanese program, Tanaka added.

96

The Pittsburgh Press (July 5, 1946)

Crimes trial told of Manchuria plot

Jap general points to personal enemies

TOKYO (UP) – A witness in the war crimes trial today accused at least three defendants of plotting to attack Manchuria in September 1931 for the purpose of eventually placing all of Manchuria under Japanese rule.

Maj. Gen. Ryukichi Tanaka, who once was former Premier Hideki Tojo’s personal enemy on the Imperial General Staff, named Dr. Shumei Okawa, Col. Kingoro Hashimoto, Gen. Seishiro Itagaki and other defendants as responsible for the Manchurian aggression.

As he pointed his finger, the defendants met his accusations with icy defiance and hate-filled stares.

Tanaka’s testimony came after the prosecution introduced documents purporting to show that each of the 27 defendants was involved in a series of interlocking plots aimed at establishing Japanese dominance in eastern Asia and eliminating Occidental influence from that part of the world.

Tanaka said that the Manchurian conquest was the result of a carefully engineered plan. The leading figures in it, he said, were Okawa, Hashimoto Itagaki, Capt. Isamu Cho, who frequented the notorious “Golden Dragon” geisha house with Okawa; Gen. Kanji Ishiwara Kanji, an adviser in the now-banned East Asia League, and Gen. Yoshitsugu Tatekawa.

Tanaka said Itagaki and Ishiwara were the leaders of the plot in Manchuria while Tatekawa, Cho and Hashimoto were the main leaders of the military group in Tokyo.

Okawa, he said, led the civilian ultranationalists who successfully influenced rebellious and hot-blooded young officers’ groups in the army at home.

At first, Tanaka said, most of the plotters favored converting Manchuria into an outright Japanese protectorate. Later, however, they were convinced that “international displeasure” would lessen if a nominally independent state tied to Japan by an offensive and defensive alliance were created. The so-called “independent state of Manchukuo” was the result.

The prosecution is now tracing the Japanese conquest of Manchuria. At the conclusion of this phase, the court will hear of Japanese atrocities, followed by evidence on economic aggression in China.

Scheduled to begin July 16 is evidence concerning Japan’s relations with other countries – Germany, Italy, France, Siam and Russia.

Japanese relations with the United States, and Britain are scheduled to be presented beginning August 5, followed by evidence of Japan’s dealings with the Netherlands and Portugal. In the latter half of August, the prosecution will present evidence showing Japanese violation of international agreements and rules covering prisoners and property.

Cases of individual defendants will be taken up September 4.

97

Day 27

98

The Evening Star (July 6, 1946)

Japs expected to fight Soviet, officer testifies

TOKYO (AP) – Japan’s military took over Manchuria as a theater in which to develop a powerful warmaking machine for an expected war against the Soviet Union and then fought the United States instead, a top-ranking Japanese officer testified today.

Maj. Gen. Ryukichi Tanaka, who soldiered for 15 years with Hideki Tojo, Japan’s wartime premier, told the tribunal trying the latter and 26 others that the Kwantung Army trained 2,500,000 crack troops in Manchuria and started autonomous movements in adjoining Inner Mongolia and North China.

He said this was in part a countermove against Russia to prevent Soviet influence from seeping in from Outer Mongolia; and partly to punish the Nanking government in China for stubbornly resisting Japanese advances.

Tanaka injected Tojo’s name into the war crimes trial proceedings for the first time. He testified that, when his former army boss was chief of staff of the Kwantung Army, Manchuria made epochal economic and political strides. He said law and order was established and bandits were reduced to about 10,000.

99

The Pittsburgh Press (July 7, 1946)

Attorney for Tojo will go to China

TOKYO, July 6 (UP) – Attorney Michael Levin, defense counsel for Teiichi Suzuki, former cabinet minister under Premier Hideki Tojo, will go to China next week to seek defense evidence for presentation to the international tribunal.

Mr. Levin of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will visit Shanghai and Nanking to interview witnesses and gather evidence in his client’s behalf.

100

Day 28