The Pittsburgh Press (July 30, 1946)
Editorial: An emperor is missing
Henry Pu Yi, “Emperor of Manchukuo,” can’t be located to testify before the war crimes trial in Tokyo. He was last heard of as a captive of the Russians, an auspicious prize of their short Manchurian campaign just before Japan surrendered.
Poor Henry. He has been called the first Quisling of World War II because Japan set him up as a puppet ruler of occupied Manchuria. But Henry was less than that. He was more the Happy Hooligan of Far Eastern politics – but never very happy. No doubt he meant well, but they always had him off balance.
He has spent most of his life, and probably will the rest of it, being a prisoner of somebody. A Manchu, born in 1905, he ruled China for four years as a “boy emperor” before he was forced to abdicate in 1912. Thereafter he was a virtual prisoner of the Chinese at Tientsin until 1934. Then he became a prisoner of the Japs who set him up to rule Manchukuo as Emperor Kang Teh under scrutiny of 600 Jap “advisers.”
One of Henry’s last official acts was to turn over his royal jewels to the Japs to aid their sagging war effort.
Now the Russians have him, and, as in the case of other Manchurian booty, he probably has been stripped of all other imperial prerogatives and possessions, including his concubines.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 31, 1946)
Jap ‘loses face’
TOKYO – Capt. Yusei Hosotani today became the first Jap war criminal to “lose face.” He fainted when he was sentenced to five years in jail for abusing Allied prisoners of war.
The Evening Star (August 1, 1946)
Payment of witnesses in Tojo war crimes trial still in doubt
TOKYO (AP) – Somebody has to pay the witnesses who testify against or for Hideki Tojo and 26 other war crimes defendants, but so far no one has figured out who is going to do it.
Everybody in Tokyo knows that $500 monthly is paid witnesses who are flown from America to testify in minor war trials in Yokohama, concerned with beatings of prisoners of war. But no one seems to be able to find a wage scale for the big trial.
Defense may call 1,600
Such men as J. B. Powell, former editor of the China Weekly Review, who lost his feet from gangrene in a prisoner of war camp, has been brought to Japan, but his pay, while waiting for weeks to testify, is in dispute.
Some defense attorneys say they will call as high as 1.600 witnesses. Barracks have been prepared for 700 defense witnesses, but the big question is who is going to operate the feeding project when these witnesses arrive.
As for American prosecution witnesses, the tribunal secretariat still is waiting for the War Department to tell it such witnesses are in the same class as the minor witnesses at Yokohama, meriting $500 a month.
Strikes back at charge
Meanwhile, the defense in the trial struck back at the prosecution’s version of the Manchurian grab with the contention that diplomas were moving toward a settlement when China’s government frustrated it by appealing to the League of Nations.
Maj. George Furness of New York City, a defense attorney, introduced five telegrams exchanged between defendant Mamoru Shigemitsu, then Japanese minister in Shanghai, and Kijuro Shidehara, then foreign minister. The telegrams outlined at attempt by Shigemitsu and China’s T. V. Soong to form an investigatory commission for settlement of the Manchurian conflict. That was in September 1931.
The plan for the investigatory commission fell through when the Chinese government complained to the League of the “warlike nature of military operations of the Japanese Army.” Maj. Furness said the Japanese consul at Nanking had called to say his government approved the investigatory commission but was told by Soong that prospects for negotiations were frustrated by Japanese invasion of Chinese territory.
The Daily Alaska Empire (August 2, 1946)
Tokyo war crimes trial is dragging; attorneys cautioned
TOKYO – The president of the International War Crimes Tribunal showed impatience over delays in the trial of ex-Premier Tojo and 26 other accused warmongers.
The president, Sir William Webb, rapped both sides for wasting time. He told the defense attorney they were asking silly questions on cross-examination, and he said the prosecution was asking its witnesses to swear to too much in its affidavit.
The Evening Star (August 4, 1946)
Tokyo trial witness dies in jeep accident
TOKYO, Sunday, August 4 – Emmerson G. Loewe of Freeport, Illinois, a prisoner of the Japanese for two and one-half years who had returned to testify in war crimes trials, was killed Thursday in a traffic accident here.
The Evening Star (August 5, 1946)
U.S. writer testifies Mukden incident was Japanese frameup
TOKYO (AP) – J. B. Powell, an American newspaperman, who lost portions of his feet because of mistreatment in a Japanese prison camp, limped to the witness stand today at Tokyo’s big war crimes trial and gave first-hand evidence intended to prove that the infamous Mukden incident of 1931 was a Japanese frameup.
Helped to the chair and with crutches leaning against the witness box, Mr. Powell went behind the scenes of the railway blast which Japan used as a springboard to Asiatic conquest after blaming it on China.
He had gone to Manchuria to report the incident for his China Weekly Review, the Chicago Tribune and the Manchester Guardian.
Hordes of tourists
Mr. Powell said hordes of Japanese “tourists” had entered Mukden shortly before the blast and he obtained pictures of them, showing they carried guns and wore arm bands identifying them as Japanese reservists. Only five days after the incident, Mr. Powell found Japanese in “complete occupation” of Mukden with Lt. Gen. Kenji Doihara, one of the trial defendants, acting as mayor.
Mr. Powell testified that he examined the blast site within a week of the incident and “there was no evidence of blast.”
He said that the bodies of three Chinese soldiers were sprawled alongside the railroad with their heads pointed away as if they had been killed while running from the scene.
Defense counsel reprimanded
Mr. Powell’s testimony drew such heated objections from defense attorneys for Hideki Tojo and 26 other accused top-ranking war criminals that the president of the international tribunal sharply reprimanded counsel.
“We won’t allow you to say another word,” Sir William Webb said at one point to Maj. George Furness of New York when the defense counsel sought to argue a Webb ruling.
Mr. Powell, long a critic of Japanese expansionist policies, said that correspondents covering the Mukden incident at first encountered “very little” hindrance, but later were restricted and that he was told by a clerk in a telegraph office he should “be careful” or he would be killed.
Mr. Powell became crippled after he contracted gangrene in prison following his arrest in Shanghai in December 1941.
Jap who commanded Camp O’Donnell after death march seized
TOKYO (AP) – Allied headquarters announced today the arrest of the Japanese army captain who commanded the notorious Camp O’Donnell in the Philippines. To that camp were taken Americans who survived the brutal Bataan death march, many to perish there of torture and malnutrition.
The captain, Toshio Tsuneyoshi, has been placed in Sugamo Prison and will be prosecuted on charges of committing atrocities.
Headquarters’ legal section also announced the imprisonment of Navy Lt. Masanori Hattori. He commanded the Japanese submarine I-8 and is accused of being involved in the execution of survivors of ships sunk by his craft.
Lt. Col. F. E. Meek, executive officer of the legal section, said today that difficulty is being encountered in obtaining the consent of witnesses to return across the Pacific for war crimes trials. But he added:
“We have not released a single suspect because of failure to obtain witnesses.” He said more than a score already have returned to testify and others have promised to appear.
Col. Meek’s statement was prompted by comment made Saturday in Washington by Col. D M. Dunn, acting chief of the War Crimes Branch of the War Department’s Civil Affairs Division. Col. Dunn said Japanese war criminals were being acquitted or escaping with light sentences because American former servicemen are reluctant to cross the Pacific and testify.
Col. Meek cited these figures:
At Yokohama through July 24, there have been 69 convictions, including six death sentences, as against four acquittals. As of July 1, Manila trials had resulted in 51 death sentences, 53 prison sentences and three acquittals.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 5, 1946)
Jap bribery cited in war trials
TOKYO (UP) – The Japanese Army used both “lead and silver bullets” – intimidation and bribery – to bring about its puppet regime in Manchuria, a former prisoner of the Japanese testified in the war crimes trial today.
J. B. Powell, publisher of the China Weekly Review, who lost parts of both his feet as the result of his imprisonment during the war, testified to events he saw during a news-gathering trip to Manchuria.
Recalling the “inauguration” of one Chinese who had been picked for a puppet government position, Mr. Powell said the unhappy official had been weakened and cowed by long detention until he agreed to accept the job. It was obvious, Mr. Powell said, that he was taking the post under pressure.
Mr. Powell said that the Japanese offered Chinese Gen. Ma Chan-Shan, commander of the government forces in North Manchuria, one million (Chinese) dollars if he would accept a puppet position at Tsitsihar. In his testimony, the witness linked Gen. Kenji Doihara, one of the 27 defendants, with the briberies.
Although the Japanese post office clerk in Mukden usually passed Mr. Powell’s press messages, the witness said the clerk warned him to be careful for “someone may kill you.”
23 Japs imprisoned as war crime suspects
TOKYO (UP) – Supreme headquarters’ legal section has imprisoned 23 additional war criminal suspects, including Lt. Gen. Kiichiro Higuchi, former chief of staff of the Japanese Formosan Army, it was announced today.
The Evening Star (August 6, 1946)
Massacre of Chinese in ‘wholesale lots’ told in Jap trials
TOKYO (AP) – Hideki Tojo and his 26 co-defendants were accused today by the Allied prosecution of waging such a ruthless war in China that Chinese soldiers were “massacred in wholesale lots” – nearly 1,000,000 of them slain after being taken in battle.
The China phase of the big war crimes trial was introduced by Col. Thomas H. Morrow of Cincinnati in a denunciatory address which drew a rebuke from Sir William Webb, president of the international tribunal.
‘Resent being treated as jury’
Sir William said it contained “inflammatory statements” and that the trial judges “resent being treated as a jury.”
As evidence in support of the China phase accusations, an affidavit was introduced. It was by the Chinese magistrate in whose district occurred the shooting at the Marco Polo Bridge on Peiping’s outskirts in 1937, signaling Japanese invasion of China proper.
The magistrate, Wang Len-chai, said Japanese maneuvers there were “without any treaty rights”; that, after the first attack near the bridge resulted in many casualties, the Japanese “oscillated between fighting and peacemaking in order to gain time” for the arrival of reinforcements.
Story of cell No. 5
The grisly story of cell No. 5 in Shanghai’s infamous Bridge House was related to the tribunal earlier today by J. B. Powell, American newspaperman who was captured by Japanese in Shanghai in December 1941.
Mr. Powell was recalled to the stand to testify on Japanese treatment of civilian internees and war prisoners.
Questioned by Prosecuting Attorney Rex Davies of Buckinghamshire, England, Mr. Powell said more than 40 prisoners were crowded into the single 12-by-8-foot cell.
The newsman, who lost portions of his feet from gangrene as a result of his prison treatment, told the court 15 of the prisoners in cell No. 5 were non-Chinese, and that they included several women.
Three bowls of rice daily
“I don’t think the cell had been cleaned since 1937; rats hopped across the prisoners at night,” he continued. “We were given three small bowls of rice daily. At no time did we receive a single Red Cross parcel.”
A friend sent him roast turkey for Christmas, he said, but Japanese refused to allow it to be brought into the cell, on the ground that prisoners “might kill each other with the bones.”
The cell had only one open, crude box as sanitary facilities. Prisoners were given no bedding.
Ex-Navy man knocked down and lectured Jap guard
YOKOHAMA (UP) – Former Chief Petty Officer Phillip E. Saunders of Los Angeles, told today on the witness stand how he knocked down Kenichi Kondo, former Japanese medical orderly who is being tried for prison camp war crimes.
Sanders said he interceded while Kondo was beating A. H. Knudson of Riverside, Rhode Island, who had a back injury and could not straighten up.
Mr. Sanders testified that, after knocking down Kondo, he lectured him on beating sick prisoners and “Kondo did not report me.”
The Pittsburgh Press (August 6, 1946)
Japs accused of blinding women
TOKYO (UP) – Japs guarding prisoners at the infamous Bridge House in Shanghai slapped some women so often they became temporarily blind, a war crimes trial witness said today.
J. B. Powell, former editor of The China Weekly Review who was crippled by mistreatment at the hands of the Japs, was recalled to continue his story of Jap cruelty during their aggression in China.
“Chinese prisoners frequently were beaten outside my cell,” Mr. Powell said. “A special pile of cudgels was kept stacked in the corridor for this purpose. I once counted 85 thuds of blows on the head of one Chinese before he became unconscious.”
Mr. Powell and some 40 other prisoners were crowded into a 12-by-15-foot cell which had not been cleaned for four years. Vermin and rats scuttled over the prisoners, who were forced to sit Japanese-fashion with their legs hunched up under their chins.
The wives of Chinese professors, who had fled Shanghai, were beaten by Japs who sought to learn of their husbands’ whereabouts and some women “temporarily lost their sight,” Mr. Powell said.