The International Military Tribunal for the Far East

162

The Evening Star (August 20, 1946)

Japs planned invasion of Soviet during his reign, Pu-yi says

TOKYO (AP) – Henry Pu-yi, in a garrulous mood, testified today that Japan made opium addicts of Manchurians to keep down revolt and was planning an invasion of Soviet Russia while he was puppet ruler of Manchuria, but later suffered a severe lapse of memory under defense questioning.

Pu-yi fenced off every defense effort to get him to admit that in the late 1920s there was any banditry under Chinese generals, that the Manchurians were oppressed or that warlords burdened their people with taxes.

In two and one-half hours of cross-examination, the defense drew nothing more explicit than “I don’t remember.” His monotonous replies set judges of the international war crimes tribunal to shaking their heads in exasperation.

But Pu-yi brimmed over with information for the prosecution earlier.

Testifying that Japan made opium addicts of the Manchurian people, he declared the Japanese Kwantung Army promised it would suppress the use of the narcotic, but instead built up an opium business that netted $200,000,000 profit yearly.

“Japan even sold official permits for opium smoking,” he said.

Then Pu-yi told the court that Russia had no aggressive plans against Manchuria during his rule “but I have reason to conclude that the Japanese were making military preparations to invade the Soviet.”

Pu-yi is in Soviet custody, and is expected to be returned to Moscow after his testimony is concluded.

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The Evening Star (August 21, 1946)

Pu-yi tells how Russians snatched him from Japs

TOKYO (AP) – Henry Pu-yi. former puppet ruler of Manchuria, declared today a Russian plane swooped down on a Mukden air field and snatched him from the Japanese just as they were preparing to carry him off by force to Japan at the war’s end.

Pu-yi told the international war crimes court his version of how he passed into Russian hands – an incident yet to be clarified.

The fallen puppet declared Japanese generals “threatened me with force to move to Japan” where “they wanted to kill us In order to silence us.” By “us” he meant himself and his family.

Permitted to testify without Interruption, Pu-yi said he was taken under guard to Mukden in a small airplane, where he was changed toa larger one but “before we took off a Soviet plane arrived.”

Earlier Pu-yi had leaped to his feet with a shout of “fake” when defense attorneys introduced a letter they said Pu-yi sent to the Japanese saying he was willing to take the Manchurian throne.

165

The Pittsburgh Press (August 21, 1946)

Special court to try Henry Pu-Yi

TOKYO (UP) – Henry Pu-Yi, onetime puppet emperor of Manchukuo, will be tried before a special court, presumably for collaborating with Japan, it was learned today.

Disclosure that the slender “Boy Emperor” will face trial was made by Joseph B. Keenan, chief prosecutor in the war crimes trial of 27 leading Jap suspects where Pu-Yi is appearing as a prosecution witness.

Pu-Yi steadfastly has insisted that he was forced to become emperor of Manchukuo because of threats made against his life. He has emphasized that he was opposed to the Japs but dared not show it.

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167

The Frontier (August 22, 1946)

War crimes evidence is sought from 3 ex-POWs

Holt Countyans may furnish information for Tokyo trials

Three Holt County World War II veterans, Capt. Madeline Ullom and Ralph J. Young, 30, both of O’Neill, and Robert G. Gaylor, 24, of Atkinson, are among the 2,661 former American prisoners of the Japanese from whom the War Department seeks to obtain depositions concerning war crimes and atrocities to be used in war crimes trials in Tokyo.

All three were Army personnel spending virtually the entire war in Japanese hands.

Capt. Ullom, of the Army Nurse Corps, served both on Bataan and Corregidor before she was taken prisoner by the Japanese. She spent 32 months in Santa Tomas prison.

Young was captured on May 6, 1942, on Corregidor and he was liberated September 16, 1945. He weighed only 110 pounds when he was freed by friendly forces. The lack of proper food was affecting his eyes and his heart. However, he is now in good physical health.

Gaylor, a member of a coast artillery unit, was captured during the siege at Corregidor. During his internment he was frequently shifted about the Japanese homeland. He, too, suffered from malnutrition and had to combat several diseases.

Both the Veterans’ Administration and the attorney general’s office will cooperate with the War Department in taking statements from the ex-POWs.

To date neither Young nor Gaylor have been directly approached for evidentiary statements, but their relatives told The Frontier that they undoubtedly had personal knowledge of war crimes and that this information was of potential value as trial evidence.

Young left O’Neill last week in search of a location. He has been residing with his sister, Mrs. Lynus Howard.

Capt. Ullom is now stationed at Brooke General Hospital at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas.

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169

The Evening Star (August 23, 1946)

Pu-yi suffers new lapse of memory on questioning

TOKYO (AP) – Henry Pu-yi suffered another lapse of memory before the war crimes tribunal today when former Premier Hideki Tojo’s attorney asked him if he had signed a contract with Japan’s Kwantung Army by which he agreed to give Japan certain rights in Manchuria if put on the throne.

The nervous one-time “boy emperor” of Manchuria evasively told the attorney, Dr. Ichiro Kiyose, he recalled vaguely he had received some orders about railways and highways but was not too clear about them.

In any case, he said, the Japanese forced the terms on him.

Pu-yi told the court he had lived for 10 years in fear that the Japanese would kill him. He became Japan’s puppet, he said, only with the idea of awaiting for the moment he could strike back at Japan and “free Asia.”

Pu-yi startled the court by claiming a part in China’s victory.

“We succeeded in dragging things along until the Japanese surrendered,” he said without amplification. “Manchuria still is Chinese territory.”

170

The Pittsburgh Press (August 23, 1946)

Jap puppet admits lying at trial

TOKYO (UP) – Henry Pu-Yi, former puppet emperor of Manchukuo, admitted today he had strayed from the truth during his testimony for the prosecution in the war crimes trial.

The “misstatement,” as Pu-Yi preferred to call it, was made in regard to a copy of the original notes Pu-Yi made on the Japanese conquest of Manchuria. Pu-Yi testified yesterday that he had the notes with him and the court ordered him to produce them.

When the slender “Boy Emperor” resumed the stand at today’s session, Court President Sir William Webb asked if he had brought the notes.

“No, I am sorry,” Pu-Yi said. “I made a mistake yesterday. Those notes were left behind in Khabarovsk, Soviet Union, where I live now.”

Judge Webb sternly reminded the witness that he distinctly said he had a true copy of the originals.

Defense Attorney Michael Levin of Milwaukee, asked the court to note that the witness had “palpably and willfully lied to the tribunal.” Judge Webb, however, ordered the remark withdrawn on grounds Pu-Yi could not be attacked while still under examination.

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Jap who slapped Tojo becomes more violent

TOKYO (UP) – Shumei Okawa, who was confined to a psychopathic ward last spring after slapping former Jap Premier Hideki Tojo on the head during a court session last spring, is becoming more violent.

Okawa often spends the nights running up and down the halls of the Tokyo Imperial Hospital where he was sent for mental treatment, breaking windows, shouting and striking at other patients.

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173

The Evening Star (August 26, 1946)

Pu-yi admits asking Japs to return throne

TOKYO (AP) – Henry Pu-yi, under pressure from the Japanese war crimes defense, admitted today to the international tribunal that he had asked the Japanese in a letter signed by him to restore him to the Manchurian throne and in return had signed over the rule of the country to the Japanese Kwantung Army.

But Pu-yi continued to protest that he was entirely under Japanese domination and the letter was composed and signed on orders from the Japanese.

The defense, which heretofore has maintained that the Japanesee aims in establishing Manchukuo were entirely in the best interests of the people, whom it hoped to liberate, brought out the document showing Manchukuo was actually only a Japanese colony.

Extensive debate on the issue was cut short by Sir William Webb, tribunal president, who remarked, “We have heard enough to let us decide whether this man (Pu-yi) was an emperor or a mere shadow for the Japanese.”

A furor developed today when Maj. L. W. Moore of the language board was called on to straighten out conflicting versions in translation.

“Thirty years’ experience show me that an Oriental when pushed into a corner will avoid the issue,” Maj. Moore said.

Heated Chinese and Japanese immediately sprang up with bitter protests and Sir William required Maj. Moore to apologize.

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175

The Evening Star (August 27, 1946)

Jap camp commander is hanged in Tokyo

TOKYO (AP) – Allied headquarters announced today that Capt. Kaichi Hirate, convicted Jap war criminal, was hanged at Sugamo prison August 23.

The commandant of prison camps at Muroran and Hakodate, Hirate was found guilty of starving, beating, and causing the deaths of many Allied prisoners, and of subsequently falsifying prison records in efforts to escape detection.

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178

The Evening Star (August 29, 1946)

280,000 in Nanking slain by Japanese, Tojo court is told

TOKYO (AP) – Conquering, near-berserk Japanese troops slaughtered 280,000 Chinese in their bestial “rape of Nanking” in 1937, the war crimes tribunal was told today in a long series of documents from those who lived through the weeks of horror.

“This was a tragedy the like of which never has been known in history,” said a Chinese report, read to the court which is trying former Premier Hideki Tojo and 26 others for war guilt.

Japanese civilian authorities, the report said, were unable to halt the rampaging victorious troops from criminal attack, robbery, looting, murder and arson.

A report by Nelson T. Johnson, American ambassador to China at the time, said Japanese officials “were horrified when they saw the orgy of drunkenness, murder, rape and robbery but failed to make any impression on the callous military commander who deliberately turned loose his men.”

One Nanking foreigner, J. H. McCallum, testified by affidavit that “there were 1,000 cases of rape a night and many by day.”

His diary notation dated December 19, 1937, read:

“This is a hell on earth. It is a story too horrible to relate. People are hysterical. Women are being carried off every hour of the day and night.”

He said he watched one Japanese soldier smother a baby to death because it whimpered while its mother was being attacked.

George A. Fitch, a China-born American, wrote that on December 15, 1937, he watched 1,300 Chinese bound together in bundles and shot.

A Chinese, Sun Yuen-chang, wrote, “In 60 minutes I saw 10,000 people mowed down by machine guns on the banks of the Yangtze River.”

179

Jap generals testify against White guards

MOSCOW (AP) – Two Japanese generals told a Soviet military court today that Japan’s hopes for success in a plan to invade Siberia during World War II were based in large measure on espionage work done by Russian emigres trained as spies at Harbin.

The officers – Lt. Gen. Koji Tominaga, former deputy minister of war, and Lt. Gen. Yanagita, former chief of the Japanese military mission in Harbin – appeared as witnesses at the trial of eight Russian expatriates accused of espionage and plotting against the Soviet government.

Both generals declared the emigres planned to spearhead the proposed invasion of Siberia with a campaign of sabotage and terroristic activities. They planned to fight later in the uniformed ranks, the Japanese said.

They identified Lt. Gen. Gregorie Semenov and his seven co-defendants as paid Japanese agents who, they said, had carried on anti-Soviet activities for years.

Their appearance ended testimony in the three-day-old trial. The prosecutor’s speech and final statements by the defendants will be heard by the court before it passes sentence.

All defendants pleaded guilty the first day of the trial.

TOKYO (AP) – Sadao Araki, former Japanese war minister, today said Japan helped White Russian Gen. Gregorie Semenov in 1916 to 1920, but “America, England and perhaps France also aided him.” He did not elaborate on the statement.

180

The Pittsburgh Press (August 29, 1946)

Half million slain by Japs in Nanking

TOKYO (UP) – A full investigation of the Nanking atrocities may show that as many as 500,000 persons were killed when the Japs sacked the city in 1937, war crimes trial evidence disclosed today.

The 11-man court trying 27 leading Jap suspects heard a report which stated that more than 300,000 persons were known to have been killed. Investigations still under way may confirm that an additional 200,000 victims met death at the hands of blood-crazed Jap soldiers.

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