Thread by @Cleaner75199037

#Truth about Japanese War Criminals:
About 1,000 Japanese were executed during the war crimes trials after the last war.
Why were so many Japanese executed?

https://twitter.com/111g0/status/1647026683445403648?s=20

Even among the Japanese people, there is a perception that these heinous and inhumane people got what they deserved, but the diary of convicted Chief Tetsuo Mizuno reveals the reality of the war crimes trials.

The above photo shows Sergeant Britton, who appears in the diary:

"April 8, 1947
I went out as usual for the fourth trial.
Saw the cherry blossoms at the Women's Study Institute and Gajoen.

Today, Ensign Britton's testimony begins.
He was formerly a sergeant, but since he was honorably captured, he was promoted two ranks to the rank of ensign.

The content of his testimony is even more harsh and painful to listen to than Bradbury's.

The plot, which was written with a mixture of lies and exaggerations, was more than effective enough to give the impression that we were the most heinous criminals on earth.

The judge's face was flushed and he seemed to see in his eyes the hated enemy who had tormented their people. I could not help the sweat dripping down from my armpits.
The two U.S. attorneys sigh and the second-generation Japanese American interpreter shakes his head.

And they whispered that more than half of us would get at least life in prison.
The defendants had been completely overwhelmed by Britton's testimony for the entire day.

On the prisoners' bus on the way home, we talked about the harsh reality of our defeat.

There was nothing more we could do. The idea was to let them say as much as they could.

April 9, 1947
On the way to Yokohama, an elderly woman bowed politely to our bus at the intersection of Shinjuku Isetan.
She must have been related to a war criminal.

It is nice to know that there is even one person in this world who knows us.

Now, for the fifth session of the trial, Britton continued his communication with Prosecutor Murchis, joking and smiling as he led us deeper and deeper into the abyss.

I was struck by the realization that a war of nations can undermine personal friendships, and it made me think a great deal.

I was close to Britton.
As one of the POW delegates, he was held in high esteem by his peers and by the Japanese military.

My relationship with him was a private friendship apart from a public one.
However, his position was now that he was obligated to come to Japan to protest the mistreatment he had suffered on behalf of all POWs and

to corroborate the complaints of the Americans against the Japanese in front of our superiors in his own country.

Friendship is friendship and duty is duty.
Duty must take precedence over friendship when we have a mutual homeland.

In this case, he could not fulfill his responsibility without incriminating me, and it would be a clear betrayal of his country if he were to say that he himself was pro-Japanese.
Therefore, all witnesses, not just him, must make true statements of abuse with exaggeration

and falsehood.
This is another reason why the mistreatment of Japanese prisoners of war is exaggerated, because in order for them to be welcomed as heroes in their own country, they must have endured more hardships."

Three more days later in the diary, Britton's too-big-to-be-true words are recognized as lies by the U.S. lawyer:

"April 12, 1947
For two days on the 10th and 11th, Britton's testimony remained the same, and we remained paralyzed by whatever he said.

Even the lawyer Kelly smiled and said, 'Everything is a lie'.

April 24, 1947
For some reason, the court was adjourned yesterday and today,
I am indignant at the heavy workload that I have been forced to endure.

The defendant had to rest his body and plan for the trial.
But they are forced to do a dizzying amount of miscellaneous work.

I would rather be a puppet in a courtroom monkey show.
When I went to criminals sentenced to death to do some chores,

my eyes met those of two friends of mine who were waiting for the execution to take place.
They both winked, laughed, and nodded their heads.

This gesture explained everything about the lawlessness of this war crimes trial.

An officer came up to us and had me ask if there was anything unusual about my dying friend.
What could my friend say in defense? All he could say was, 'Nothing unusual'.

April 25, 1947
A trip to Yokohama.
It was a bright, sunny day, but what an irony!
It was a day full of bad things.
I knew that it was the day of the sentencing for Mr. T and Mr. M at Omuta Camp. Because they smiled when we looked at each other at the rest area during lunch,

I thought the sentence must have been light, so I asked my surveillance soldier about it.
I was surprised that it was a death sentence.
What in the world had they done?
How could they be sentenced to death for punching a defiant American POW in the face who did steal?

In the courtroom this afternoon, a Japanese lawyer said to me
'You must be prepared to serve thirty or forty years.'
'I can see that even the death penalty is a certainty from among you.', etc.

Captain T., 'a witness for us', also told us, 'I have information that

more than half of you will be sentenced to life in prison.'

In the afternoon, on the prisoners' bus on the way back to the prison, I joined the two death sentence inmates mentioned above.
When the guard asked Mr. M if he was feeling sick,
M replied,

'I wasn't in motion sickness due to the bus,but I was stunned by the extraordinary nature of the verdict.'"

It is a one-sided trial based on the premise that civilization judges barbarism, but the defense begins to fight back against the fabricated evidence. Which is the barbarian?

"April 29, 1942

The defense is now on the offensive, and

dozens of favorable witnesses are daily destroying the prosecution's fabricated evidence. The prosecution tries to suppress this testimony by intimidation and various other means, but the hardcore Japanese witnesses seem to have convinced the judges of the truth

by playing the prosecuters with their careful and repeated politeness.
The testimony of Medical Sergeant Anazawa made it clear that Mr. W, a medic corporal 'on the verge of death penalty', was not responsible. He also asserted that he himself was responsible for all the deaths -

even if it could be barely explainable.
This would ruin the trial. The prosecutor panicked. Since there was a Japanese person whom he had designated, he wanted to incriminate that person. However, if a double were to come forward and say that he had committed the crime,

true or not, the entire basis for the months-long investigation would collapse, and the credibility of the prosecution's evidence would be seriously undermined. Chief Anazawa's face turned red while the prosecutor threatened to throw him into the Sugamo Prison as well.

The prosecutor yelled at him to cancel his testimony, but he did not change his statement.
The prosecutor declared that Anazawa should be executed and W should also be executed, and in the face of opposition from the lawyers,

the judges, who now felt that the trial was in the Allied side's infavor, suddenly adjourned the trial and left the courtroom.

Mr. Eiichi Yokobari, Mr. Hiroshi Tomiya, Mr. Tozo Oikawa, and others took the witness stand one after another.

The prosecutors would press them if they said anything favorable to the defendants.
The judge asked, 'Do you want the warden acquitted?' they replied, 'I hope so.'

The prosecutor sharply questioned the witnesses, 'Didn't you have a meeting with your lawyer and was told to say this?', 'Yes or No?', and pressed 'Do you want to go to Sugamo prison?'.
They were never afraid to declare loudly and absolutely no.

Mr. Oikawa was asked by the chief judge, 'Many prisoners of war died due to malnutrition, were you aware of such a situation?'. His answer was truly excellent. 'The word 'malnutrition' was not in common use at that time, when all Japanese were malnourished.

I lost my beloved child, but in hindsight, it was probably due to malnutrition. But the POWs ate so much better food than the Japanese that the Japanese were rather envious of them. ......'

The prosecutor continued to block the defendant's statements, and the defendant's seat, which had been so depressed by the prosecutor's one-sided attacks, began to have a friendly, upbeat atmosphere."

The below is a diary of the day of the verdict. The final moment when the most humane means of civilization is used to exact the most ruthless and barbaric revenge.

"June 6, 1947
The hearing room is filled with people one after another.

Not only the family and friends of the defendant, but also the cameramen, Allied generals, and the Yamato Nadeshiko who accompanied them were already in the audience.
At the prosecutor's table, POW witness Britton is preparing his camera and

chatting with Prosecutor Murchis in a very pleasant manner.
He is trying to catch the expression on the defendant's face at the moment he is sentenced to death, so that he will have a pleasant memory for the rest of his life.

Oh, this is the last moment when the most humane means of civilization can be used to exact the most ruthless and barbaric revenge.
Who are these people who can smile and laugh in the face of such a moment?
Must a righteous man be the owner of a strong and merciless nerve?

As soon as I thought that the nation must be strong, "Attention" was called and the judges entered the packed courtroom slowly.
As soon as the chief judge took his seat, he announced that he would now proceed to the sentencing.

He took out a book that looked like a judgment certificate and called Mr. O's name first. It's a lighter order of punishment, I thought.
Mr. O appears in the center of the courtroom and takes a bow.

The charges in the indictment were read out and Mr. O was told, 'You are guilty of this crime. Therefore, you shall be sentenced to three years of hard labor and shall be imprisoned at a place to be determined by the Commander of the Eighth Army.'

Thus, an interpreter who had only slapped one prisoner of war in the face during the war was sentenced to a further three years' hard labor after a year and a half of unsentenced labor and forty-four court hearings.

Next, my name was called. I stepped to the center of the room and assumed an immovable posture, but there was no reason for me to bow, and I just stared into the eyes of the chief judge, thinking that even American custom would not do so on such occasions.

I was found guilty on the first three counts of the indictment, with the exception of the words 'willfully and unlawfully'.
I was therefore sentenced to five years of hard labor. I thought this was a light sentence - relatively speaking.

Immediately, two MPs took me in their arms, as they would have done to anyone. This is because I must not get out of line.

I glanced at the D.A.'s desk.

My best friend, Britton, who had given hateful testimony, looked away, and Prosecutor Murchis seemed to be laughing in his eyes.
Clearly, the prosecutor's office had been off the mark.
As I held my cousin's hand, who ran up to me in concern, I thought to myself, 'Oh dear'.

The next person sentenced to ten years, the next twenty years, and the next thirty years for Mr. S.
I knew there were only three of us left.

The lawyer had told me that these three men were scheduled to be executed.
Well, one of them, medic Mr. W., was sentenced to 40 years, and

he came to me, his eyes shining with joy, and said, "I was spared the death penalty. A sinful thing they do.
At last, two more former wardens will be sentenced to death.
Now 40 years sentenced, the next sentence was either life or death, and the next one was Lieutenant M.

When I heard that he had been sentenced to 40 years, I felt as if my knees would buckle with relief.
I wondered if the last lieutenant W. is the one who will be sentenced to death. If I had to guess what was going on in his mind, it was a living hell.

We are being protected in a place where Lt. W is out of sight.
After the long, long reason for his sentence, he was finally sentenced to another 40 years. When he said to me, "40 years," his eyeballs almost popped out.

Each of us has our own complaints, and we are all very dissatisfied.However, at the moment of the verdict, I could not help but feel a sense of relief and gratitude instead of anger, because the play was set up in such a way that

I could not help but feel that it was a good thing and that the sentence was light.
To receive a sentence of 40 years for a crime that I did not commit and to feel gratitude for it, I can only say that it was the magic of Kirishitan*.

I will end this essay with a sarcastic expression of respect for American civilization."
(*The name for Christians in Japan until the Edo period.)

Three people were sentenced to 40 years of hard labor at Tokyo POW camp No. 2 in Ogimachi, Kawasaki City.
The following is from a letter to Sergeant Mizuno's father, who received five years of hard labor:

"Since this trial gave three people 40 years, I may have really been too light.
That gentle warden and Mr. W, who is a good man himself, were sentenced to 40 years.
If I had been in that position, I would have been done the same.

I am sure that any Japanese person would have followed the same path if he or she had been placed in that workplace.
People who don't know anything about it may wonder what kind of a bad person a 40-year sinner is.

If it would have been God's judgment for us ......, I am sorry not to have heard it.
The warden has never beaten a POW, not even once.
But it was during that crippling war.
The American and British soldiers, who were used to the luxury of warfare,

must have thought it was a terrible abuse.
Besides, the army would have been under a single order.
Even Japanese soldiers suffered from a shortage of medicine.
Even Japanese soldiers found it difficult to stay in the hospital.

The procedures for hospitalization of POW were troublesome, and if we were told that there were no beds available, we were forced to cry.
It was not possible to show the POWs to the doctors in the city.
This probably caused some POWs to be hospitalized late and some to die.

However, the difficulties were the same for Japanese soldiers and civilians alike. Who would not feel compassion for those who are dying or ill as human beings? We did our best.

No one had any prejudice that they were enemy aliens.
The POWs were still just participants in the war at the behest of their country.
They were peace-loving people who wanted to enjoy a quiet life with kind parents and their beloved children.

The war forced them out of their homes.
When I think about it and talk about it with them,
I saw a fellowship of human beings that transcended national borders and ethnicities.
It is not an exaggeration to say that there was only friendship and mutual support."

The diary below describes a world that has changed drastically due to the rule of the Occupation forces two years after the war. We are still dragging this situation down.

"July 24, 1942

The confusion in Japan after the defeat in the war was not only a problem of economic life, but also of the people losing their spiritual foundation.
It seems as if all the propaganda the public sees and hears is aimed at making them lose sight of their homeland.

Nothing could be more confusing the people who were born and raised in Japan and who have come to believe that it is natural for them to love their country as their motherland, than to try to indoctrinate them into believing that people like Sanzo Nosaka, Wataru Kaji, and

Hotsumi Ozaki, whom they once had been denounced as traitors to their country, are true patriots. Even if we accept the existence of world justice, it is the justice of the US itself, and the idea that martyrdom for the U.S. is more virtuous than martyrdom for one's own country,

which supersedes the love of one's own country held by the Japanese people, will further confuse the public mind."

Dislike of newspaper coverage of Sugamo Prison inmates:

"December 31, 1942
The newspapers of the past two days have unilaterally condemned Japan as the culprit of the crime of aggression.
They seem to congratulate the birth of a democratic nation, the acceptance of freedom and

equality, and the reemergence of Japan as a peaceful nation.
Why is it that newspapers cannot help but pander to the times and sycophant with the powers that be?
Newspapers, without firm convictions and without insight, are ordered to write about the war of aggression.

It is as if they are being blackmailed to celebrate a fresh start as a democratic Japan.
Today, the oppressors are behind bars because the people allegedly longed for a democratic state.
In view of this fact only, we may indeed congratulate the people on their new beginning,

as the "newspapers" say.
However, the situation was unconditional surrender, humiliating defeat, the sorrow of a conquered people, and the misery of a nation that had been liberated.
Where can we find a bright poem of freedom in this life of misery and desolation?

In two hours, the year 1947 will be over.
The feelings of those in prison in the former enemy country are truly serious and complicated.
With their own fate and the ghosts of a collapsed nationalistic conception in their hearts, a thousand war criminals here in prison shall pass

the year in nightmares."

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