REGAINING LOST TRUST: STATEMENTS FROM JAPANESE PARTICIPANTS IN THE SINGAPORE WAR CRIMES TRIALS

Abstract

In the 1950s, the Japanese government put together an investigative unit to collect statements from Japanese participants in the post-war class B and C war crimes trials (BC war crimes trials). The collection process began with BC trials prosecuted by British and American courts, but later expanded to cover also Soviet and Chinese courts, among many others. BC trials were conducted across East and Southeast Asia by the different Allied governments, but this work will focus solely on statements regarding the British Singapore War Crimes Trials, due to Singapore’s centrality to the British prosecution of Japanese BC war criminals. This thesis argues that the Japanese government had two major goals in collecting statements from BC trial participants: to gather evidence in support of their view of the trials as victor’s justice, and to reassert authority over the participants. The initial aim of confirming unfair trial would fail almost immediately, once statements began to be collected and read. Most respondents acknowledge British efforts at dispensing fair sentences, especially in the chaotic context of post-World War II actions. However, given that the investigation team continued to collect such statements without obvious content regulation, and archive those documents without content censorship, it seems that the government’s main aim lay elsewhere. As this thesis will explain, it was not the desire to argue illegality of the BC war crimes trials, but rather the purpose of regaining participant belief in the government, that would prove paramount. Japanese names in this thesis are written in the Japanese style (family name before first name), except for scholars who prefer their name written in the Western style.