B-29 POWs – Kempei Tai Atrocities

DOWNED AND CAPTURED B-29 AIRMEN SUFFERED BARBARIC TREATMENT BY THE JAPANESE. THEY WERE SEVERELY BEATEN, SPEARED, STARVED, POISONED, BEHEADED, VIVISECTIONED, BURNT ALIVE AND IMPRISONED UNDER UNIMAGINABLY HORRIFIC CONDITIONS.

Less than 3 in 5 survived their capture. The airmen were considered sub-human war criminals to be interrogated, tortured, tried and executed for “indiscriminate and inhumane bombing of Japanese cities and civilians”. They were “special prisoners”. The terms of the Geneva Convention were ignored, with vengeful Imperial Camp Commandants being given reign to make policy and inflict punishment at their whim.

The extent of mistreatment was not substantially discovered until the U.S. Occupation Army conducted its extensive investigation into aircrew losses over Japan and held the Class B and Class C War Crimes Trials in Yokohama at the end of the war. Surviving B-29 POWs, including fourteen from the 6th Bomb Group*, provided lengthy, detailed affidavits for the trials describing the horrors of their POW imprisonment. Of the 568 captured airmen accounted for (vast majority B-29 airmen), the investigation found that 8 were murdered at the capture site, 32 died of wounds or diseases, 68 died from the firebombing of Tokyo, 132 were executed, 15 poisoned and 8 vivisected. The actual numbers were certainly larger as Japan’s military attempted to eliminate evidence of its atrocities at the time of its surrender and downed airmen captured and killed by vengeful civilians were difficult to trace. Most downed airmen (all causes) were never found.

Prisoners at Kempei Tai HQ were let out of their cells only for interrogation, torture and execution. Guards used bamboo “kendo” sticks to deliver vicious and painful daily blows to prisoner bodies, including to the head. Kendo beatings were routine during interrogations. Each prisoner was forced to sign a Japanese script war crime confessional and was told that providing answers to Kempei questions would prolong their life from execution. A prisoner refusing to talk would be executed. Any prisoner believed to have lied was beaten senseless and at times to an appearance unrecognizable to his fellow cell mates. Bruises and injury from the beatings made sleep difficult in any position.

Yasuo Kobayashi (nicknamed “Shorty” by prisoners) was in charge of American prisoners at Kempei Tai HQ. He took great joy in prisoner agony, deciding who would live, who would be tortured and who would die. Kobayashi was personally responsible for the beating deaths of many prisoners.

BEATINGS WERE OFTEN SO SEVERE THAT THEY EXPOSED, CHIPPED AND BROKE BONE, KNOCKED OUT TEETH, CREATED PERMANENT DISABILITY OR PARALYSIS. BEATING PRISONERS TO UNCONSCIOUSNESS WAS COMMON.

Kobayashi tortured prisoners with mock beheadings. The airmen were made to kneel with neck out only to be struck harshly with the flat side of the sword and then taunted. He denied them sleep, tortured with cigarette burns and matches. He made them stand for hours at a time, though extremely weak, with arms outstretched, often for the entirety of an allied bombing raid. Any prisoner who passed out would be beaten.

On many occasions a selected prisoner was taken downtown for public display and torture. James L Green, 505th BG, was tied to a close line cross. Soldiers repeatedly made bayonet runs at him with a final bayonet piercing his neck into his throat. Robert P Jones, 29th BG, was placed on public exhibition in downtown Tokyo for five hours. He was kicked, stoned and beaten unconscious by vengeful civilians.

At the time of the Japanese surrender, Kempei Tai soldiers quickly exhumed and cremated buried prisoner bodies and destroyed records to eliminate evidence of prisoner executions. Prisoner affidavits describe multiple instances of 40 – 65 Tokyo HQ prisoners at a time taken from their cells and “massacred”. The following B-29 airmen executions were discovered through the U.S. Occupation Army investigation and trial testimony.

During the initial Tokyo incendiary raids on March 10, 1945, a 19th BG B-29 crashed. Its three surviving crew members were captured by civil defense guards and sent to Tokyo Kempei Tai HQ by truck. 2nd Lt. Leland P Fishback was seriously wounded at the time of capture but was refused medical attention. Fishback was consequently taken to the grounds of a nearby foreign language schoolyard and beheaded.

On March 17, 1945, a 500th BG B-29 was rammed by a Japanese fighter and crashed near the summit of Mt. Futatabi. All crew died in the crash except 2nd Lt. Robert W Nelson and Sgt. Algy S Augunas who bailed out and were captured. On July 18, 1945 they were tried, found guilty of indiscriminate bombing against Japanese civilians and beheaded.

Between March and June 1945, nine seriously wounded fliers held at Tokyo Kempei Tai HQ were executed by lethal injection by the prison medical officers.

Eleven B-29 crewmen from two downed B-29s were captured as part of the massive May 14, 1945 incendiary raid on Nagoya. They were subjected to Japanese Military Trial on July 11, 1945, given death sentences as war criminals for indiscriminate bombing and collectively beheaded at the Obatagahara Army Rifle Range the next day.

During the massive nighttime Tokyo incendiary raid on May 25-26, a 504th B-29 was hit and crash landed in a nearby rice field. Two of the surviving seven captured were seriously wounded and were taken to a Primary School used for stationing Japanese soldiers. One POW died the next day in the absence of medical treatment. The other, 1st Lt. Darwin T Emry, was ordered executed by the squadron commander and was beheaded in front of 100 jubilant villagers. Later, Emry’s body was used for bayonet practice by squadron recruits.

During the same raid, a 29th BG B-29 was shot down. Eight crewmembers bailed out, were taken prisoner and sent to Tokyo Kempei Tai HQ. A ninth crew member, 2nd Lt. Dwight H Knapp killed two civil defense guards in the process of being captured. Knapp was taken to Tokyo Kempei Tai HQ and immediately beheaded.

The Tokyo Military Prison in Shibuya was set ablaze during the May 25-26 incendiary bombing of Tokyo. While some 400 Japanese prisoners were evacuated, the 62 American flier POWs held at the prison remained locked in and burned to death. Those fliers who managed to break free were brutally slaughtered with swords and bayonets by the Japanese prison guards.

In June 1945, the commander of the Japanese Kempei Tai, Lt. Gen. Sanji Okido, secretly instructed each District Kempei Tai HQ that only captured B-29 ACs should be sent to Tokyo and to “dispose” of the other captured American crew members.

OF THE 57 AMERICAN FLYERS IMPRISONED BY THE OSAKA KEMPEI TAI ONLY FOUR SURVIVED; 8 DIED OF THEIR WOUNDS OR DISEASE; 6 WERE GIVEN LETHAL INJECTION; 43 WERE EXECUTED BY FIRING SQUAD OR BEHEADED.

27 American flyers captured and imprisoned by the Nagoya Kempei Tai after June 1945 were beheaded without Military trial.  41 American flyers were executed by the Fukuoka Kempei Tai.

On August 8, 1945, a 29th BG B-29 crashed in Yatsu. The only surviving crewmembers, Sgt. Lester O Morris and Sgt. Serafine Morone, were captured by civil defense guards. Sgt. Morris was taken to Tokyo Kempei Tai HQ. Sgt. Monroe was brought to the schoolyard of Nishiki Primary School, tied to a basketball pole and under the direction of a Kempei Tai soldier was beaten by hundreds of civilians with bamboo sticks for 2 hours. Barely conscious, Sgt. Monroe was subsequently carried on a stretcher by a Tachihawa military squad to the local cemetery, made to kneel before his pre-dug grave and beheaded.

A THIRD CREWMAN HAD PARTS OF HIS BRAIN REMOVED WHILE ALIVE TO CHECK FOR REACTIONS.

THE BODY PARTS OF EACH DECEASED CREWMAN WERE SECTIONED AND PRESERVED IN FORMALDEHYDE FOR FUTURE RESEARCH AND FOR ANATOMY STUDENTS TO STUDY.

At the time of the Japanese surrender, the preserved body parts were destroyed to eliminate evidence of the vivisection.

On August 14, 1945, the day before the emperor’s surrender speech, soldiers hurriedly blindfolded, handcuffed, neck-roped and herded all surviving prisoners out of the Kempei Tai HQ onto trucks for transfer to Camp Omori, a standard POW camp located on a small, man-made island in Tokyo Bay. The Kempei Tai wanted to rid all evidence of their mistreatment. They decided against executing the prisoners, as ordered by headquarters commander Col Kaijiro Otani, fearing the victorious Americans would find them guilty of war crimes.

Initially the airmen remained “special prisoners” at Omori. They were isolated, fed half-rations and given no medical attention as at Kempei Tai HQ. This was soon lifted making the airmen regular prisoners of war. Each airman was issued a blanket, fresh clothes, eating bowls and utensils, a toothbrush and given “delicious” and wholesome food for the first time in months. The airman felt they had been released to a “country club” by comparison to their conditions at Kempai Tai HQ. The diet improvement was intended to re-nourish prisoners as much as possible before American liberators could observe the level of mistreatment.

Following the surrender, the Navy and Army Air Force (B-29s) began dropping tons of supplies of food, clothing and cigarettes by parachute into the Camp Omori area. “P.W.” signs were painted on the roofs of the prison with white tooth powder to help identify the camp from the air. On August 29, 1945, heavily armed U.S. Marines captured the Camp without a fight. Sick and wounded prisoners were given immediate medical attention and taken by landing craft to the USS Benevolence hospital ship anchored in Tokyo Bay. Visible to those surviving airmen was the nearby USS Missouri, which on September 2, 1945 was the site of the signing of Japan’s surrender with the thunderous B-29 Show of Force flying overhead.

Immediately following the war, 996 Japanese war criminals (full Pacific War) were tried by the U.S. 8th Army at Yokohama. Of these, 854 defendants were convicted, including 124 receiving death sentences. Only 51 of the death sentences were carried out. Of these, Lt. Sadamu Motokwa, the officer in charge of prisoner physical care at Tokyo Kempei Tai HQ was hanged. Of the 30 Kyushu University doctors and military staff who stood trial, 23 were convicted of vivisection and wrongful removal of body parts of the eight 29th Bomb Group airmen. Lt. General Isamu Yokoyama, who commanded the vivisection medical experiments as well as two military officers and three doctors at Kyushu Imperial University were sentenced to death but later reprieved. Four others were given life sentences. Ten Tokyo Kempei Tai HQ officers were sentenced to hard labor, including Yasuo Kobayashi (“Shorty”) who received a 40 year sentence (later reduced to 25 years) and Sgt. Major Masao Kuwabara who received a life sentence for beheading B-29 2nd Lt. Leland Fishback. Kempei Tai Toyko HQ Commander Col. Kaijiro Otani received a 10 year sentence. The head war criminal, Emperor Hirohito escaped prosecution because General MacArthur realized retaining the Emperor would minimize anti-American sentiment to Allied occupation and reconstruction of Japan.

The convicted were imprisoned at Camp Omori (where 6th Bomb Group POWs liberated) and Sugamo Prisons in Tokyo. The Japanese prisoners were treated humanely by the U.S. occupiers per Geneva Convention.

In 1949, President Truman abruptly ended the Trials, deciding to make Japan an important ally against the spread of communism in Asia at the beginning of the Cold War. Truman signed a peace treaty with Japan in 1952, granting complete amnesty to all accused not yet serving prison terms. In 1958, all Japanese war crimes prisoners were paroled when MacArthur returned governmental authority back to the Japanese.

AC Jay K Anderson’s plane was hit by flak during the May 23, 1945 low altitude nighttime incendiary raid on Tokyo. The No. 1 engine was set ablaze damaging the wing. In the confusion, the co-pilot mistakenly feathered the No. 2 engine, throwing the plane abruptly into a tight spiral down. Over the intercom was heard “let’s get the hell out of here”. The gunners, navigator and radar operator all bailed.  Fortunately, Anderson, the co-pilot (unknown), James L Hays (bombardier), Harold R Brenholtz (engineer) and John R Creek (radio) couldn’t get out and were successful in righting the plane just 2000 feet above the ground. They limped back to Iwo Jima with the engine self-extinguishing about half way in route.

Those who bailed were captured and taken to Tokyo Kempei Tai HQ prison. Michael Boyko and Albert P Lounsbury broke ankles on the parachute jump. Lounsbury was beaten for requesting splints. Their ankles were brutally kicked by the Kempei Tai. They, William A Mitchell, Harold J Anderson and Joseph E Costello spent the remainder of the war in horse stall cell 5. There is no record of Ralph G Sasser’s incarceration except he was among the rescued at Camp Omori. Michael Boyko caught diphtheria and became paralyzed during his incarceration.

*6th Bomb Group POW depositions given separately by Harold Anderson, Michael Boyko, John B Boynton, Kenneth Estel Creech, Walter Dickerson, Robert A Franz, Rollin E Heidelbaugh, Gordon P Jordan, Albert P Lounsbury, Frank Carey Massey, Albert S Somoser, Roger Lee Townsend, Paul A Trump and Marvin Sidney Watkins