The Surrender of Singapore by Stephen Wynn

Author:Stephen Wynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2017-07-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

SINGAPORE WAR CRIMES TRIALS AND THE AFTERMATH

The war crimes trials, with the defendants being mainly Japanese military personnel, took place throughout South East Asia, in Tokyo, Yokohama, Manila, Penang and Singapore. They opened in Singapore on 21 January 1946 and came to an end in December 1948. Not all of the defendants were tried for crimes that had taken place in Singapore; quite a few had been committed at other locations. They had been carried out by Japanese officers and soldiers in the Andaman Islands, Java, Horoekoe Island, Babelthuap Palau, Palembang, Burma, Sarawak, Siam, Borneo, the Philippines and Port Blair.

Case No. 235/843 relates to five members of the Imperial Japanese Army who were stationed at the Oxley Rise Kempeitai station. In January 1944 they arrested three local men who they believed had assisted in the escape of an unnamed prisoner of war. The three men, Lee Keok Leong, Lee Tee Tee and Lee Eng Tong were then interrogated and tortured for three weeks at the Oxley Rise station before being taken to Outram Road Prison. Lee Tee Tee and Lee Eng Tong both died while in Japanese custody, the former in July 1944 and the latter in January 1945. Four out of five of the Kempeitai were found guilty on the evidence of the survivor, Lee Keok Leong, even though only one of the Japanese soldiers, Sergeant Matsumoto Mitsugi, admitted taking part in any of the beatings. Mitsugi, Lieutenant Yamaguchi Akuni, Sergeant Uekihara Susumi and Sergeant Shimomura Tomohei, were sentenced to death and hung. Sergeant Major Ikeda Saiichi was found not guilty of charges and acquitted.

Another trial that took place in Singapore in relation to war crimes which had taken place there was Case No. 235/975. It was referred to as the Otsuka case, but there were in fact forty-three defendants. Those concerned had been charged with committing war crimes at the Outram Road Prison between 16 February 1942 and 15 August 1945 relating to their ill treatment and neglect of British, American and Dutch prisoners of war as well as local civilian internees who were incarcerated at Outram Road Prison. This had resulted in the deaths of thirteen British prisoners of war, four Dutch prisoners of war, and twenty-two civilian internees. The trial took thirty-one days in total to complete, beginning on 8 July 1946 and finishing 10 October 1946. Four of the accused were found not guilty and acquitted. Five received life sentences. One received a seventeen year sentence, five received twelve year sentences, six received ten year sentences, with the remainder receiving sentences of between one and eight years.

After having experienced three years of Japanese occupation between 1942 and 1945, a time which saw numerous acts of brutality meted out, especially to Chinese men in Singapore, there are not too many who can miss the obvious poignancy of Japanese soldiers having to face trials for war crimes they committed in the same country.

The main Japanese politicians, including the Prime Minister, Hideki Tojo, who was also

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