Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyt  Felton cites the case of the British merchantman Behar, sunk by the heavy cruiser Tone on March 9, 1944. The Tone's captain Haruo Mayuzumi picked up survivors and, after ten days of captivity below decks, had 85 of them assembled, hands bound, on his ship's stern.
Kicked in their stomachs and testicles by the Japanese, they were then, one by one, beheaded with swords and their bodies dumped overboard.
A solitary senior officer, Commander Junsuke Mii, risked his career by dissenting. But he gave evidence at a subsequent war crimes tribunal only under duress. Meanwhile, most of the officers who conducted the execution remained at liberty after the war. |
Rear Admiral SAKONJI NAOMASSA who ordered the BEHAR massacre was found guilty of war crimes in 1947 and hung. Captain of the TONE, Capt. MAYAZUMI HARUO was sentenced to 7 years in prison as in his defense he explained he had protested against his orders. ISHIHARA TAKANORI, the ships Master at Arms who through chain of command passed down the bulk of the executions to his Assistant Master at Arms, was set to go to trial but this was halted and no charges pressed as US political intervention by General MacArthur's HQ wanted to stop these war crimes trials, as it was trying to turn Japan into a western style democracy. By 1949 this was also backed by the British government and no further cases of the BEHAR massacre were brought before any war crimes court.
Regards
Hugh