Hostages to International Relations? The Repatriation of Japanese War Criminals from the Philippines

Abstract

While the Philippines was one of the last of the Allied nations to execute Japanese war criminals, it was also one of the first to allow for their repatriation and pardon. This article examines the period between the last execution of Japanese war criminals in January 1951 and the pardon of the remaining criminals in December 1953, in the context of international negotiations regarding the Philippines' position in the lead up to the San Francisco Peace Treaty and beyond. It traces the development and the strategies of the movement for the repatriation of war criminals in Japan. It argues that the repatriation of war criminals from the Philippines (and elsewhere) became an important domestic political issue in Japan in the period between 1951 and 1953, and that the extent of this domestic pressure was also recognised in the Philippines. In both countries, the repatriation of war criminals was linked in public discourse with progress on the negotiation of reparations, the last obstacle to the resumption of diplomatic relations between Japan and the Philippines.

Acknowledgements

This paper is part of a research project generously funded by the Australian Research Council. Parts of the paper were presented at the International Association of Historians of Asia Conference in Singapore in 2010 and the Asian Studies Association of Australia Conference in Adelaide in 2010. I am grateful to Ricardo Jose and others who commented on the paper. I am also grateful to Robert Cribb and Sandra Wilson for helpful comments on an earlier draft, and to two anonymous reviewers for their useful insights and suggestions.

Notes

¹Tanaka, BC kyū senpan, 207–208.

²See for example Ikehata and Jose, The Philippines under Japan; Goto, ‘Cooperation, Submission and Resistance’; R. Jose, ‘Labor Usage and Mobilisation’; R. Jose, ‘Manila during the Japanese Occupation’; Villadolid, Surviving World War II.

³Carlos Romulo, 7 September 1951, in ‘Provisional Verbatim Minutes’, 257.

⁴Nagai, ‘The Tokyo War Crimes Trials’, 261.

⁵See for example Escoda, The Warsaw of Asia; Perez de Olaguer, Terror in Manila.

⁶See for example Barber, ‘Yamashita’; Lael, The Yamashita Precedent; Utsunomiya, Kaisō no Yamashita saiban; Fukuda, Yamashita Tomoyuki.

⁷Nagai, Firipin, 221. Nagai's recent book is the most authoritative volume of research on the Philippines trials. He describes extensively the war crimes themselves, and details the process of the trials, the incarceration of Japanese war criminals and their eventual repatriation, basing himself on archival evidence from the Philippines, the US and Japan. As such, his work is quoted extensively in this article. Note that Nagai's figures differ from the ones presented by Piccigallo, The Japanese on Trial, 187.

⁸Nagai, Firipin, 222–223.

⁹Ibid., 231–235.

¹⁰Kagao, Montenrupa.

¹¹Nagai, Firipin, for example, 250–252.

¹²See for example, Tsuji, ‘Nihon yo’; extract of Kagao's submission to MacArthur, ‘Kore ijō shokei wo yurushite’; ‘Genki na Kurata moto chūjō’.

¹³Brands, Bound to Empire, 246–247.

¹⁴Quoted in Blakeslee, The Far Eastern Commission, 96. See also Kesavan, ‘The Attitude of the Philippines’, 228.

¹⁵Kesavan, ‘The Attitude of the Philippines’, 248.

¹⁶These were the Strike Report, presented to the US War Department on 24 February 1947, and the Johnson Committee report, commissioned by the Department of the Army, and released on 19 May 1948. Blakeslee, The Far Eastern Commission, 153, 156, 160–166.

¹⁷Kesavan, ‘The Attitude of the Philippines’, 235.

¹⁸Ibid., 242.

¹⁹Romulo, FEC minutes 26 May 1949, quoted in Blakeslee, The Far Eastern Commission, 167.

²⁰President Elpidio Quirino, Thirty-Third monthly radio chat, 15 July 1951, no. 4, p. 3410, quoted in Kesavan, ‘The Attitude of the Philippines’, 243.

²¹L. Jose, ‘Philippines–Japan Relations’, 310.

²²Itō, ‘Post-War’, 304–305.

²³Ibid., 324–326.

²⁴Ibid., 316.

²⁵On 31 March 1949 a majority of members in the Far Eastern Commission had voted for a resolution recommending that its member nations end war crimes trials. Blakeslee, The Far Eastern Commission, 197.

²⁶Kagao, ‘Ikite iru senpantachi’, 134.

²⁷Nagai, Firipin, 262–263.

²⁸See for example the colourful description by Jimbo Nobuhiko of the varieties of ways in which hatred of the Japanese was maintained in Manila during his recent visit (Jimbo was credited with saving the life of Manuel Roxas during the war, and was not subject to the same entry restrictions as other Japanese) in his testimony to the Zaigai dōhō hikiage iinkai (Parliamentary Committee on Japanese Overseas), 12 February 1951, Kokkai kaigiroku (Parliamentary records).

²⁹Arai, Montenrupa no yoake, 31.

³⁰Nagai, Firipin, 245.

³¹Tsuji, ‘Seimei nagaerareru’, 4. On Verano's trip to Japan, see Nagai, Firipin, 261.

³²Kagao, Montenrupa ni inoru, 12–13.

³³Ibid., 17.

³⁴Dower, Embracing Defeat, 60.

³⁵Kagao, Montenrupa ni inoru, 12–13.

³⁶Ibid., 184–185.

³⁷Trefalt, ‘A Peace Worth Having’.

³⁸Wilson, ‘Prisoners in Sugamo', this issue.

³⁹Wilson, ‘War, Soldier and Nation’.

⁴⁰Seraphim, War Memory and Social Politics, 60–85.

⁴¹The original recordings of ‘Ah, Montenrupa no yo wa fukete’ and ‘Ikoku no oka’ can be accessed through YouTube. ‘Ah, Montenrupa no yo wa fukete’, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZqqcX9KWTw (accessed 11 February 2011); ‘Ikoku no oka’, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_07THU8WNTc (accessed 11 February 2011).

⁴²Arai, Montenrupa no yoake, 41–42.

⁴³For details on Watanabe's life, see her biography: Nakata, Montenrupa no yo.

⁴⁴Arai, Montenrupa no yoake, 86.

⁴⁵Wilson, ‘Prisoners in Sugamo', this issue.

⁴⁶Tsuji, ‘Nihon yo’. See also Nagai, Firipin, 246–247.

⁴⁷Tsuji, Montenrupa; see also Nagai, Firipin, 247

⁴⁸Author's translation. Exchange between parliamentarian Nakayama Fukuzō and Foreign Ministry representative Yoshimura Matasaburō, Hōmu iinkai sensō hanzaijin.

⁴⁹The World Federalist Movement was a movement aiming to achieve global peace through the transformation of governments. It became a united movement in the wake of the Second World War and continues to function as an advocate of peace to this day. http://www.wfm-igp.org/site/

⁵⁰‘Hishima senpan ni imon’.

⁵¹Nagai, Firipin, 278. According to Lydia N. Yu Jose, the promotion of visits by prominent international sports celebrities to the Philippines was part of the ‘sports diplomacy’ adopted by the Philippines in the early 1950s; L. Jose, ‘Philippine–Japan Relations’, 315. However, the past was never very far away: in its sports coverage, the Manila Times regularly referred to ‘a second invasion’ of Japanese; ‘Japan's All-Kanebo Nine Arriving Today’.

⁵²Wilson, ‘Prisoners in Sugamo', this issue.

⁵³Nagai, Firipin, 258.

⁵⁴Sangiin, Honkaigi, 9 June 1952. See also Nagai, Firipin, 269.

⁵⁵Tsuji, ‘Seimei nagaraeru’, 4; Kagao, Montenrupa ni inoru, 187.

⁵⁶‘Letter from Japan’. See also L. Jose, ‘Philippine–Japan relations’, 311–312.

⁵⁷‘FP Readers Reject Appeal’. See also L. Jose, ‘Philippine–Japan Relations’, 311–312.

⁵⁸Kagao, ‘Ikite iru hishima senpan’, 137–138.

⁵⁹Remolona, ‘Hishima no senpantachi’.

⁶⁰Piccigallo, The Japanese on Trial, 196.

⁶¹Nagai, Firipin, 290–293.

⁶² Manila Times, 28 June 1953, 2.

⁶³ Manila Times, 29 June 1953, 3.

⁶⁴Nagai, Firipin, 290–293.

⁶⁵Ohno, War Reparations and Peace Settlement, 85; L. Jose, ‘Philippine–Japan Relations’, 312. See also Sanchez, ‘Expert Politician’ (letter to the editor).

⁶⁶‘Look before Leaping’ (editorial).

⁶⁷L. Jose, ‘Philippine–Japan Relations’, 312.

⁶⁸See for example Raissa Espinosa-Robles, To Fight without End: The Story of a Misunderstood President, who implies that Quirino's decision to release prisoners had a negative impact on an image already tainted by all kinds of other issues, 223. Salvador Lopez does not mention Quirino's release of war criminals in his description of the electoral loss of November 1953: The Judgment of History, 145–158; neither does Carlos Quirino, who attributes the loss to a negative campaign about corruption and the age and illness of Elpidio Quirino, Apo Lakay, 173–180. Luis H. Francia attributes Magsaysay's win to a grass-roots campaign with populist tactics, A History of the Philippines, 209

⁶⁹Nagai, Firipin, 293.

⁷⁰‘Senpan no genkei to baishō mondai’ (editorial).

⁷¹Nagai, Firipin, 293.

⁷²‘Kyō hishima senpan tokusha’.

⁷³See for example ‘Hishima tokusha no hitobito kaeru’, and ‘Hachinenburi no sokoku ni kanmuryō’.

⁷⁴Nagai, Firipin, 295, 306. See also Dean Aszkielowicz's paper in this issue.

⁷⁵E. Taylor Atkins suggests that jazzmen in Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s were ‘marginal, perhaps, to the process of expansion, yet quite essential to the morale of the “expanders”’, a description that could also aptly fit entertainers such as Watanabe. Atkins, ‘Jammin’ on the Jazz Frontier', 7.