Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes In World War II (Transitions: Asia and Asian America) [Hardcover]

Yuki Tanaka (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0813327172 | ISBN-13: 978-0813327174 | Publication Date: June 13, 1996

This book documents for the first time previously hidden Japanese atrocities in World War II, including cannibalism; the slaughter and starvation of prisoners of war; the rape, enforced prostitution, and murder of noncombatants; and biological warfare experiments.The author describes how desperate Japanese soldiers consumed the flesh of their own comrades killed in fighting as well as that of Australians, Pakistanis, and Indians. Another chapter traces the fate of 65 shipwrecked Australian nurses and British soldiers who were shot or stabbed to death by Japanese soldiers. Thirty-two other nurses, who landed on another island, were captured and sent to Sumatra to become “comfort women”—prostitutes for Japanese soldiers. Tanaka recounts how thousands of Australian and British POWs died in the infamous Sandakan camp in the Borneo jungle in 1945. Those who survived were forced to endure a tortuous 160-mile march on which anyone who dropped out of line was immediately shot. Only six escapees lived to tell the tale.Based on exhaustive research in previously closed archives, this book represents a landmark analysis of Japanese war crimes. The author explores individual atrocities in their broader social, psychological, and institutional milieu and places Japanese behavior during the war in the broader context of the dehumanization of men at war—without denying individual and national responsibility.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a shocking brief that's as much an intellectual artifact as a work of scholarship, Japanese historian Tanaka challenges the idea of Japan as a victim in WWII. The core of his thesis is that in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, an "Emperor ideology" based on the "family state" came to dominate Japan. Responsibility was seen as unlimited, while rights existed only in a collective context; this set the stage for various tragedies and atrocities. Tanaka offers several case histories to prove his point. They cover the massacre of more than 2500 Australian prisoners in a Borneo camp, widespread cannibalism by Japanese troops in New Guinea, the shooting of 21 Australian nurses in cold blood and the sexual enslavement of Asian women for the pleasure of Japanese fighting men. Also surveyed are the premeditated murder of 32 civilians, including German missionaries, in 1943; Japanese plans for bacteriological warfare; and the use of prisoners as medical guinea pigs. Tanaka insists that the perpetrators of these brutalities were "ordinary" men enmeshed in a criminal system; he also asserts that people of all nationalities commit atrocities in war. He depicts this era as a definable, relatively brief period during which Japan lost its way and ran amok. This seems no more intellectually acceptable than describing the Third Reich as a historical accident. In fact, Tanaka's study resembles German efforts during the 1950s to come to terms with the immediate past. As such, it is a beginning?no less and no more. Maps and photographs not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A scholar's harrowing if pedantic briefing on largely unpunished and long-ignored atrocities committed by Japan's military during WW II. Drawing on hitherto untapped archives, Tanaka (Unmapped Territories, 1991) documents a series of appalling war crimes that, with few exceptions, have escaped notice in standard histories of the global conflict. In notably dispassionate detail, for example, he recounts the massacre of more than 2,500 Australian and British POWs in a camp called Sandakan on North Borneo, the gratuitous slaughter of 21 nurses on the Indonesian isle of Banka, and the mass murder of civilians (including German missionaries) in the Bismarck archipelago as Allied forces closed in during the spring of 1944. Covered as well is the widespread cannibalism practiced by Japanese soldiers in New Guinea and elsewhere in East Asia. In addition, Tanaka sheds new light on the infamous Unit 731, which conducted horrific medical experiments on helpless prisoners throughout the Pacific theater. He goes on to disclose that US officials unilaterally granted the responsible Japanese physician and his staff immunity from prosecution in return for the information they could provide on Dai Nihon's plans and capacity to wage bacteriological warfare, data that were never shared with other Allied powers. After reviewing the frightful particulars of his case studies, moreover, the author offers anecdotal evidence of similar behavior by other belligerents, eventually concluding, however, that Japanese barbarity was sui generis. In a concluding chapter, Tanaka attempts to explain without excusing the aberrant conduct of imperial troops on and off the front lines, citing among other factors the authoritarian basis of Japanese morality. Shocking annals that bear gruesome witness to the darker realities of what historian John W. Dower (who contributed a thoughtful foreword to the American edition) called a war without mercy. (photos, not seen; maps) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (June 13, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813327172
• ISBN-13: 978-0813327174
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #135,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > History > Asia > Indonesia
  • #17 in Books > Law > Specialties > War
  • #90 in Books > Law > International Law

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

92 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A History that the Japanese will never Face, July 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes In World War II (Transitions--Asia and Asian America) (Paperback)

This book can be rated as good by virtue of the fact that it is a Japanese Historian writing about the excesses his people committed in the name of the Emperor. For most Japanese WWII began and ended with Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Japanese often cite these twin events as the US moral equivolent to the Japanese soldiers chasing down men, women and children and killing them at the point of a bayonet, or watching them starve slowly to death. Most people in Japan (and I have lived there for over 10 years and read their literature on the subject in Japanese)still find it difficult to criticise their country.

Kudos to Tanaka who was brave enough to write about a subject which can still bring around the boys in the blue vans (the ultra-rightists), and a knock on the door, or a bullet through the window in the middle of the night.

69 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nauseating, shocking, necessary reading about WWII, January 29, 2002

By 

Scott McCrea (Henderson NV) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes In World War II (Transitions--Asia and Asian America) (Paperback)

Japanese ex-pat professor (he lives in Austrailia) desribes in stomach turning detail the crimes of Imperial Japanese forces in WWII. While I knew some of the things done, I had no idea the extent and depth of the crimes committed.

Tanaka describes in pages NOT FOR THE TIMID READER the Japanese high command's plan for using cannabalism to feed their troops in the southern arc of their conquest plans. It wasn't just enemy troops who were on the menu, but low-ranking Japanese ground-pounders. I will spare the detail, but Tanaka doesn't, so be warned.

I give this book only 4 stars because it has one serious flaw. Tanaka makes the laughable, morally unsustainable claim that the atomic bombings are morally equivalent to Japanese crimes. This will rightly outrage every American, but it doesn't tarnish the overall effort.

Professor Tanaka is to be congratulated for his courage in revealing the worst things committed by his people. Things that many in Japan, especially school textbooks, refuse to admit. I don't think it coincidence that the good professor lives in the Land Down Under.

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Book Contains Great Facts, but Lame Excuses, February 24, 2003

By 

Mr. Tickle Snort "Mr. Ticklesnort" (Houma, LA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes In World War II (Transitions--Asia and Asian America) (Paperback)

The most outstanding attribute of this book is its honest depiction of Japan's atrocities. The description of these horrific onslaughts surpasses similar titles in some portions of the book.

But the downside is the author's attempt to explain why the Japanese acted as they did, as if doing so will somehow make us view the Japanese army as something more than the monsters they were. Though Tanaka probaly doesn't mean to, he comes across as making excuses for the Japanese military's barbarism. Nevertheless, when he moves beyond fact description and into analysis, his intentions seem ambiguous at best. But overall, a good read.