Customer Reviews

A Rape of Justice

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The author warns you up front that this is not intented to be a scholarly work and it certainly isn't.

The plot: on the night of March 15, 1944 at Milne Bay, New Guinea, two couples decided to venture into an off limits area for what is presumed to be an intimate encounter, or at least privacy. While in the area the are accosted by a party of 5 African American soldiers who, according to the two couples, demand sex from the women in return for their lives being spared. Once this is passed another party of 2 African American soldiers encountered the couple, one of whom demands sex despite the protestations of his companion who flees the scene. The culprits are quickly apprehended, are warned of their right against self-incrimination (this being 20 years prior to Miranda and under military law) but produce statements saying that they merely asked for sex and the two women voluntarily complied (wish my dating life had been this easy). Needless to say they were court-martialed for rape and executed on October 2, 1944. The author commanded the disciplinary facility where they were executed and presumably witnessed the event, though this isn't stated.

The author believes they were the victims of a miscarriage of justice because, incredibly, the court did not take into consideration the sexual privation they men had undergone and the poor judgment shown by the two couples in being in an off-limits area. He does make a valid point in that only four of the men actually took part in the gang rape but all six participants were condemned.

Why MacArthur is mentioned, other than as a hook to sell the book, is not clear. He approved the death sentences, but he also approved others. There is no treatment of the deliberations by MacArthur, nor to we know if they ever happened. The author engages in extensive psychobabble on MacArthur's upbringing, relations with his mother, and attitudes towards sex. How they bear on the story, again, is unclear.

The author reproduces portions of the trial transcript, which either show the ineptness of counsel (his opinion) or a competent counsel trying to convince a court-martial panel that one woman volunteered to service four men she didn't know while she was on a date with another man (my opinion); the orders affirming the sentence; and, the last letters home written by the men.

The book is an interesting memoir of an obscure part of WWII history. The practice of capital punishment in the military has been poorly covered both in quantity and quality. The lack of footnotes in this book will not help the scholar in replicating the work, but it does provide some insights.

I consider two stars to be an act of charity.