Yokohama War Crimes Trials

The Yokohama War Crimes Trials was a series of trials of 996 Japanese war criminals, held before the military commission of the U.S. 8th Army at Yokohama immediately after the Second World War.[1] The defendants belonged to class B and C, as defined by the charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.[2] Of those tried, 854 defendants were convicted, with 124 of them receiving death sentences, of which 51 were carried out. All of the convicts served their sentences or were executed at Sugamo Prison. In 1958, those still serving prison sentences from the trials were all paroled.[3]

Notable defendants

Captain Kaichi Hirate: Permitted the mistreatment and murder of Allied POWs. Executed in 1946.

Lieutenant General Tasuku Okada: Ordered the summary executions of 38 American POWs. Executed in 1949.

Major General Yoshitaka Kawane and Colonel Kurataro Hirano: Convicted of ordering the Bataan Death March. Executed together in 1949.

Lieutenant General Takaji Wachi: Convicted of unlawfully transporting troops and munitions on Red Cross ships in the Philippines. Sentenced to 6 years in prison. Paroled in 1950. Died in 1978.

Lieutenant General Masazumi Inada: Convicted of his complicity in the cover-up of the vivisection and other human medical experiments performed at the Kyushu Imperial University on downed Allied airmen. Sentenced to 7 years in prison. Released in 1951. Died in 1986.

Lieutenant General Isamu Yokoyama: Convicted of having direct command responsibility for the vivisection and other human medical experiments performed at the Kyushu Imperial University on downed Allied airmen. Sentenced to death in 1948, but later reprieved. Died in prison in 1952.

Lieutenant General Eitaro Uchiyama: Convicted for his command responsibility over the executions of American airmen shot down between April and August 1945. Sentenced to 30 years of hard labor. Paroled in 1958. Died in 1973.

References
  1. Spurlock, Paul E. (1950). "The Yokohama War Crimes Trials: The Truth About a Misunderstood Subject". American Bar Association Journal. 36 (5): 387–437. ISSN 0002-7596. JSTOR 25717239.
  2. Stoffell, Christy Merrifield (May 2003). "In the Shadow of Nuremberg: The Creation of the Yokohama Trials of Class B and C War Criminals". University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
  3. "The Pacific War Crimes Trials: The Importance of the "Small Fry" vs. the "Big Fish"".
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