Nagasaki bombing anniversary: Japanese citizens urge government to acknowledge World War II crimes
Report By North Asia correspondent Matthew Carney
Today is the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki — the United States’ second such attack on Japan — and the 70,000 victims will be rightfully remembered.
But Japan also committed war crimes during World War II and a brave few of its citizens are struggling to get their country to remember it was an aggressor as well as a victim.
On Okunoshima island just off the coast of Hiroshima, Japanese families play on the beach and enjoy nature. It is the ideal summer vacation spot but the island has a dark past.
Okunoshima was where Japan made its chemical weapons during World War II and its existence was so secret it did not appear on official maps for a decade.
The Japanese government would like its past to remain hidden but activist Masayuki Yamauchi is determined to expose it.
“It was a war crime. Japan signed international treaties saying it wouldn’t use poison gas but it did secretly on battlefields in Asia and it damaged many people. We have to reflect on it,” he said.
Bombing did not lead to Japanese surrender, historians argue
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The US says it took the drastic step of dropping atomic bombs on Japan to put an early end to World War II, but this official narrative is now being challenged.
Production started in 1929 and in total 6,000 tonnes of mustard gas, lewisite gas, sneezing and tear gas were made on the island.A large hotel and spa resort now sit on the site.
After Japan’s surrender, American and Australian troops supervised the decommissioning process in 1946 and buried much of the gas in 11 undisclosed locations.
Mr Yamauchi said the Japanese government still refused to clean it up.
“The Japanese politicians are not facing up to the past,” he said.
“They are not looking at facts of Japan as an aggressor and that’s why they won’t dispose of the gas properly.”
He shows me a massive storage site in the jungle. It is now overgrown and the original tanks have been removed.
The gas was used against Chinese soldiers and civilians and it probably would have caused horrible deaths — blistering bodies and respiratory failure.
Mr Yamauchi said the war record spoke for itself.
We just wore cotton masks and we inhaled arsenic trioxide till our masks became pink.
Yasuma Fujimoto.
“According to the research done after World War II, Japan used poison gas in more than 2,000 cases in China,” he said.“Japan killed and injured more than 90,000 Chinese.”
The clean up and the destruction of the gas by allied troops in 1946 was rudimentary and rushed.
Much of the gas was put in barrels, and along with 16,000 shells, was loaded onto two decommissioned American landing ships.
One ship was sent 60 kilometres and the other 120km into the Pacific Ocean and there they were sunk, full of poison gas, and, to this day, they remain toxic time bombs at the bottom of the ocean.
Records show Australian troops wanted to dispose of the gases properly by burning it. But the Americans said it would take too long and cost too much.
Workers who made poison gas ill, struggling for compensation
There were also Japanese victims of the chemical weapons.
Yasuma Fujimoto is one of the few survivors from Okunoshima.
At 15 he got a job there making poison gas. It was good pay and he was offered an education.
Mr Fujimoto said the first priority for the 6,700 Japanese workers at Okunoshima was to meet production targets. He said safety was secondary.
“So we did not wear full protection gears. We just wore cotton masks and we inhaled arsenic trioxide till our masks became pink. Just half a gram is a lethal dose,” he said.
Most of the workers developed severe respiratory problems. Cancer rates among them are three to four times greater than average.
Mr Fujimoto had his stomach cut out because of cancer, now takes multiple medications and can only eat small amounts at any one time.
He is fighting the government to get recognition and compensation just like the Hiroshima atomic victims have received.
“We demand the government to make a legislation to help the victims of poison gas like victims of atomic bombings,” Mr Fujimoto said.
“We want them to pay all our medical bills not just some of it. They made it so they should take responsibility.”
Mr Fujimoto has been to China three times to personally apologise to victims for his part in producing the poisonous gases.
In a soft voice he confesses: “I helped Japanese soldiers to kill Chinese. I produced poison gas to kill them. I cannot escape the truth so I apologised.”
Now he wants the Japanese government to do the same and says that will be the beginning of real peace.
As an aside, anyone want to identify the glaring error in Photo 10 in the link on Squadron Leader Redmond?
Back to the topic, was Japan’s use of mustard gas really so bad?
After all, both the British and Germans used it and other gases against each other in WWI.
In WWII Australia and America used it in experiments on their own troops, including experiments to see if Americans of Japanese descent reacted differently to white Americans.
http://jcnn.com.au/spotlight/mustard-no-thanks/
http://mustardgas.org/photos.htm
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F05747/
http://www.rafu.com/2015/06/mustard-gas-experiments-were-conducted-on-wwii-ja-soldiers/