Massacres of POWs, Dutch East Indies, 1941-1942
http://www.geocities.com/dutcheastindies/massacres.html
George Duncan’s Massacres and Atrocities of World War II
Pacific (including Dutch East Indies)
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_pacific.html#Pacific
A few examples from above:
THE PIG BASKET ATROCITY
When the Allies capitulated to the Japanese in East Java in 1942, around two hundred Allied soldiers took to the hills around Malang and formed themselves into groups of resistance fighters. Eventually they were rounded up by the Kempetai. The captured soldiers were squeezed into three foot long bamboo pig baskets and transported in five open lorries, under a broiling 38 degree sun, to a rail siding and then transferred in open railway goods wagons to the coast. (Eye witness to this transfer was a 15 year old girl, Elizabeth Van Kempen, who witnessed this while standing together with her father, on a nearby ridge of the mountain Semeru. They could plainly hear the prisoners screaming for help and water. (Miss Kempen’s father was later killed by the Kempetai at Malang on March 25, 1945, for hiding weapons and ammunition. Elizabeth Kempen now lives, as of 2004, in Tilburg, Holland)
Half dead from thirst and cramp, the captives were carried on board waiting boats which then sailed out to the shark infested waters off the coast of Surabaya. There, the unfortunate prisoners, still enclosed in their bamboo cages, were thrown overboard to the waiting man-eaters. The commander in chief of Japanese forces in Java, General Imamura, was later acquitted of this atrocity in a Netherlands court for lack of evidence. A subsequent Australian Military Court found General Imamura responsible and handed down a sentence of ten years imprisonment.
THE CHERIBON ATROCITY (July, 1945)
In the port of Cheribon in northern Java, a Japanese submarine took on board ninety civilian prisoners. All were European and included women and children. As dusk fell on that day in late July, the submarine set sail. It travelled on the surface, the ninety prisoners standing outside on deck. From the top of the conning tower two machine guns, aimed fore and aft, could be plainly seen. Fearing the worst, many of the women started crying but were helpless to do anything. Clinging to each other for stability in the gently rolling sea, the ninety captives waited and prayed. After about an hour the submarine suddenly slowed and dived without warning. The machine guns were never used. Swept off the deck as the ship slid beneath the sea the prisoners faced their worst nightmare. Schools of sharks attacked the screaming mass of humanity as men women and children were torn to pieces in a feeding frenzy. There was only one survivor who, minus an arm and right foot to the sharks, stayed alive long enough to be picked up by three Javanese fishermen. After relating his story he lost consciousness through loss of blood and died from his injuries a short time later. His body was then committed back to the sea, the three fishermen fully aware of their fate should they return to port with the body of an European who was supposed to disappear. After the war this atrocity was reported to the authorities but as all naval files and records of ship movements had been destroyed by the Japanese, the identity of the submarine and its crew was never established.
LOA KULU MASSACRE (July 30, 1945)
After surrendering to overwhelming numbers of Japanese troops, around one hundred members of the Netherlands East Indies Army were disarmed and for a while permitted restricted freedom in the town of Samarinda, in Borneo, where most of the soldiers lived with their families. Early on the morning of July 30, all prisoners, including their families, were rounded up and taken before a Japanese officer who summarily sentenced them all to death. No reason was given as they were bundled into lorries and taken to Loa Kulu just outside the town. There they had their hands tied behind their backs and as the men and children watched, the women were systematically cut to pieces with swords and bayonets until they all died. The screaming children were then seized and hurled alive down a 600 foot deep mine shaft. The men captives, forced to kneel and witness the butchery of their wives and children, and suffering the most indescribable mental torture, were then lined up for execution by beheading. When the grisly ritual was over, the bloodied corpses and severed heads of the 144 men were then thrown down the mine shaft on top of their murdered wives and children. The horror of Loa Kulu was discovered by Australian troops who had earlier started a search for the missing Dutch soldiers.
RETALIATION IN INDONESIA (1945/46)
After the Pacific war ended, Holland made a major effort to regain her lost territories, in the Netherland East Indies (Indonesia). When the Dutch Colonial Army took over the area they found around 2,000 Japanese soldiers still on the island. They had stayed behind to help Indonesia gain her independence in case Japan lost the war. In the first nine days of the reoccupation the Dutch soldiers brutally murdered 236 Japanese soldiers in retaliation for the treatment they (the Dutch) had received in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. Hundreds who were not killed were interned in slave labour camps in Timor and Java where they tried to recreate the same atmosphere as in the Japanese POW camps. There the Japanese soldiers were tortured and beaten to death when they could no longer work. In a short time the death toll had risen to over 1,000. Those prisoners who survived the retaliation were set free to find their own way back to Japan. Holland and Japan have since exchanged apologies for each other’s cruel behavior towards the prisoners in their care. (In the Netherlands East Indies, now Indonesia, 26,233 Dutch nationals perished between 1942 and 1945 during the Japanese occupation).
The combined figure of British and American prisoners of war who died while in Japanese captivity, totaled 24,969. Over 22,000 Australians were prisoners of the Japanese. Of these, 8,296 died while in captivity. Of the Australians who ended up in German POW camps, 265 died in captivity.
By the year 2002, Germany will have paid out 102 billion Deutschmarks in restitution and compensation to the victims of the Nazi regime. Germany has largely faced up to its legal and moral obligations. Not so Japan. Denying its wholesale massacres and thieving by its moronic hordes, the Japanese Government officials hide behind their bland smiles and polite bows and think ‘Japan Number One, other countries Number Ten’. No other nation in the world imposes such a distorted view of history on its schoolchildren. For over fifty years, Japan has denied its abuses of Human Rights and refuses to pay any compensation to its victims, especially the survivors of its 250,000 sex slave program. (At this moment a few survivors are fighting for compensation in the Japanese courts) Until Japan faces up to its responsibilities, civilized nations everywhere must regard it with suspicion at best and contempt at worst. At the Nuremberg War Crimes trial, Hans Frank said “A thousand years will pass and still this guilt of Germany will not have been erased”. In Japan’s case however, it may take a little longer.
However, a citizens group in the Japanese city of Kyoto, have erected a ‘Monument of Apology and Friendship’ in the city square of Calbayog, on the island of Samar in the Philippines. The city was occupied by the 16th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army during the war. The monument bears the inscription ‘The citizens of Kyoto apologize for the invasion by the Army of the Emperor and pledge their friendship’. It is believed that this is the first time the Japanese have apologized for their actions during World War II.
The first written apology (to South Korea) was presented by the Japanese Prime Minister, Keizo Obuchi, on October 9, 1998, to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung … 53 years after the war!
