３２章 Thousands of other POWs were beaten, burned, stabbed, or clubbed to death, shot, beheaded, killed during medical experiments, or eaten alive in ritual acts of cannibalism. And as a result of being fed grossly inadequate and befouled food and water, thousands more died of starvation and easily preventable diseases. Of the 2,500 POWs at Borneo’s Sandakan camp, only 6, all escapees, made it to September 1945 alive. Left out of the numbing statistics are untold numbers of men who were captured and killed on the spot or dragged to places like Kwajalein, to be murdered without the world ever learning their fate.
32章 15 Some 132,000 Allied POWs: Tanaka, p. 70; Brian MacArthur, Surviving the Sword: Prisoners of the Japanese in the Far East, 1942–45 (New York: Random House, 2005), p. xxvi. 16 Nearly 36,000 Allied POWs die: Tanaka, p. 70. 18 More than 215,000 other POWs: Tanaka, p. 2. 21 Medical experiments: Tanaka, pp. 135–65; Gary K. Reynolds, 23 Sandakan: Tanaka, pp. 11–43.
↓これが「カニバリズム」の引用元
22 Cannibalism: James, p. 259; Tanaka, pp. 111–34; “Claim Japs Practiced Cannibalism,” Hammond Times, September 16, 1945; “Jap Soldiers Eat Flesh of U.S. Prisoners, Australia Discloses,”Abilene Reporter-News September 10, 1945.
Of all of the horrors facing downed men, the one outcome that they feared most was capture by the Japanese. The roots of the men’s fear lay in an event that occurred in 1937, in the early months of Japan’s invasion of China. The Japanese military surrounded the city of Nanking, stranding more than half a million civilians and 90,000 Chinese soldiers. The soldiers surrendered and, assured of their safety, submitted to being bound. Japanese officers then issued a written order: ALL PRISONERS OF WAR ARE TO BE EXECUTED.
What followed was a six-week frenzy of killing that defies articulation. Masses of POWs were beheaded, machine-gunned, bayoneted, and burned alive. The Japanese turned on civilians, engaging in killing contests, raping tens of thousands of people, mutilating and crucifying them, and provoking dogs to maul them. Japanese soldiers took pictures of themselves posing alongside hacked-up bodies, severed heads, and women strapped down for rape. The Japanese press ran tallies of the killing contests as if they were baseball scores, praising the heroism of the contestants. Historians estimate that the Japanese military murdered between 200,000 and 430,000 Chinese, including the 90,000 POWs, in what became known as the Rape of Nanking.
Every American airman knew about Nanking, and since then, Japan had only reinforced the precedent. Among the men of Louie’s squadron, there was a rumor circulating about the atoll of Kwajalein, in the Marshall Islands, a Japanese territory. On Kwajalein, the rumor said, POWs were murdered. The men called it “Execution Island.” It is testament to the reputation of the Japanese that of all the men in one fatally damaged B-24 falling over Japanese forces, only one chose to bail out. The rest were so afraid of capture that they chose to die in the crash.
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