Answering for Atrocities

Few courts were as important then—and as forgotten now—as those of the U.S. Navy. Created to prosecute crimes committed by Japan across the islands of the Pacific, the Navy’s would be the longest, and perhaps fairest, of all American World War II war crimes programs. It was a program marked by fidelity to facts, the cultivation of alliances, and the development of established law. In keeping with the character of law, the lessons from the postwar Navy’s writing of international law remain strikingly applicable to the modern Navy’s current and future practice of international law.

Instead, working with Secretary Forrestal, the Navy Judge Advocate General, and Pacific Fleet Commander-in-Chief Admiral Chester Nimitz, he secured the application of the Navy’s own rules and procedures, the 1937 U.S. Naval Courts and Boards, giving Japanese defendants the same rights as those guaranteed to American sailors.14 These rules were those of a court-martial and were stricter than those employed in other Allied military courts. Hearsay was generally forbidden, and witnesses were compelled to attend and testify and be cross-examined in person, rather than make declarations by affidavit, which was common elsewhere, even at Nuremberg. The principles settled, Murphy deployed investigative staff to the islands that had seen alleged war crimes.

The Navy chose incremental development over radical departure in its construction of international law. In 1945, international law lay in shards, eviscerated by the war. Instead of trying a wholly new approach, the Navy worked with what had quietly existed for decades, centuries even. The 1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War was energetically applied. So too were the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions and the common law that governed various aspects of the conduct of armed conflict.

I imagine the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who fought in the Pacific had a different view of this outcome and saw more value in their justice. I remember reading at the 41th Infantry website they were proud of taking fewer Japanese prisoners than any division in McArthur’s army. In New Guinea they overran a Japanese position and found they had eaten the Americans they had captured. In a similar incident to boost morale the courts convicted of murder Lieutenant General Joshio Tachibana, because cannibalism was not a crime under international law.

In his memoirs McArthur makes a point of says his troops killed every member of the 16th Japanese division. I believe it was the division in charge of the “Death March”.

Terrible things happen in war. And they often cannot be viewed in context appropriately by those not directly engaged with the enemy.

I have always found the example of what took place with the USS Wahoo in 1943 after she sunk a Japanese troop transport the Buyo Maru an illustrative one, in which hundreds of Japanese Army troops made it into the water and lifeboats, along with hundreds more of Indian Punjab prisoners who were captured in the fall of Singapore the year before, most likely being taken to perform forced construction labor.

The famous Captain of the USS Wahoo, CDR Dudley “Mush” Morton, ordered his men to open fire with machine guns on the survivors of the sinking, killing hundreds of the Japanese troops and their Indian prisoners in the water. (CDR. Morton did not know there were Indian prisoners present.)

This sounds on the surface like an American war crime, and perhaps it would have been adjudicated as one had the United States lost in the conflict.

But at that time, the sinking took place within reachable distance of New Guinea. and those Japanese troops could have been rescued to fortify the garrison.

At that point in the war, we understood fully how the Japanese were going to fight the war in the Pacific, not only from Guadalcanal, but from the brutal fighting in New Guinea, in which the Japanese were being fought to the last man.

Every Japanese soldier who made it ashore to fortify the Japanese garrison was certain to result in more allied deaths ashore in the fighting, which was ongoing and vicious.

From our perspective in 2026, many would no doubt brand the Captain of the USS Wahoo, CDR Morton as a war criminal, but back then, it was a different kind of war, an existential war in those Pacific Islands. The US Naval Institute essay on the morality of this summarized it:

“...Mush Morton should not be branded as a murderer and a criminal for his actions in the Wahoo in January 1943. He made a decision under the pressure of battle and command, and chose to risk dishonor to save the lives of his fellow servicemen. Naval officers, particularly midshipmen in the Naval Academy’s ethics course, should study Morton’s actions and assess his motives to discover for themselves what actions they would take and why. To paraphrase the famous saying, it is only by studying their heritage and history that members of the naval service can be spared from repeating the costly mistakes of their predecessors...”

My Dad was assigned to the Intelligence unit in Tokyo after the war that was responsible for war crimes investigations. He interviewed a lot of people who did horrible things.

He was then assigned to Korea when that war started; investigating similar crimes.

He only said it was fun to walk into these peoples’ lives and show them his ID and tell them they needed to answer questions. My uncle was killed in the Pacific, and I am sure my Dad enjoyed turning the psychological screws on these animals.

He never talked about the stuff he investigated in Japan nor the stuff he saw in Korea. But I know he was not fond of either group as a whole. He would just say a lot of people got away with a lot of killing.

But he was nice to the little Korean family who moved onto our street in the 1970s. I was stunned on day to come upon him and the “momma San” (his name for the grandmother) having a nice conversation in Korean. It blew me away.

The Wahoo is was sunk on patrol with loss of all aboard. As well as other of our boats. Mush Morton’s executive officer Commander O’Kane’s sub was sunk by a runaway torpedo. A few including O’ Kane were blown overboard and picked up by a Japanese ship (destroyer) if I remember correctly. His boat was the USS Tang. Early in the war the submarine force was commanded by peacetime officers. They weren’t used properly. As time progressed, a new aggressive breed of Sub commanders arrived with unrestricted Submarine Warfare. The two aforementioned mentioned boats and crews were shining examples, along with others of good men going in harms way where many avoid. Some are still on patrol. RIP

“But at that time, the sinking took place within reachable distance of New Guinea. and those Japanese troops could have been rescued to fortify the garrison.”

The European Theatre equivalent, IIRC, was the treatment of enemy airmen parachuting from aircraft. If said airman was going to land where he could return to his lines and resume the fight he could be attacked. If he was going to land where he would be taken prisoner, he should be left alone.

I don’t think either side was much into killing men hanging from ‘chutes, but I have read of men who referred to themselves as “parachute aces.”

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