The Blood and Mud in the Philippines: Anti-Guerrilla Warfare on Panay Island
Continuation of Chapter 11
On February 2, 1946, the 50 of us who were suspects were sent to Manila from Tacloban harbor in a small transport. We arrived in Manila after a few days, and were sent by car to Calamba Camp in Laguna Province near Lake Laguna, 50 kilometers south of Manila. When we entered the camp, Colonel Shoichi Yamaguchi – commander of the 172nd Battalion of Negros Island who had been there some time before us – came over and told us about the situation of the war crimes trials with a serious expression on his face. He informed us that General Yamashita had already been sentenced to death. Furthermore, according to the trials held so far, those who had killed even just one Filipino, for whatever reason, received the death penalty while those who inflicted torture got imprisonment for life. One out of two suspects received the death penalty.
Next morning as I got out of bed, I saw pale suspects in rags appear one after another from each tent. They were officers who fought in Luzon and the sight made me imagine the fierceness of the warfare there. About 400 or 500 meters beyond the camp fence were hundreds of white crosses that marked graves. Behind them was the dark Mt. Makiling that looked down on the vast camp area. This was where the 8th Division had desperately fought, causing a great number of victims.
On March 3, we were moved to a camp at Nichols Field in the suburbs of Manila, currently the Manila International Airport. Here all 14 of us – starting with Lieutenant General Kôno, staff officer Colonel Hidemi Watanabe, unit commander Lieutenant Colonel Tozuka and other suspects related to Panay – were assembled. As we were summoned for examination one by one everyday, the full picture of the incidents under suspicion revealed itself. Most of the incidents were cases that happened during the half-year Joint Punitive Operation from July to December of 1943. The number of Filipino deaths was 2,000 and there were 14 of us. I thought it was impossible to survive in such a situation.
One night, General Kôno assembled the others, and he said with emotion, ‘I’m an old man and I do not have a long future to look forward to. I want to save your lives if possible. Tell me if you have any wish.’ The General had never talked to us frankly. When he started to speak to us like this, we could not utter any of the complaints we might have had. After all, it was decided that General Kôno and unit commander Tozuka would take responsibility for the whole situation of Panay, and that each of us would take responsibility for specific cases. At the end of the day, General Kôno said, ‘Lieutenant General Akira Mutô, the Chief of Staff of the Philippine Islands Area Army who stood as a witness at General Yamashita’s trial, is now in this camp; so let us listen to him as well regarding the trials.’
Several days later, the suspects related to Panay Island got together at General Mutô’s tent where he spoke with great spiritual potency. ‘The war has not ended in the real sense of the word. The US is trying to kill as many Japanese officers and soldiers as possible. In war, the important thing is to cause as few Japanese victims as possible. In the trials as well, what we should do is not to name any others. You are all honorable kamikaze fighters. You should fight the trial with the spirit of a kamikaze. In addition, the US Forces want to say that the top commanders of the Japanese Army had ordered the killing of non-combatants. You should never say, for the sake of Japan, for the sake of the Japanese Army, that anyone who graduated from the Imperial Military Academy had ever ordered killing of non-combatants.’
The solemn talk of the Chief of Staff of the 14th Area Army whom we met for the first time impressed us. However, the countermeasure policy, i.e., the ‘War Criminal Kamikaze Unit’ suggested by General Mutô, seriously affected the proceedings of the war crimes tribunals in the Philippines. The high-ranking officers meticulously followed this policy – unanimously repeating ‘I have nothing to do with the case. I know nothing about it .’
On top of this, the trials that I later observed did not necessarily proceed according to what the Chief of Staff, General Mutô, told us. Some US soldiers did understand bushi no nasake, the benevolence of the samurai. There were the cases related to the Batanes Islands, the small islands scattered between Northern Luzon and Taiwan. Lieutenant General Hikojiro Tajima, commander of the 6lst Independent Mixed Brigade and his 13 subordinates were tried for the execution of three US pilots who were shot down and became POWs. They were also charged with the execution of the guerrillas who had killed 13 guards of the Japanese Army. In order to save his subordinates, General Tajima testified that he had ordered the killings. Therefore, only General Tajima was sentenced to death by hanging and was executed in April 1946. I heard that the Presiding Judge of that trial was so moved by General Tajima’s affectionate attitude toward his subordinates and grew to respect him.
In time, investigators came with around 50 Filipinos to identify us suspects from Panay. General Kono and the others were all kept standing under the scorching sun in the square. The citizens of Panay, guided by Philippine Army officers, tried hard to remember our faces, checking us out with the photographs in their hands. As they came in front of me, an investigator said, ‘This is Kumai’, with a thin smile on his face. I understood that to have meant his reminder for other Filipinos to remember my face. I got so exhausted after one hour of standing under the burning sun and collapsed into bed as soon as it was over. After the identification process was over, it seemed more certain that we would be condemned as war criminals. They were saying that it would be the death penalty for one killing, and the number we had killed was supposedly 2,000.
Dividing the blame among the 14 left no possibility for us to survive. I spent the next few days in a desperate mood as if my death sentence had already been confirmed. At the end of the day, I looked blankly upon the mountains east of the camp. The inviting peaks of Antipolo showed themselves clearly in front of me in the rays of the setting sun. I made a sudden decision to escape.
As I looked back, we surrendered obeying the emperor’s order. Had I known that I would face the cruel fate of the death penalty, I would not have surrendered but fought on until my last breath. I regretted to having surrendered following the order, without an inkling that the situation would turn out this way. Now that I was abandoned even by my country, Japan, to which I dedicated my life. I decided I had to fight for my own sake.
I called on 2nd Lieutenant Ôtsuka thinking as the old proverb says, ‘It is good to have a partner on one’s journey’. Grinning, he said, ‘I’ve been waiting for your call, Kumai-san,’ and he pointed under his bed. There he had accumulated salt and a fair amount of pills for malaria. (To be continued)
