Japanese Surrendered Personnel

The concept of "Japanese Surrendered Personnel" was developed by the Japanese Government and proposed to the Allies at the conclusion of the Second World War. Imperial Japan's field service code and strong social norms prohibited military personnel, including senior officers, from being taken prisoner. The Allies accepted this proposal, as it was also advantageous to them even though the status lacked a legal basis.[1] JSP were not subject to the Prisoner of War Convention so they had no legal protections.[2] Much of JSP were used until 1947 for road work, body disposal or recovery, waste treatment, cleaning, deforestation, airfield repair, and police work until the arrival of other Allies to South East Asia.

A JSP watching a Royal Air Force Dakota transport landing at Bandoeng, Java during May 1946.

After the war the United Kingdom quickly moved to regain control of its territories in Asia that had been captured by the Japanese, and also worked to ensure that the Dutch and French could regain control of their respective territories. Due to British manpower shortages post-1945, JSP were often pressed into combat service alongside British troops in Asia. Louis Mountbatten took on 35,000 Japanese troops into his command in Indonesia. Retaining their wartime organisation and led by Japanese officers they fought alongside the British, with one Japanese soldier even being recommended for the Distinguished Service Order as early as November 1945.[3] The recommendation was given by General Philip Christison for Japanese battalion commander Major Kido. Other examples of action include the Japanese company led by Captain Yamada had been deployed to Magelang to assist the British forces stationed there; Japanese Kempeitai (military police) used to guard camps in Buitenzorg, Japanese artillery units used for offensives in Bandung, and the Bandoeng garrison that was reinforced by 1,500 armed Japanese. JSP troops saw action in Semarang, Ambarawa, and Magelang.[4]

I of course knew that we had been forced to keep Japanese troops under arms to protect our lines of communication and vital areas...but it was nevertheless a great shock to me to find over a thousand Japanese troops guarding the nine miles of road from the airport to the town.[5]

— Lord Mountbatten of Burma in April 1946 after visiting Sumatra.

Being aware of the potential questions that would be raised if it was discovered that they were using the same troops they had just fought against as laborers and soldiers, the Allies worked successfully to conceal the extent of Japanese involvement in these post-war activities.[6]

Japanese Surrendered Personnel operated in the War in Vietnam of 1945–1946. They played a key role in supporting British, British Indian and French Imperial forces in what was the time French Indochina. The operation – Operation Masterdom as it was commonly known – was overwhelmingly successful and led to the restoration of French rule in Indochina. Casualties were estimated at at least 2,700 personnel dead for the Viet Minh and less than 100 total for the allied forces.

Japanese construct their own living quarters at a camp outside Cape Saint Jacques in Indo China, which housed up to 38,500 prisoners

The retention of JSP by the British forces was carried out in spite of the repeated questioning of its validity by the American forces.[5] The US made use of up to 80,000 Japanese prisoners of war[7] in the Philippines for the duration of 1946, at one time even lowering the area priority for shipping and rerouting shipping to the British South East Asia Command to slow the rate of repatriation (while increasing the rate for prisoners held by the British).[8]

According to the Western sources, the last POWs captured in Burma and Malaya returned to Japan in October 1947,[9] and in Japanese sources the last JSPs left Burma in January 1948. At least all of Japanese war crimes had been sentenced by military tribunals at the time. Some soldiers were deported to Nationalist China, later Communists and the Soviet Union, where they were forced to work harder until 1956 or were brainwashed in such as Liaoning No. 3.

Like the US, Dutch administration service independently forced Japanese soldiers into labor without POW treatment. As no attention had been paid to their fate the actual situation is unclear still now.[10]

Several memoirs and other works relevant to the issue have been published. The most famous in Japan, which has been translated into English, is that by Aida Yuji, Prisoner of the British. A Japanese Soldier’s Experience in Burma.[11]

• Japanese prisoners of war in World War II