Kalagon massacre

On 7 July 1945, the Kalagon massacre was committed against inhabitants of Kalagon, Burma (present-day Myanmar), by members of the 3rd Battalion, 215th Regiment and the OC Moulmein Kempeitai of the Imperial Japanese Army. These units had been ordered by Major General Seiei Yamamoto, chief of staff of the 33rd Army, to sweep the area for guerrillas reportedly teamed with British paratroops.

Kalagon massacre
Part of the Burma Campaign
of World War II
Japanese prisoners in the dock during the first war crimes trial to be held in Rangoon, Burma. These men were charged with the murder of 637 civilians in the village of Kalagon.
LocationKalagon, Burma
Coordinates16°32′57″N 97°43′46″E
Date7 July 1945
TargetVillagers
Attack type
Massacre, war rape, torture
Deaths600–1,000
PerpetratorsImperial Japanese Army
  • Major Ichikawa Seigi
MotivePunishment for aiding British commandos

The Japanese occupied the village and rounded up all the inhabitants, some to the local mosque and others to different buildings, for questioning. Women and children were raped and beaten. After it was confirmed that they had aided British commandos, Major Ichikawa Seigi ordered the entire village to be massacred. The inhabitants were taken in groups of four to ten people to nearby wells, blindfolded, and bayoneted, and their bodies were dumped in the wells. The village was then burned to the ground. An estimated 600 to 1,000 villagers died in the massacre.[1]

The Japanese kidnapped 10 female survivors who agreed to act as "spies", albeit it is believed that they were instead used as comfort women. Two of them escaped, but the others disappeared.[1][2]

Prosecutions

Because the Japanese had conducted the massacre rather hastily, multiple villagers survived the massacre. The survivors became witnesses in war crimes proceedings against some of the participants in the massacre.[1]

In 1946, a British military court tried Seigi and 13 other soldiers for participating in the massacre. Each of them were tried on two counts:

  1. Participating in the massacre of the villagers
  2. Participating in the beating, torture, wounding, and other maltreatment of the villagers

Seigi also faced a third charge for kidnapping the women. Ten of them were found guilty. Seven of them were found guilty on both counts, and three others were only found guilty on the second count. Seigi was found guilty on all counts.[2]

Seigi and three officers who supervised the massacre were sentenced to death. The court said Seigi would be hanged, while the other three men would be shot by firing squads.[2]

As for the other three soldiers who were deemed complicit in the massacre. However, the court found that these men either had lesser roles, or that not enough evidence had been found that death sentences were warranted. Each of them were instead given 10-year sentences. The other soldiers were automatically ineligible for execution since they were only found guilty on the second count.[2]

Individual defendants and sentences
Name Sentence Count 1 Count 2
*Major Ichikawa Seigi Death by hanging Guilty Guilty
Captain Sakamaki Saburo 10 years imprisonment Guilty Guilty
Captain Okubo Yozo 10 years imprisonment Guilty Guilty
Captain Yanagisawa Izumu Death by firing squad Guilty Guilty
Captain Midorikawa Hisashi Death by firing squad Guilty Guilty
Second Lieutenant Usui Kiyohiro Acquitted Not guilty Not guilty
Lieutenant Tajima Ichiro Death by firing squad Guilty Guilty
Lieutenant Takei Shozo 10 years imprisonment Guilty Guilty
Captain Higashi Noburo Acquitted Not guilty Not guilty
Warrant Officer Fujiwara Ryozo 5 years imprisonment Not guilty Guilty
Sergeant Major Kobayashi Akira 5 years imprisonment Not guilty Guilty
Sergeant Nagata Teshiyuki Acquitted Not guilty Not guilty
Sergeant Nomoto Kinni 7 years imprisonment Not guilty Guilty
Corporal Morimoto Seiichi Acquitted Not guilty Not guilty
*Seigi also faced a third charge for kidnapping the women

Each of the sentences were confirmed upon review. Seigi and his three condemned codefendants were executed on 15 July 1946, using the methods prescribed by the court.[2] The others were sent to the local jail in Rangoon to serve out their sentences. In mid-1951, those still in prison were transferred to Sugamo Prison in Japan to serve out the rest of their time.[3]

General Heitarō Kimura, one of the defendants at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, was charged multiple counts, including his failure to prevent atrocities, including the Kalagon massacre. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1948.

See also

References

Citations
  1. Lingen, Kerstin von (2016-11-04). War Crimes Trials in the Wake of Decolonization and Cold War in Asia, 1945-1956: Justice in Time of Turmoil. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-42987-8.
  2. "Kalagon Trial". legal-tools.org.
  3. Cribb, Robert (2016). "The Burma Trials of Japanese War Criminals, 1946-1947". War Crimes Trials in the Wake of Decolonization and Cold War in Asia, 1945-1956: Justice in Time of Turmoil (World Histories of Crime, Culture and Violence): 117–142.

Sources
  • Raymond Lamont-Brown, 1998, Kempeitai: Japan's Dreaded Military Police, Sutton Publishing, Phoenix Mill, England. ISBN 0-7509-2806-9.
  • Christine Sherman, 2001, War Crimes: Japan's World War II Atrocities, Turner Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-56311-728-2.
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