Allied Pilots inhuman execution in Japan

The crews of two of the Doolittle planes which had been forced to land in China were taken prisoner by the Japanese occupation forces under the command of HATA. These eight fliers composing the crews were treated as common criminals, being handcuffed and bound. The members of one crew were taken to Shanghai and the members of the other crew were taken to Nanking; at each place they were interrogated under torture. On 25 April 1942, the fliers were taken to Tokyo and were kept blindfolded and handcuffed until they were inside the Military Police Headquarters in Tokyo. They were then placed in solitary confinement, from which they were taken out and questioned again under torture for eighteen days. At the end of this period, the fliers to avoid further torture signed statements written in Japanese, the contents of which were unknown to them.


Another method of murdering Allied fliers was used at Hankow, China, in December 1944. Three American fliers, who had been forced down and captured sometime before, were paraded through the streets and subjected to ridicule, beating and torture by the populace. When they had been weakened by the beatings and torture, they were saturated with gasoline and burned alive. Permission for this atrocity was granted by the Commander of the 34th Japanese Army.

The cruelty of the Japanese is further illustrated by the treatment of an Allied airman, who was captured at Rabaul on the island of New Britain. He was bound with a rope on which fish-hooks had been attached so that when he moved the hooks dug into his flesh. He ultimately died of malnutrition and dysentery.