This column by Masayuki Takayama revisits the history of the Thai–Burma Railway, arguing that many Allied prisoners died not from systematic Japanese abuse but from U.S. submarine attacks on transport ships, air strafing of POW camps, and even the atomic bombings.
He contrasts the relatively limited number of death sentences in British war crimes trials with Dutch postwar reprisals, and highlights how Korean camp guards were tried and punished for their individual cruelty.
Takayama then criticizes the Asahi Shimbun for portraying former Korean guard Yi Hak-rai as a key figure who “worked POWs to death” on the railway and as a victim of Japanese state injustice, calling this “utter fabrication” and an attempt to recast a personal, sadistic crime as a collective “Japanese military crime.”

Individual War Criminals

The Thai–Burma Railway, connecting Burma and Thailand, was begun in the summer of 1942 and, in just a little over one year, a 415-kilometer rail line was completed.
With an astonishing rate of progress of nearly one kilometer per day, and moreover, it was not slapdash work, but solid bridge-building and engineering so that it would remain a lifeline for the peoples of both countries even after the war.
Supporting this project were more than ten thousand men of the Railway Regiment and over sixty thousand Allied prisoners of war.

Workers were also recruited from Burma and Thailand, but they were the worst; once they received their wages in advance, they would quickly vanish from the work camps.
Among the Allied prisoners of war, less than half were actually able to work because of malaria and other illnesses, but they understood the meaning of chiseling holes into the sheer cliff faces, so the work went smoothly.
The above comes from records of those involved on the Japanese side, and they report that when the entire line was opened, “Japanese soldiers and prisoners rejoiced hand in hand.”

After being given sufficient rest, the prisoners were sent to camps in various locations, including the Japanese home islands, but tragedy awaited them there.
American submarines were marauding throughout the surrounding seas, and nineteen transport ships, including the Arisan Maru, were sunk while carrying prisoners.
As a result, 11,580 prisoners lost their lives.

Even when they somehow made it into the camps, this time American aircraft targeted the camps from the sky.
Prisoner-of-war camps in Borneo, Hong Kong, and Mukden were repeatedly strafed, and 318 men were killed.
General Percival, who had been interned in Mukden, was nearly killed as well.
In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, another 212 American and Dutch prisoners died from the atomic bombs.

After the war, Japan was denounced for the supposedly extraordinarily high death rate of prisoners in Japanese custody.
It has even been said that those relentless air raids were carried out as part of a scheme to fabricate that fiction.
Taking advantage of such accusations, after the war British, Australian, and Dutch prisoners claimed that they had been mistreated by the Japanese army on the Thai–Burma Railway.

There were two types of accusations.
One questioned the responsibility for the railway construction plan itself, which allegedly imposed unjust labor.
The other concerned the abuse of prisoners.
Thus, the court prosecuted two men, including Lieutenant General Ishida Hidekuma, who was responsible for the railway, and twelve others, including Colonel Nakamura Shizuo, for mistreatment of prisoners.

The verdicts sentenced the two men connected with the railway to ten years’ imprisonment, and in the abuse cases, ultimately sentenced Colonel Nakamura and his successor, Major General Sasaki Makoto, to death.
Dutch prisoners of war, who had surrendered at the very start of hostilities and spent the war years lounging in camps, executed 224 Japanese officers and soldiers in revenge after the war.
In comparison, on the Thai–Burma Railway more than ten thousand prisoners died of disease and exhaustion.
It was labeled the “Death Railway” and made into a byword for “brutal Japanese forces.”

Given that, the relatively small number of death sentences may mean that the British military courts were somewhat more reasonable than the Dutch.
However, there was yet another war crimes trial.

In the early stages of the war, twenty-five thousand Allied soldiers surrendered almost immediately: Americans in the Philippines, British in Singapore, and Dutch and Australians in Java.
Their numbers were nearly equal to the advancing Japanese forces.
If Japan had had to look after all of them, it would have been impossible to wage war.
So three thousand and eight Koreans were recruited as guards and assigned to watch over them.

“They were cruel,” testified Australian prisoners of war.
Among them, 148 were found guilty as particularly vicious, and 23 were executed.
A man nicknamed “Lizard,” Yi Hak-rai, was also among those sentenced to death, though his sentence was later reduced.

A few days ago, the Asahi Shimbun ran his obituary.
It stated that he “once received a death sentence for forcing prisoners to work on the Thai–Burma Railway, causing many of them to die.”
No, no, he never held such a responsible position.
He was convicted solely for personal crimes of bullying and abusing prisoners.

It is an utter fabrication.
To my astonishment, the Asahi repeats the same lie in its editorials and in a column by an editorial writer.
Their argument is that “although he suffered bitter hardship as a Japanese military auxiliary, the postwar government refused to grant him a pension on the grounds that his nationality had disappeared,” and they heap one-sided condemnation on the Japanese government.

In its editorial, perhaps to shield him from his sadistic conduct, the paper even writes, “He was never taught the Geneva Convention.”
They twist the facts that far in order to turn a purely personal, mean-spirited crime into a “crime of the Japanese army.”
Yet for such a purpose, their choice of subject was perhaps a bit too poor.

Incidentally, while he was still alive, the deceased is said to have apologized to the prisoners he abused.
But were not the true people he ought to have apologized to the likes of Colonel Nakamura and the others, who were executed for taking responsibility for the misdeeds of men like him?