women had died down and only the moans of the wounded could be heard, the ensigns flicked on their torches to find around seventy bodies, drenched in blood, lying on the floor. (After the war the US occupational authorities allowed continued use of a number of these Comfort Women still alive, as prostitutes for their own GIs stationed on the island.)
DEATH ON TANOURA BEACH
American airmen shot down during bombing raids on Rabaul, New Britain, were incarcerated in a house, a former tailors shop in Chinatown, now the headquarters of the 6th Field Kempetai under the command of the Japanese Navy. On March 2nd, 1944, the house was demolished in a bombing raid. Fortunately all the prisoners had been transferred to a shelter across the road prior to the raid. While in the shelter, another seventeen prisoners were brought in bringing the total of sixty-two. (these prisoners were from the 5th, 13th Airforce and the 1st and 2nd Wing Marine Air Corps) Next day the sixty-two men were trucked out to a tunnel like cave at Tanoura, a few miles from Rabaul. Packed together in the narrow cave like sardines, they were allowed two buckets of water each day, but only after the guards had washed their dishes in it. Two days later, twenty names were called out to proceed to waiting lorries. Later, more names were called and the lorries departed. The prisoners were under the command of Warrant Officer Zenichi Wakabayashi. According to evidence given by him at the Rabaul War Crimes Trials the prisoners were told they were being transferred to a camp on Watom Island, a few miles off shore.
Assembled in a shelter on Tanoura Beach waiting for sea transport, the prisoners were subjected to a rain of bombs from eight US bombers flying high overhead. A direct hit on the shelter caused the deaths of most of the prisoners, five were seriously wounded and died a short time later. That evening, all thirty-one bodies, or parts of bodies, were cremated in a huge funeral pyre on the beach. Some of the ashes were gathered together and eventually handed over to members of the Australian Army at the end of hostilities. At the War Crimes Trial questions were asked as to why the bodies were cremated when other Allied deaths usually resulted in burial in mass graves. Why was the camp commander on Watom Island, Colonel Kahachi Ogata, never informed that prisoners were about to be transferred from the mainland? Could it be that the thirty one prisoners were deliberately massacred to ease the crowded conditions in the tunnel camp, and to hide their crime, the Japanese had the bodies burned? There is no real evidence to either of these incidents. Were the prisoners massacred or did they really fall victim to 'Friendly Fire'? In 1948, Wakabayashi was again interrogated but maintains he is telling the truth.
MURDER ON WAKE ISLAND (January 12, 1943)
The Japanese invasion of Wake Island, a small atoll some 2,000 miles west of Hawaii (area 6.5 sq kms) cost them dearly, 11 naval craft, 29 planes and around 5,700 men killed. The stubborn defence of the island by the tiny garrison of 388 US Marines and 1,200 civilians workers lasted for fourteen heroic days. On December 23, 1941, Major James P.S. Devereux of the 1st. Defence Battalion, US Marine Corps, and Commander Winfield Cunningham of the Naval Air Station, realizing that the odds were hopelessly stacked against them, called for a cease fire, raised the white flag and surrendered the island. The loss of Wake Island left the US with no base between Hawaii and the Philippines. In January, 1942, the US Marines, numbering 1,187, were herded into the cargo holds of the 17,163 ton Japanese luxury liner Nitta Maru, for transportation to Yokohama and then to Shanghai. Those left behind included the civilians and the wounded Marines. A year passed and on the night of January 12, 1943, the Japanese accused the civilians of being in secret radio communication with US naval forces. The 97 American civilians still on Wake (actually 98 but one was caught stealing food and was beheaded) were marched to the beach and there lined up with