Ramanisblog

Tag: PoWs

  • Netaji And Japan War Crimes Why Classified Documents

    There is an uproar among some sections of India over the refusal to declassify the Netaji documents.

    The ruling Party in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress is nationalizing the issue with Forward Bloc and local parties like the MDMK of Tamil Nadu.

    However the Congress is keeping mum.

    Netaji was a freedom fighter who chose the military option to drive away the British from India with help from Hitler and Japan.

    He was imprisoned by the British eleven times in twenty years.

    He was also ordered to be killed by the British Spy Agency SOE(Special Operations Executive)

    There is confusion about his death.

    While one theory says that Netaji was killed in an air craft crash, another says, with Video evidence that he attended Nehru’s funeral and Lal Bahadur Shastri accompanied him to the taxi when Netaji returned.

    Please read my post on this.

    Why the Government of India has Classified Netaji’s File and are still refusing to do so even after 65 years after the World War II?

    Is it because the British who hated Netaji pathologically and had him in the ‘Most wanted List?’

    Or there are some issues that they do not want to divulge concerning other Nations which are now close to India?

    Was there any nexus between Nehru and other Indian Leaders over the affair and if divulged might affect their reputation and place our countries relations with Britain under strain?

    The answer is all the three.

    The revelation that Netaji consorted with Netaji and the Japanese would not affect if the information on this is revealed as Britain and Germany are now in the best of terms.

    So it has to be something more sinister and hidden from te pages of History.

    And why is it that Netaji was honoured by the Japanese Emperor and a shrine has been erected for him while in India, where he is adored by the Indians, where adualtion does not match that of the Japanese?

    The story.

     

    During World War 2,  Japanese landed at Rabaul on Jan 23rd 1942, after bombing the town and took over without even a fight.

     

     

    They used Rabaul as  Naval base and inflicted heavy casualties on the Allies in the World War II.

     

    Japan finally surrendered to Allied forces on Sept 6th 1945,  at Rabaul, when General Imamura boarded HMS Glory and formally surrendered at commanded by the Japanese Emperor, to General Vernon AH Sturdee.

     

    What happened in between is gruesome.

     

    Singapore was taken by the Japanese in  February 1942.

     

    A relatively small force of the Japanese routed 90,000 strong Allied forces in six days.

     

    The POWs were kept in Changi Prison.

     

    There were 41,000 Indian Soldiers, many from the Malay Campaign.

     

    Fearing the dropping of Phosphorus Bombs, the Japanese built  subterranean tunnels some 620 km in all.

     

    The coaxed an Indian Captain Mohan Singh of INA to aid the Japanese in building the Tunnel and in return promised to aid INA to fight the British.( On 29th Dec 1942, Japanese promptly shed all secrecy and put him into jail.)

     

    The Indian soldiers were asked to build the tunnel, not even a single Japanese Soldier was involved.

     

    During the process of Tunnel building, torture and Cannibalism by the Japanese and the Papua New Guineans 20,000 soldiers died in  two and a half years!

     

    The tunnel.

    Japanese Submarine base, Rabaul.jpg
    Rabaul Submaine base.Clic to enlarge.

     

    Rabaul Tunnel.jpg
    Interior of Rabaul Tunnel.

    620 km with 93 anti-aircraft guns , 43 cannons and thousands of infantry guns.

     

    It had everything built into it, including a 2500 bed hospital , four kilometers long , with five basement levels .

     

    Barracks could hold 200000 soldiers. There were 5 airstrips which could be entered from any number of tunnel entrances. Some of these tunnels could hold mini submarines and ships. There were several antiaircraft posts and pill boxes. There were aircraft hangars too.  Inside were mine , bomb , flame thrower and mortar factories.

     

    They had 2200 prostitutes shipped in from China, Philipines and Korea.  All of them lived in the tunnels.

     

    And at the time of Japanese Fall, they were killed.

     

    The Indians died of Malaria, malnutrition, torture ( for NOT completing the daily quota ), big testicle Diphtheria ( nicknamed Changi Indian balls ) , sunstroke, dysentery, wet Beriberi, sheer exhaustion—when they died they were just buried at tunnel extremes with displaced rubble.

     

    Medicines were only for Japanese soldiers.  Indian were given sweet potato and water to drink.

     

    There was NO electricity to have power tools. Over the last 9 months , to keep at least one air strip operational the Indians were forced to work in the open even with bombs falling around them.

     

    Only 436 skeletons were exhumed and buried at Port Moresby Bomana Commonwealth war cemetery . When the found the DNA to be of Indian stock—a plaque was put “ HERE LIES AN UNKOWN BRITISH SOLDIER 1942-45, KNOWN ONLY UNTO GOD

     

    The Japanese used the Indian to cultivate 16000 acres of vegetable gardens. They forced the locals to catch fish for them, and these local highlanders were poor fishermen.

     

    In June 1943, with Hilter’s connivance , Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose , took over as supreme commanded of INA, renamed as Azad Hind Fauj, got himself a Field Marshall’s uniform and took over..

     

    Would not the fact that Netaji did not raise the issue of 20000 Indian soldiers killed and tortured with the Japanese and agreed to collaborate with them cause immense damage to his name also create unrest in India , especially in West Bengal?

    Citation.

    http://ajitvadakayil.blogspot.in/2011/08/netaji-subhash-chandra-bose-untold.html

     

    https://sites.google.com/site/simpsonharbour/simpson-harbour/davapia-rocks/home/sub-base

     

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  • Japanese Ate Indians Used For Target Practice

    The Indian PoWs  captured by the Japanese during Word War II were used as targets for shooting practice and some PoWs were eaten by the Japanese.

    Scroll down for Japanese PoW camp Video.

    japanese used Indian PoWs for Target Practice.jpg
    Japanese Take Aim at Indian PoWs World War II
    Japanese aim at Indian PoWs
    Blindfolded Indian PoWs being Targeted by Japanese

     

    Indian PoWs being bayonated,image
    Indian PoWs being bayonated by Japanese

     

    “On April 2, 1946, the Reuters correspondent in Melbourne, Australia, cabled a short message, which was carried by all newspapers a day later, including The Times of India. It read: “The Japanese Lieutenant Hisata Tomiyasu found guilty of the murder of 14 Indian soldiers and of cannibalism at Wewak (New Guinea) in 1944 has been sentenced to death by hanging, it is learned from Rabaul.”

    The nationalist narrative has long projected the Second World War as a clash between the patriots of the Indian National Army (INA), supported by the Japanese Empire, and the evil British Empire. The soldiers of the Indian Army who fought for the British are immediately dismissed as stooges of the Raj. But the refusal of many who were taken prisoner to renege on their oaths of loyalty in the face of extreme torture also showed remarkable bravery.

    After the fall of Singapore on February 15, 1942, 40,000 men of the Indian Army became prisoners of war (PoWs). Some 30,000 of them joined the INA. But those who refused were destined for torture in the Japanese concentration camps. They were first sent to transit camps in Batavia (now Djakarta) and Surabaya from where they were packed off to New Guinea, New Britain, and Bougainvillea.

    At the camps, they made no distinction between Indian officers and men. Officers would be slapped across the face or beaten up with sticks for the slightest error made by their men —error in this case being a tired soldier taking a moment’s rest while on double fatigue duty, or a sick soldier failing to salute a Japanese officer. Very often, work parties of haggard men would be taken away from the camps to the shooting range where they would be used as live targets for new Japanese infantry recruits to improve their marksmanship. Soldiers who were not killed in the firing but wounded were bayoneted to death…

    The TOI report of May 16, 1944, also mentioned that the Indian soldiers “were victims of ‘indescribable indignities’ at the hands of their captors”. The chapter Indian POWs in the Pacific, 1941-45 by G J Douds, which is part of the 2007 book, Forgotten Captives in Japanese-Occupied Asia, edited by Kevin Blackburn and Karl Hack, elaborates on these indignities. “At Hansa Bay in New Guinea, Hindu prisoners were also severely beaten for their refusal to touch beef…the Japanese tried to prevent Muslims from fasting during Ramzan. Extra fatigues were imposed in a bid to enforce eating. The Muslims held out and the fast was eventually permitted; but in general no toleration was shown in religious matters,” reads a passage.

    Citation.
    The Sikhs were particularly insulted for their long hair and beards. In February, 1944, eight rescued Sikh PoWs narrated their tales of suffering and about the indignities heaped on them. “We were locked in a room for a night and a day without water. Next day, when our mouths were very dry, they took us out and made a sport of plucking our beards. For food we were given dry bread, but before we could eat it our hands were tied behind our backs. We writhed in pain to get at the bread, which was placed in our laps. One Indian commissioned officer who asked for water was hit on the head and shot. Another was forced to drink large quantities, and when he had finished the Japanese jumped on his stomach until the water poured from his mouth, ears, nose, and eyes,” one of the men was quoted in the Canberra Times dated February 4, 1944.

    The men further detailed how a Viceroy’s Commissioned Officer (VCO) was hung upside down alive and bayoneted by the Japanese who also pulled his heart out.

    But the most spine-chilling of all Japanese atrocities was their practice of cannibalism. One of the first to level charges of cannibalism against the Japanese was Jemadar Abdul Latif of 4/9 Jat Regiment of the Indian Army, a VCO who was rescued by the Australians at Sepik Bay in 1945. He alleged that not just Indian PoWs but even locals in New Guinea were killed and eaten by the Japanese. “At the village of Suaid, a Japanese medical officer periodically visited the Indian compound and selected each time the healthiest men. These men were taken away ostensibly for carrying out duties, but they never reappeared,” the Melbourne correspondent of The Times, London, cabled this version of Jemadar Latif on November 5, 1946.

    Citation.

    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Japanese-ate-Indian-PoWs-used-them-as-live-targets-in-WWII/articleshow/40017577.cms