Ships from Hell: Japanese War Crimes on the High Seas. . - Reviews - book review

Contemporary Review, June, 2002

Ships from Hell: Japanese War Crimes on the High Seas. Raymond Lamont-Brown. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. 174 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2719-4. Mr Lamont-Brown is widely recognised as a leading writer on Japan's role in the Second World War. His interest is personal and is based on his father's sufferings at the hands of the Japanese.

His decision to write this book, to 'right the balance', is based in part because of renewed -- and official -- attempts in Japan to white-wash their war criminals and to rewrite the sordid history of the 1930s and 1940s. This ably written book makes use of those original accounts that have survived -- the Japanese destroyed many of their own records towards the end of the war -- and the picture it presents is a horrifying one. There are stories of insane brutality and of captured Allied soldiers and civilians existing on various transport ships in spaces that came to nine inches by six feet. Men were used for scientific tests and some were buried alive. The author does d escribe the war trials which followed Japan's surrender and, more disturbingly, in his epilogue he discusses the sense of betrayal felt by Allied survivors. Too many criminals walked away unpunished, in large part due to American government policy which was anxious to use Japan to offset rising Communist power in China. This is a sad story that makes one's heart ache but it is one that needs to be told lest those who suffered he betrayed by their own people. (J.M.)