page_title: Japanese war crimes
section_title: Execution and killing of captured Allied airmen
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese war crimes / Crimes / Execution and killing of captured Allied airmen
caption_attribution_description: U.S. Army Air Force Lt. Robert L. Hite, blindfolded by his captors, is led from a Japanese transport plane after he and the other seven flyers were flown from Shanghai to Tokyo. Hite was co-pilot of crew 16 (B-25B s/n 40-2268 Bat out of Hell, 34th Bomb Squadron) of the "Doolittle Raiders". After about 45 days in Japan, all eight were taken back to China by ship and imprisoned in Shanghai. On 15 October 1942 three were executed, one died in captivity. The four others, including Hite, were liberated on 20 August 1945.
context_page_description: War crimes were committed by the Empire of Japan in many Asian-Pacific countries during the period of Japanese imperialism, primarily during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. These incidents have been described as an "Asian Holocaust". Some war crimes were committed by Japanese military personnel during the late 19th century, but most Japanese war crimes were committed during the first part of the Shōwa Era, the name which was given to the reign of Emperor Hirohito, until the surrender of the Empire of Japan in 1945.
  The war crimes involved the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy under Emperor Hirohito and they resulted in the deaths of millions of people. Some historical estimates of the number of deaths which resulted from Japanese war crimes range from 3 to 14 million through massacre, human experimentation, starvation, and forced labor that was either directly perpetrated or condoned by the Japanese military and government. Some Japanese soldiers have admitted to committing these crimes.
context_section_description: Many Allied airmen captured by the Japanese on land or at sea were executed in accordance with official Japanese policy. During the Battle of Midway in June 1942, three American airmen who were shot down and landed at sea were spotted and captured by Japanese warships. After brief interrogations, two airmen were killed, their bodies then tied to five-gallon kerosene cans filled with water and dumped overboard from destroyer Makigumo; the third was killed and his body dumped overboard from Arashi.
  On August 13, 1942, Japan passed the Enemy Airmen's Act, which stated that Allied pilots who bombed non-military targets in the Pacific Theater and were captured on land or at sea by Japanese forces were subject to trial and punishment despite the absence of any international law containing provisions regarding aerial warfare. This legislation was passed in response to the Doolittle Raid, which occurred on April 18, 1942, in which American B-25 bombers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle bombed Tokyo and other Japanese cities. According to the Hague Convention of 1907 (the only convention which Japan had ratified regarding the treatment of prisoners of war), any military personnel captured on land or at sea by enemy troops were to be treated as prisoners of war and not punished for simply being lawful combatants. Eight Doolittle Raiders captured upon landing in China (four months before the passage of the Act) were the first Allied aircrew to be brought before a kangaroo court in Shanghai under the act, charged with alleged (but unproven) strafing of Japanese civilians during the Doolittle Raid. The eight aircrew were forbidden to give any defense and, despite the lack of legitimate evidences, were found guilty of participating in aerial military operations against Japan. Five of the eight sentences were commuted to life imprisonment; the other three airmen were taken to a cemetery outside Shanghai, where they were executed by firing squad on October 14, 1942.
  The Enemy Airmen's Act contributed to the deaths of hundreds of Allied airmen throughout the Pacific War. An estimated 132 Allied airmen shot down during the bombing campaign against Japan in 1944–1945 were summarily executed after short kangaroo trials or drumhead courts-martial. Imperial Japanese military personnel deliberately killed 33 American airmen at Fukuoka, including fifteen who were beheaded shortly after the Japanese Government's intention to surrender was announced on August 15, 1945. Mobs of civilians also killed several Allied airmen before the Japanese military arrived to take the airmen into custody. Another 94 airmen died from other causes while in Japanese custody, including 52 who were killed when they were deliberately abandoned in a prison during the bombing of Tokyo on May 24–25, 1945.
caption: A blindfolded Doolittle Raider taken captive in 1942
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "L1/Japan, Tokyo Raid/1942/pho 53", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2010:02:04 11:41:57", "Image ExifOffset": "208", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "346", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7979", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1800", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1313"}