JAPANESE WAR CRIMINALS A very rare grouping of signatures of 32 Japanese war crimes prisoners, each signing in bold blue ink in both Japanese and English characters, all accomplished on one side of a 10" x 14" sheet of beige paper. Among those signing are: HOZUMI MASAKATSU, Sergeant at Fukuoka POW Camp No. 6. who seized an escaped Australian prisoner, strangled him into unconsciousness, and ordered him shot, NAKAZA IEDA, TSUGIO IWANUMA, Sgt-Major at Fukuoka No. 6, sentenced to life, YUKINAGA KIMURA , civilian guard at Umeda/Umoda POW Camp, beat POWs with a club; these beatings followed without provocation or despite other Japanese telling him that a POW was not responsible for the violations of the rules, TERUO ONO, private, beat POWs, 2 years, AKIRA NOMOTO, Commander of the Innoshima POW Camp, beating; forcing POWs to kneel for a long period of time(up to 7 hours, 5 days in a row), two years hard labor, FUMIO FUJIKI, MASAKUMA YONEMARU, military officer who ordered the beheadings of eleven captured B-29 airmen, punishment unknown, HITOSHI HASHIMOTO, SABURO WATANABE, HAJIURE ONISHI, RYOZABURO SUGIURA, ISHIKAWA TSUNEO, YOSHINOKU NAKA, MATSUSABURO SHIRAKAWA, GORO UCHIDA, YOSHIRO KOTANI, RINSABURO SHITO, OSAKA TAKAHASHI, TATSUO MIZUNO, KOKUZO IIDA, HISAO MORI, J. MACHIDA, NOJOMON[?] HIGASHIDA, TARUKICHI SAITO, FUMIO UEDA, KENSEI ITO, SAKAI TAKAHASHI, S. YAJIMA (with notation: "Major in M.P. KENPAI"), KAMEO TSUKADA (with notation: "Kashimagumi Co. civilian construction "), TADEO TANABE (with notation: "Customs officer "), YUKI KENPEI (with notation: "Came from Manila "). Fine condition. Despite our research, we were unable to determine the charges which were leveled against most of these "Class C war crimes " defendants, though it appears from those we were able to track that these men were generally accused of mistreatment or murder of Allied prisoners. It is only within the last few years that records of these trials have been released from the National Archives. Obtained from the estate of an American Guard present at the trials. Very good. $600-800