Australian Prosecutions of Japanese War Crimes in the South Pacific

This web map visualizes geospatially the cases of war crimes committed by the Japanese in the South Pacific during World War II, against which the Australian authorities pursued criminal prosecutions at the end of hostilities. This is one of a three-part WCDI South Pacific Series, whose purpose is to assist researchers with identifying the trial records of interest while also contextualizing the battles and conflict-related atrocities in this theater of war. Two other components in the same series are “The Salawaket Crossing” and “Fortress Rabaul.”

The present digital resource makes use of geographic information systems (GIS) to document, across time and space, the known episodes of war crimes in the South Pacific as documented in the records of Australian war crimes trials. To create a dataset, WCDI drew upon the data provided in “Japanese War Crimes in the Pacific: Australia’s Investigations and Prosecutions” (National Archives of Australia, 2019), Appendices B & C. Of 300 trials that the Australian military authorities carried out against the Japanese between 1945 and 1951, WCDI chose 261 cases that concerned war crimes in and around the South Pacific.

Historiographical consideration of the war in the South Pacific

In the standard American historical narrative of World War II in Asia and the Pacific, the battles in the South Pacific tend to be overshadowed by the more celebrated stories of the Central Pacific Drive that culminated in the Battle of Iwo Jima (February-March 1945), an all-out American bombing campaign against the Japanese homeland (March-August 1945), and Japan’s ultimate capitulation to the Allied Powers (August 14, 1945). WCDI posits that, from a historiographical standpoint, the war in the South Pacific is far more significant than the one in the Central Pacific, since decisive battles that reversed the course of the war were fought and won by the Allied Powers in this theater more than a year before the start of the Central Pacific Drive.

Characteristics of Japanese war crimes in the South Pacific

A close scrutiny of the war in the South Pacific reveals that this theater was a major scene of war crimes, which the Japanese servicemen committed since the initial invasion operations through the end of the conflict. A significant portion of the known episodes of war crimes concerned the Japanese mistreatment of American, Australian, and Dutch prisoners of war – many of whom were incarcerated at Ambon, the Moluccas – and mistreatment also at Rabaul, New Britain, of Asian “laborers,” that is, Chinese civilians and combatants who had been caught during the concurrent conflict in the Chinese continent, and Indian soldiers in the British India Army who became prisoners of war over the course of the Battle of Malaya (December 1941 – February 1942).

The Japanese military authorities made systematic use of these prisoners of war to make up for an acute shortage of labor at home territories and in anticipation of a protracted war against the Allied Powers in the South Pacific. Tasks that the Japanese imposed on the prisoners included the construction of a massive underground fortress at Rabaul, which served as the forward operating base in this theater for the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy since the invasion operations in January 1942, and the maintenance of farmlands in and around Rabaul to ensure the Japanese troops’ survival. The use of the prisoners of war for slave labor resulted in numerous episodes of atrocities and deaths.

Australian war crimes investigations and the “Webb Commissions”

The Australian Army carried out as early as 1942 an initial investigation of war crimes committed by the Japanese servicemen in the South Pacific. The Government of Australia the following year established a Commission of Inquiry into Japanese atrocities to whom Sir William Flood Webb, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland, was appointed as chairman (“First Webb Commission”). Justice Webb completed his investigation and submitted “A Report on Japanese Atrocities and Breaches of the Rules of Warfare” to the Australian government, on March 15, 1944. He accepted chairmanship of the Commission of Inquiry twice more – in February 1944 and September 1945 – although he left the third commission before its completion because the Government of Australia nominated him to serve as the Australian member of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE; 1946-1948). Upon arrival at Tokyo, Justice Webb was appointed as president of the tribunal.¹ For Justice Webb’s legacies as the IMTFE president, see the WCDI project description page for “The Webb Draft Judgment.”