lifestyle

U.S. vet who caught Tojo speaks out

38 Comments

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

38 Comments
Login to comment

It was a job we were told to do and we did it. After, it was ‘Let’s move on. Let’s get back to the U.S

I love reading about old guys like this. Classic.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The doctor was inclined to let him die? Looking at the can't-find-a-hospital ambulance fiasco, not much's changed there then...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

America really, really needs a revival of that type of restraint.

But seriously: " Yank magazine"?!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Professional soldier can't hit his own heart?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Professional soldier can't hit his own heart?"

Tojo was the same as Hitler and Mussolini, a coward and a bully. Otherwise he would have done himself in for shame of losing the war before anyone could get to him. Guess he was lacking in the Samurai Spirit he insisted everyone else have.

It is easy to order others to die for a cause, much harder to die yourself. As too many leaders have demonstrated throughout history.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

What's with it with people in Japan who try to commit suicide - they can kill everyone else around them - but they can't seem to kill themselves. Here it is from WWII and then we see it every couple of weeks in the daily news!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Tojo could've aggravated his wounds to die on his hospital bed like Cato the Younger, but the coward could not bring himself to the end that many of the common men have met in their hopeless positions in the Pacific.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Tojo could've aggravated his wounds to die on his hospital bed like Cato the Younger, but the coward could not bring himself to the end that many of the common men have met in their hopeless positions in the Pacific.

Those close to Tojo and survived after the surrender were also cowards for not trying to put this creature out of misery instead of being put on show trial with charges that are now considered as inapplicable political witchcraft.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This must be wrong!! Victors justice!!! Lets hear from the japanophiles how both sides were equally as bad as each other etc... In war bad things happen...yawn.. Im no fan of the US military but in the big scheme of things in WW2 there were one of the good guys and Tojo and his mates were the evil scum a thousand times more of a menace that Bin Laden and co these days.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This must be wrong!! Victors justice!!! Lets hear from the japanophiles how both sides were equally as bad as each other etc... In war bad things happen...yawn.. Im no fan of the US military but in the big scheme of things in WW2 there were one of the good guys and Tojo and his mates were the evil scum a thousand times more of a menace that Bin Laden and co these days

then why isn't Bush on trial for Crimes Against Peace? you answered correct, victors justice.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Any moron that compares Tojo to Hitler or Mussolini needs to have his/her head examined. The guy didn't have any power whatsoever compared to those two.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

booooring......<yawn>

0 ( +0 / -0 )

then why isn't Bush on trial for Crimes Against Peace?

Because no one has the will to try and put him on trial or arrest him, if a warrant is put out for his arrest the US will not hand him over.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

According to the medal’s citation: “Had Captain Wilpers not acted with courage and initiative, Hideki Tojo would have succeeded in avoiding trial and possible execution for his acts.”

I am very uniformed when it comes to the Tokyo Trials. Was there enough of a benefit to having had Tojo on trial to have outweighed the cost? Either way, he ended up dead. Did valuable information come out of the trial? Or was it just the benefit of vengence?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The vet's action allowed Tojo to leave an affidavit, which I think is rather damaging to the war trial in historical perspective.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Any moron that compares Tojo to Hitler or Mussolini needs to have his/her head examined. The guy didn't have any power whatsoever compared to those two."

While Prime Minister from 1941 to 1944, Tojo held the position of Army Minister from 1941-1944, Home Minister from 1941–1942, Foreign Minister in 1942, Education Minister in 1943, and Commerce Minister in 1943. And in order to secure greater power in the face of dwindling support due to repeated military setbacks, he appointed himself Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff.

Not exactly the résumé of a man with little or no influence.

Methinks you need to reexamine the meaning of "power" and how it's wielded.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I bet I'm not the only Brit who wondered what an animal doctor had to do with Tojo's capture. :)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Tojo's daughter is alive and very much a voice in the Japanese right-wing movement. Her belief is that daddy was a good egg, dealt a terrible travesty of justice and the victors make the rules. maybe so, but for the poster above to proffer that 'both were as bad as each other' shows idiocy of a special calibre even for a JT forum. The Imperial Japanese Army had a very special talent for cruelty in the form of burying live prisoners, bayoneting live prisoners, sticking decapitated heads on posts for sword practice and all manner of other sick perversions, so let's leave the 'each was as bad as the other' thing well alone as you're just showing us your silly side. Tojo was just another rightist, no different from the crew in the black truck screeching lunatic messages we see everyday. Good riddance ...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

LFRAgain,

Wasn't it Hugh Byas who said that there were no dictators in Japan even during the wartime? If Tojo was a dictator, why didn't he know as Prime Minister of the time that the imperial navy would attack Pearl Harbor? And why didn't he know as Prime Minister and Army Minister until just before the Battle of Mariana that the navy had lost in the Battle of Midway two years before?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Of course, he would not commit suicide. To the end he believed that what he did was right.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

such a non story why didnt they just let him kill himself.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Of course, he would not commit suicide. To the end he believed that what he did was right".....As do a great majority of J-people since then and nowadays too.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

What was Tojo doing in the time between the Japanese surrender and his attempted suicide/capture?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

i guess a gun isnt as effective as the sword cause you need to be very accurate.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Yuko Tojo 66 (a stauch right winger)granddaughter of Hideki Tojoke, hangs out in the Yaksukuni regularly and tries to resurrect her grandfather's ideology in the JN's brains, who was executed as Japan's top war criminal in 1948: she often comes to interviews with foreign journalists carrying a box of mementos that include nail clippings, a lock of hair and the butt of the last cigarette (sic) the general smoked while awaiting the hangman's noose in Sugamo Prison is/was located in BUNKYO-ku

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Methinks you need to reexamine the meaning of "power" and how it's wielded.

Excuse me? Tojo was "selected" by nine cabinet members during the meeting of 重臣会議 in October of 1941. Heck. Naruhiko Higashikuni was considered before Tojo. He was subsequently outstated in the same meeting on July 1944. So my point again, "Any moron that compares Tojo to Hitler or Mussolini needs to have his/her head examined. The guy didn't have any power whatsoever compared to those two."

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Gotta give the man credit for being very humble... I seen some jackass on "deal or no deal" bragging about his purple heart with a big smile on his face, showing it to the tv audience and crowd... almost made me sick. He didn't have a scratch on him (which is good) and I thought about the leg and armless vets in the VA hospitals watching that show.. I respect this old man.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I seen some jackass on "deal or no deal" bragging about his purple heart with a big smile on his face, showing it to the tv audience and crowd... almost made me sick. He didn't have a scratch on him.

There's only two ways to get the Purple Heart...you either get killed or you get wounded. Nobody gets the Purple Heart without "a scratch on him".

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Well said Vulcan. He sounds like a humble guy who just "did his job". I think history judges Tojo as a coward - and Class-A War Criminal - who couldn't even succeed in hara-kiri. He hung on til the end unlike those other animals Mussolini and Hitler. It's great the Allies had the pleasure to finish the sad case off!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It's hilarious that Japanese think it's okay for Japan to wage war but not other countries even for self-defense. That's always the essence of their defense of war criminals. Pick one or the other. Either Japan waged war and murdered people needlessly, or the Allies had the right to kill every single Japanese alive. I prefer the former, but these apologists are essentially arguing the latter by virtue of defending Japan's "anything goes" war.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

He might not have power like Hitler- But he was a small component (part) of a large machine. He wasn't the architect of the War. I wish they caught Hitler, that would have been the trial of the century !!!!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Japanese don't all defend the war criminals. Unfortunately, from what I read there were things that went on that could be criticized from a legal standpoint, and I think most people acknowledge that. Because of that, there are some who want to believe that the whole trial was a farce. But in the end, there were a lot more people who should have been punished who weren't. So, I don't think there can be too much complaining.

As for Nigelboy, I would agree that there was a huge difference between Tojo and Hitler. Look at politics in Japan today, and it's not hard to imagine the faction fighting in Japan - and luckily for us the army and navy didn't get along either.

Tojo's daughter? Not too surprising. A relative of Hitler's said that no matter how bad everyone says he was, he was always good to her. Everyone has their own perspective.

But Yuri needs to take a tour or Asia and study some history. Tojo was probably a patriot and gentleman as far as manners and lifestyle go. But doctors and nurses who worked in Unit 731 were probably well mannered and appeared perfectly normal when they got back to Japan too.

I wish Japan just had one or two documentaries a year on TV showing the suffering of non-Japanese. That would go a long way. The TV show with Beat Takeshi last christmas also showed Tojo as a decent guy - and seemed to conclude that the war was nobody's fault.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Beat Takeshi sympathetic to Tojo? why doesn't this surprise me? Giorji Tokoro on foreign policy perhaps? That we take our history from Takeshi and his half-witted pals is pretty sad Perhaps Takeshi could iron out a few historical points with his squeak hammer, then with the other hand whack those in disagreement with his fan. This country's doomed to repeat the past I fear.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

kyushu joe, I guess by your comment, you got cut by a shell and got a purple heart for it. You must have been a cook and while making eggs for the troops, you cut yourself on while cracking an egg shell. Or something similar. Purple hearts aren't something to wave around on tv shows with a big smile on your face while flailing your arms and jumping up and down, especially if you still look normal as the next guy. Have to think of the guys who got killed and dismembered. I guess you'd have to have seen that episode of "deal or no deal"..

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Back then it was a waste to save a guilty person only to off them once they got their rocks off proving what a bad boy that person was and it still holds true. Just let them off themselves and save us the time and effort to in the end come to the same ending.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Tojo was guilty for what happened with the Japanese army during WWII, but he was pretty much made the main bad guy because they didn't want to prosecute the Emperor. They figured the Japanese would except things better if the Emperor was left alone, even though he was a main man behind what the Japanese military did. This doesn't excuse Tojo, but I think he knew that he was going to cast the main villain

0 ( +0 / -0 )

So they let him suffer longer just for PR purposes. He had already carried out his own execution (albiet somewhat ineptly) and the Americans said SAVE HIS LIFE!!! WE HAVE TO KILL HIM OURSELVES! I'm American and this particular bit of history has me scratching my head.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Fadamor: Not your best comment. They had to keep him alive to find out what went on in the war years. I thought that would have been obvious?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites