A written confession from a Japanese World War II officer, made public Thursday, revealed Japanese invaders' atrocities against Chinese civilians and soldiers, including cannibalism.
The confession from Taiji Ohno, who volunteered as a police service instructor of the "Manchukuo" in 1934 and continued to serve the Japanese invasion in China, was posted on the website of the State Archives Administration (SAA).
In August 1935, Japanese police officers in Hengdaohezi, a township in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, detained 20 Chinese and "tortured them through beating, bloating them with water, blinding and hanging," Ohno recalled.
"Two of them were charged with holding strong anti-Japanese attitudes and were killed by Ishida, who toasted their heads and said the brains would be sent to Harbin as medicine. I ate one of them," Ohno said.
In 1936, the office of Zhuhe County in Heilongjiang received two women. "One of them was Zhao Yiman, 27 years old," Ohno said, adding, "I touched a bullet wound on her wrist with my hand or a whip, while interrogating her about the organization and contact relations of the Communist Party for nearly two hours."
From August 1936 to June 1937, Ohno organized a Baojia Self-defense Regiment and ordered the members to cut off victims' ears as proof when killing soldiers of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army and "collaborators."
The Baojia Self-defense Regiment "killed nine soldiers and staff of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army in Echeng County and cut off the ears of eight of them and the head of the ninth person and sent them to the county office."
Ohno, born in Kochi Prefecture, Japan in 1902, volunteered to become a police service instructor of the "Manchukuo" in 1934 and was dispatched to the Autonomous Government of North Shanxi in 1938.
After Japan's surrender in 1945, he took refuge with Yan Xishan's troops and served as colonel instructor of the Artillery Training Camp of Taiyuan Pacification Office. He was arrested on Dec. 12, 1950 in Shanxi.
He confessed to killing a total of 654 Chinese people in 35 cases, burning down a total of 47 households, raping 14 women and torturing 724.
This is the latest in a series of 45 Japanese war criminal confessions the SAA plans to publish. The SAA has been issuing one a day since July 3.
The move follows denials of war crimes in China by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and right-wing politicians.
