After WW2, Allied nations sentenced 7 defendants to death by hanging for their war crimes in the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. US planned to cremate them and ditch the ashes at the Pacific like they did in Nazi Germany to prevent the idolization over remains.
However, a Japanese lawyer working at the Trial snatched some of these ashes and bones, hid them until Japan forgot the memory of war enough, and finally built the grave for those in 1958.
That’s the Grave of the Seven Martyrs(殉国七士廟) currently in Aichi Prefecture, Japan.
To introduce those ‘martyrs’ briefly…
1. Hideki Tojo : Probably don’t need a explanation.
2. Seishiro Itagaki : Minister of War from 1938 to 1939 and a commanding officer of 7th Area Army. Prime instigator of Manchurian Incident and also took part in the creation of infamous Unit 731
3. Kenji Doihara : Chief of the Intelligence at Kwantung Army. Prime instigator of Manchurian Incident.
4. Akira Muto : Chief of Staff at Central China Area Army. Took part in escalating Marco Polo Bridge Incident to full-blown war and participated in both Nanjing and Manila
5. Heitaro Kimura : Commanding officer of IJA Burma Area Army. When the British army arrived at the doorstep of Burma in 1945, he immediately ‘fled’ to Thailand on a plane without giving any direction to troops, abandoning whole army and civilians in complete disarray (among those abandoned were Burmese puppet-government and Free India of Chandra Bose). Later he get promoted to the rank of general for this act of ‘bravery’. However, his sentencing had some controversy because he was also charged for the Death Railway in Burma built during 1942~43 (while Kimura was assigned to Burma only in 1944 August)
6. Iwane Matsui : Commanding officer of Central China Area Army. While rightfully held accountable for many war crimes in China, he might have felt bit wronged for being held responsible for the Nanjing Massacre. He was known to be absent from command during Nanjing because of tuberculosis. Too bad that Prince Asakanomiya Yasuhiko, a member of Japanese Imperial Family, took the command of the IJA army in Nanjing during the massacre. Because US (or more precisely, MacArthur) planned to exonerated all imperial family members, somebody had to took the blame for the Nanjing Massacre instead of the Prince.
7. Koki Hirota : Prime minister from 1936 to 1937. Only civilian among the seven, his execution was the most controversial one because he didn’t participated in any war or war crime directly, sometimes even acted against the war. While there were other pro-war civilians charged and sentenced at the Tokyo Trial, Hirota was the only civilian to be sentenced to death. Probably he was executed as a symbol of civil government’s responsibility in the war (Perfect candidate to be blamed should have been Konoe Fumimaro, another prime minister for escalating 2nd Sino-Japanese War, but he committed suicide just before the arrest)
Also Hirota was known to be only executee among 7 who didn’t cry out “Tenno Heika Banzai!” at the moment of hanging.
Extra tidbit however, Japanese PM and overall asshole Nobusuke Kishi actually wrote some calligraphy on their graves, or grave sites or whatever. He is also a war criminal, who did horrible things. He was massively helped by the CIA to be PM in the late 50s because he was Anti-Communist. He resigned after the biggest protests in Japanese history after he tried to repeal Article 9 in 1960, and Abe was his grandson too btw.
It is crazy to me how the US went from persecuting war criminals to putting them in charge of countries but the cold war was a crazy time.
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After WW2, Allied nations sentenced 7 defendants to death by hanging for their war crimes in the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. US planned to cremate them and ditch the ashes at the Pacific like they did in Nazi Germany to prevent the idolization over remains.
However, a Japanese lawyer working at the Trial snatched some of these ashes and bones, hid them until Japan forgot the memory of war enough, and finally built the grave for those in 1958.
That’s the Grave of the Seven Martyrs(殉国七士廟) currently in Aichi Prefecture, Japan.
To introduce those ‘martyrs’ briefly…
1. Hideki Tojo : Probably don’t need a explanation.
2. Seishiro Itagaki : Minister of War from 1938 to 1939 and a commanding officer of 7th Area Army. Prime instigator of Manchurian Incident and also took part in the creation of infamous Unit 731
3. Kenji Doihara : Chief of the Intelligence at Kwantung Army. Prime instigator of Manchurian Incident.
4. Akira Muto : Chief of Staff at Central China Area Army. Took part in escalating Marco Polo Bridge Incident to full-blown war and participated in both Nanjing and Manila
5. Heitaro Kimura : Commanding officer of IJA Burma Area Army. When the British army arrived at the doorstep of Burma in 1945, he immediately ‘fled’ to Thailand on a plane without giving any direction to troops, abandoning whole army and civilians in complete disarray (among those abandoned were Burmese puppet-government and Free India of Chandra Bose). Later he get promoted to the rank of general for this act of ‘bravery’. However, his sentencing had some controversy because he was also charged for the Death Railway in Burma built during 1942~43 (while Kimura was assigned to Burma only in 1944 August)
6. Iwane Matsui : Commanding officer of Central China Area Army. While rightfully held accountable for many war crimes in China, he might have felt bit wronged for being held responsible for the Nanjing Massacre. He was known to be absent from command during Nanjing because of tuberculosis. Too bad that Prince Asakanomiya Yasuhiko, a member of Japanese Imperial Family, took the command of the IJA army in Nanjing during the massacre. Because US (or more precisely, MacArthur) planned to exonerated all imperial family members, somebody had to took the blame for the Nanjing Massacre instead of the Prince.
7. Koki Hirota : Prime minister from 1936 to 1937. Only civilian among the seven, his execution was the most controversial one because he didn’t participated in any war or war crime directly, sometimes even acted against the war. While there were other pro-war civilians charged and sentenced at the Tokyo Trial, Hirota was the only civilian to be sentenced to death. Probably he was executed as a symbol of civil government’s responsibility in the war (Perfect candidate to be blamed should have been Konoe Fumimaro, another prime minister for escalating 2nd Sino-Japanese War, but he committed suicide just before the arrest)
Also Hirota was known to be only executee among 7 who didn’t cry out “Tenno Heika Banzai!” at the moment of hanging.
[https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AE%89%E5%9B%BD%E4%B8%83%E5%A3%AB%E5%BB%9F](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AE%89%E5%9B%BD%E4%B8%83%E5%A3%AB%E5%BB%9F) The wiki page in Japanese, don’t speak it good enough to read but it has google translate even though that sucks for Japanese.
Extra tidbit however, Japanese PM and overall asshole Nobusuke Kishi actually wrote some calligraphy on their graves, or grave sites or whatever. He is also a war criminal, who did horrible things. He was massively helped by the CIA to be PM in the late 50s because he was Anti-Communist. He resigned after the biggest protests in Japanese history after he tried to repeal Article 9 in 1960, and Abe was his grandson too btw.
It is crazy to me how the US went from persecuting war criminals to putting them in charge of countries but the cold war was a crazy time.