Appeal to Japanese Prime Minister Abe

The Letter below was sent by the ADBC (American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor) Memorial Society President Joseph Vater to Mr. Joseph Y. Yun, Acting Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs on February 15, 2013 asking the Obama Administration to continue to press on the Government of Japan to honor its apology and commitments the American POWs of Japan and their descendants.

Unless the White House and the State Department hear from members of Congress and the American people, they will allow the Japanese government to end its remarkable program of reconciliation with the American and Allied POWs. It has the potential to be the model for other programs of sincere contrition and confidence building between Japan and its former adversaries.

Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is on the record saying that he wants to reconsidered Japan's past apologies and free Japan from its "masochistic" history of false blame. The apology to the American POWs is thus in jeopardy along with all other Japanese apologies.

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 Dear Mr. Yun:

As representative of the surviving POWs of Japan, their families, and descendants, the ADBC Memorial Society asks you to encourage Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during his visit next week to continue and expand his government’s visitation program to Japan for American former POWs.

The POW/Japan Friendship Program only initiated in 2010 has brought immeasurable benefit to the former POWs, their families, and to the U.S.-Japan relationship. As you can see from this representative note to our newsgroup, it has brought closure and peace of mind to its participants:

This program has really helped my Dad.  For years, Dad would have nightmares after any talk, show, or sometimes just because of his years as a POW.  Since our visit his nightmares have gone.  I cannot really put in words what that day at the Japanese Factory in Takaoka, Toyama, Japan did.  He has not forgotten or totally forgiven but there is now a peace to his remembrance. If you are able please consider participating in this program.  My Dad's memory is failing on his daily activities but he continues to recall his trip to Japan.  Now when he talks about his POW experience he can now add closure.  The audience is amazed at his story.  I was honored to go with Dad to Japan.  If you are a descendant please talk with your parent about the program.  It truly is a life changer.

                                                Debra Bergbower-Grunwald

                                                Daughter of Harold Bergbower,

            Past National Commander, ADBC

Impressions of former POWs who have participated in the POW/Japan Friendship Program are on the Outreach section of our website at www.dg-adbc.org.  The program is a solid example of a successful acknowledgement by Japan of Imperial Japan’s injustices. The Japanese government offered an official apology and followed it up with a program that confronts the past while preserving the dignities of both Americans and Japanese. 

It concerns us that the Abe Administration wants to limit the program to former POWs and possibly end the program this year.  Widows, children, and other descendants have also been affected by the former POW experience of their relative in Japan and they should be included in future programs.  We are concerned about how little the Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs publicizes the program’s accomplishments.  Most important, we are troubled by the Japanese companies that have refused to allow our nonagenarian POWs to visit the sites of their imprisonment and slave labor.

The success of this visitation program should encourage Japan to do more.  Still we wait for Japan’s great multi-national corporations to acknowledge their use of POW labor.  Still we wait for Japan to create national memorials to the POWs who slaved and died on Japanese soil.  And still we wait for Japan to establish a fund to continue this visitation program and expand it, as it did for other Allied POWs in 1995, to include research, documentation, and people-to-people exchanges.

We are grateful for the State Department’s past efforts to encourage the Japanese government to do the right thing by initiating a process of reconciliation.  This issue is even more poignant today as two Abe Cabinet members have family ties to companies that used POW slave labor during the war.

We ask that the Obama Administration insist that Japan preserve its visitation program for former POWs and expand this remarkable program to include family members and to initiate a plan to preserve their history.

Congressional Hearings on American POWs of Japan

It was not until 2000, that the U.S. Congress held hearings on how the 1951 San Francisco Peace treaty with Japan abrogated the right of American former POWs of Japan to sue Japanese companies for compensation for their forced labor or on how the POWs were treated in Japan in violation of the Geneva Convention.

There had also never been congressional discussion on how the POWs were treated upon return. Many were forced to sign military gag orders not to discuss any details of their imprisonment. Researchers have found that American POWs of Japan died at four times the rate of other veterans of WWII after their first year back. Further, POWs of Japan suffered the highest rate of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD, which was not given an official name until 1980) of any WWII veteran. (Soldier from the War Returning: The Greatest Generation's Troubled Homecoming from World War II by Thomas Childers, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009)

In 2000, the full Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on if and how the U.S. can assist POWs to obtain compensation for forced labor and inhumane imprisonment. In 2002, the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims of the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Justice for POWs Act, H.R. 1198 [107].

This legislation was popular in the 107th House of Representatives. Introduced by Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), there were 230 co-sponsors. Despite this strong support, much of it promoted by then-Majority Whip Tom "The Hammer" Delay, the bill never made it out of the three committees it was referred to, thus never getting to the floor of the House for a vote. There was also no companion legislation in the Senate (necessary for bill to become a law).

For a full analysis of all the legislation concerning the American POWs of Japan see "Critical Documents" on this blog: Legislative History. Below are the tables of contents of both hearings and the links to these documents. They are excellent compendiums of the issues involved with reconciliation and Japanese war crimes.

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON

DETERMINING WHETHER THOSE WHO PROFITED FROM THE
FORCED LABOR OF AMERICAN WORLD WAR II PRISONERS OF
WAR ONCE HELD AND FORCED INTO LABOR FOR PRIVATE
JAPANESE COMPANIES HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO REMEDY THEIR
WRONGS AND WHETHER THE UNITED STATES CAN HELP
FACILITATE AN APPROPRIATE RESOLUTION

JUNE 28, 2000

STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Hatch, Hon. Orrin G., U.S. Senator from the State of Utah ................................ 1

Feinstein, Hon. Dianne, U.S. Senator from the State of California ...................... 5

Grassley, Hon. Charles E., U.S. Senator from the State of Iowa ....................... 22

Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont ...................... 23

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Statement of Hon. Jeff Bingaman, U.S. Senator from the State of New Mexico.... 3

Panel consisting of David W. Ogden, Acting Assistant Attorney General,

Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice; and Ronald J. Bettauer, 

Deputy Legal Adviser, Department of State, Washington, DC............................. 6

Panel consisting of Harold W. Poole, former World War II prisoner of war

in Japan, Salt Lake City, UT; Frank Bigelow, former World War II prisoner

of war in Japan, Brooksville, FL; Maurice Mazer, former World War II

prisoner of war in Japan, Boca Raton, FL; Lester I. Tenney, former World

War II prisoner of war in Japan, LaJolla, CA; Edward Jackfert, former

World War II prisoner of war in Japan, and commander, American Defenders

of Bataan and Corregidor, Inc., Wellsburg, WV; and Harold G. Maier,

professor of law, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN .................................. 28

ALPHABETICAL LIST AND MATERIALS SUBMITTED

Bettauer, Ronald J.: Testimony.......................................................10

Prepared statement ....................................................................... 14

Bigelow, Frank: Testimony ............................................................ 31

Bingaman, Hon. Jeff: Testimony .......................................................3

Jackfert, Edward: Testimony .......................................................... 35

Maier, Harold G.: Testimony.......................................................... 38

Prepared statement ....................................................................... 39

Mazer, Maurice: Testimony ........................................................... 32

Ogden, David W.: Testimony .......................................................... 6

Prepared statement ......................................................................... 8

Poole, Harold W.: Testimony ......................................................... 28

Prepared statement ........................................................................ 29

Tenney, Lester I.: Testimony ........................................................... 33

APPENDIX

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Responses to questions of Senator Hatch from:

The Department of Justice ............................................................................ 47

Ronald J. Bettauer ......................................................................................... 53

ADDITIONAL SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Text of e-mail message to Senator Hatch from Rabbi Abraham Cooper of

the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Berlin, Germany, dated June 26, 2000 ............ 55

Prepared statements of:

Bruce R. Harder, director, National Security and Foreign Affairs, Veterans

of Foreign Wars of the United States .......................................................... 55

Linda G. Holmes ............................................................................................. 56

Chalmers Johnson .......................................................................................... 59

Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, dated Aug. 15, 1995....................... 61

Michael D. Ramsey ......................................................................................... 61

Paul W. Reuter ............................................................................................... 65

John M. Rogers ............................................................................................. 67

Joseph A. Violante ......................................................................................... 72

Letters to:

Senator Hatch from Edward Jackfert, past national commander, American

Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor, Inc., dated June 20, 2000 .............. 73

Stuart Eizenstat, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, from Michael

Engelberg, M.D., the American Center for Civil Justice, 

dated June 10, 2000 ..................................................................................... 74

Hiroaki Yano, president, Mitsubishi International Corp., from Michael

Engelberg, M.D., the American Center for Civil Justice, 

dated June 13, 2000 ..................................................................................... 74

Hiroshi Noda, Kawasaki Heavy Industries U.S.A.), Inc., from Michael

Engelberg, M.D., the American Center for Civil Justice, 

dated June 13, 2000 ...................................................................................... 75

Senator Hatch from Michael M. Honda, California State Legislature,

dated June 30, 2000 ..................................................................................... 75

Senator Hatch from Gilbert M. Hair, executive director, the Center for

Internee Rights, Inc., dated June 22, 2000 ............................................... 76

Chart: Information on U.S. POW’s held in World War II ........................ 78

Senator Hatch from John E. Julian, first selectman, Office of Selectman,

State of Connecticut ...................................................................................... 79

Senator Hatch from John F. Sommers, Jr., executive director, the American

Legion, dated June 27, 2000 ....................................................................... 79

Senator Hatch from Charles L. Taylor, AMVETS national commander,

dated June 26, 2000 .................................................................................... 80

Senator Hatch from Bob Weygand, Member of Congress, House of
Representatives, dated June 23, 2000 ...................................................... 80

      Senator Hatch from Frank G. Wickersham, III, national legislative director,

Military Order of the Purple Heart, dated June 23, 2000 ...................... 81

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