"A detailed account by Lord Russell of Liverpool of the war crimes trials at Tokyo, which meted out the Allies' official justice for Japan's actions in World War II"-- The Knights of Bushido, Russell's account of Japanese brutality in the Pacific in World War II, carefully compiles evidence given at the trials themselves. Russell describes how the noble founding principles of the Empire of Japan were perverted by the military into a systematic campaign of torture, murder, starvation, rape, and destruction. Notorious incidents like the Nanking Massacre and the Bataan Death March emerge as merely part of a pattern. The Knights of Bushido details the horrors perpetrated by a military caught up in an ideological fervor. Often expecting death, the Japanese flouted the Geneva Convention (which they refused to ratify). They murdered aircrews, bayoneted prisoners, carried out arbitrary decapitations, and practiced medical vivisection. Their conduct in the Pacific is a harrowing example of the doctrine of mutual destruction carried to the extreme, and begs the question of what is acceptable-and unacceptable-in total war. Provided by publisher.

Includes index.

Foreword to the 2016 paperback edition -- From Mukden to Pearl Harbour -- The China incident -- The general treatment of prisoners of war -- The murder of captured aircrews -- Life and death on the Burma-Siam Railway -- The massacre and murder of prisoners of war -- The prison hulks -- The death marches -- The prison camps -- The civilian internment camps -- War crimes on the high seas -- Cannibalism, vivisection and mutilation -- Atrocities against the civilian population under Japanese occupation -- The Kempei Tai -- Retribution -- Appendix: Some legal aspects of war crimes trials.