Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II,by Tanaka Yuki

Abstract

In Hidden Horrors Tanaka Yuki undertakes the ambitious project of trying to show the connections among the many examples of Japanese war crimes during World War II, specifically, the maltreatment and killing of prisoners of war, the abuse and rape of women, cannibalism by Japanese soldiers, biological warfare experiments, and civilian massacres. But rather than examine the most infamous examples of these war crimes, he focuses on little-known incidents that occurred in Borneo, Indonesia, and New Guinea. Tanaka's detailed narratives show that these incidents, although smaller in scale, were equally horrific and, in his analysis, manifestations of a broad systemic problem rather than isolated cases of madness.