在國際戰犯審判中的台籍戰犯: 被殖民者的戰爭與對「殖民戰爭責任」的一個新思考

(1)

科技部補助專題研究計畫成果報告

期末報告

N 在國際戰犯審判中的台籍戰犯: 被殖民者的戰爭與對「殖

民戰爭責任」的一個新思考

計畫類別：個別型計畫計畫編號： MOST 102-2410-H-004-241- 執行期間： 102 年 08 月 01 日至 104 年 01 月 31 日執行單位：國立政治大學歷史學系計畫主持人：藍適齊報告附件：移地研究心得報告出席國際會議研究心得報告及發表論文處理方式： 1.公開資訊：本計畫可公開查詢 2.「本研究」是否已有嚴重損及公共利益之發現：否 3.「本報告」是否建議提供政府單位施政參考：否

中華民國 104 年 03 月 28 日

(2)

中文摘要：在第二次世界大戰之後，有一百七十餘名台灣人在遭各個盟國以 B/C 級戰犯來審判並因而服刑，分別是澳大利亞(95 名台籍戰犯；超過台籍戰犯總數的 55%)、中國、荷蘭、英國和美國。其中 21 名被判處並執行死刑。遭判處死刑的台籍戰犯以在澳大利亞與英國軍事法庭中最多。本研究發現，他們大多數在戰爭當中擔任的是「通譯」的工作。而之所以這些臺灣人被指派在東南亞各戰地擔任正式或非正式的翻譯工作，主要是因爲他們身爲日本帝國的被殖民者所具備的特殊語言能力。他們的語言能力提供了這些臺灣人在戰爭的發展之下特別的（工作）機會；卻也導致了部分臺灣人被帶入他們無法抗拒的工作環境，進而涉入戰爭犯罪。身爲日本帝國的被殖民者的「台籍戰犯」，凸顯了在日本帝國與歐洲殖民帝國的競爭衝突之下所衍生出來的一種特殊的「殖民戰爭責任」。從跨國的脈絡之下來重建的「台籍戰犯」歷史, 同時也顯現了戰後英法荷等殖民國透過戰犯審判和其他針對其「被殖民者」的補償手段，來重新建立其在東南亞各地殖民統治的過程。中文關鍵詞：臺籍戰犯，二次世界大戰，通譯，英國戰犯審判，澳洲戰犯審判

英文摘要： After the Second World War, 173 Taiwanese who were recruited to serve in the Japanese military across Asia-Pacific during the war were convicted as war criminals. Based on studies of trial records and archival materials, this paper finds that among the 21 executed Taiwanese war criminals, at least 13 of them were convicted and consequently executed for crimes committed while serving as interpreters— formal and informal—during the war. In addition, a handful of Taiwanese interpreters were convicted as war criminals for various degrees of prison terms. While their number is small, the trials and

punishment of these Taiwanese interpreters as war criminals provide a new perspective to understand the history of interpretation/interpreters in

colonial/post-colonial and wartime context. Trial records— particularly the details of “victims＂ and convicted “crime＂—of British courts set up in Singapore, Penang, and Kuala Lumpar and Dutch courts in the present-day Indonesia shows that most

(3)

committed against “local civilians＂. This paper argues that it was their language proficiency and interpretation duty brought/forced many Taiwanese serving in the Japanese military into close and frequent contact with the local population, particularly the Chinese, and thereby led to

occasions in which these Taiwanese interpreters were involved in the alleged crime. In addition, this paper studies several cases of Taiwanese informal interpreters who committed crimes against Chinese prisoners of war (POWs) and were put on trial in the Australian courts held in Rabaul. It finds that while these Taiwanese were originally recruited as

laborers, they were assigned to ad hoc interpretation duty because of their language proficiency under the contingency in the battlefields.

英文關鍵詞： Taiwanese war criminals, the Second World War, interpreters, British war crime trials, Australian war crime trials

(4)

科技部補助專題研究計畫成果報告

（期末報告）

在國際戰犯審判中的台籍戰犯:

被殖民者的戰爭與對「殖民戰爭責任」的一個新思考

計畫類別：個別型計畫計畫編號：MOST 102-2410-H-194- 015 執行期間：102 年 8 月 1 日至 104 年 1 月 31 日執行機構及系所：國立中正大學歷史系，102 年 8 月 1 日至 103 年 7 月 31 日國立政治大學歷史系，103 年 8 月 1 日至 104 年 1 月 31 日計畫主持人：藍適齊助理教授共同主持人：無計畫參與人員：兼任助理人員－中正大學歷史所碩士班學生許凱婷兼任助理人員－中正大學歷史所碩士班學生侯淑娟兼任助理人員－嘉義大學碩士班學生黃華浩兼任助理人員－中正大學歷史系學生林思琪本計畫除繳交成果報告外，另含下列出國報告，共 2 份： 執行國際合作與移地研究心得報告 出席國際學術會議心得報告期末報告處理方式： 1. 公開方式：非列管計畫亦不具下列情形，立即公開查詢 2.「本研究」是否已有嚴重損及公共利益之發現：否 3.「本報告」是否建議提供政府單位施政參考 否中華民國 104 年 3 月 22 日附件一

(5)

Crime of Interpreting: Taiwanese Interpreters as War Criminals of the Second World War 成爲戰犯的臺灣人戰爭通譯中英文摘要在第二次世界大戰之後，有一百七十餘名台灣人在遭各個盟國以 B/C 級戰犯來審判並因而服刑，分別是澳大利亞(95 名台籍戰犯; 超過台籍戰犯總數的 55%)、中國、荷蘭、英國和美國。其中 21 名被判處並執行死刑。遭判處死刑的台籍戰犯以在澳大利亞與英國軍事法庭中最多。本研究發現，他們大多數在戰爭當中擔任的是「通譯」的工作。而之所以這些臺灣人被指派在東南亞各戰地擔任正式或非正式的翻譯工作，主要是因爲他們身爲日本帝國的被殖民者所具備的特殊語言能力。他們的語言能力提供了這些臺灣人在戰爭的發展之下特別的（工作）機會；卻也導致了部分臺灣人被帶入他們無法抗拒的工作環境，進而涉入戰爭犯罪。身爲日本帝國的被殖民者的「台籍戰犯」，凸顯了在日本帝國與歐洲殖民帝國的競爭衝突之下所衍生出來的一種特殊的「殖民戰爭責任」。從跨國的脈絡之下來重建的「台籍戰犯」歷史, 同時也顯現了戰後英法荷等殖民國透過戰犯審判和其他針對其「被殖民者」的補償手段，來重新建立其在東南亞各地殖民統治的過程。

After the Second World War, 173 Taiwanese who were recruited to serve in the Japanese military across Asia-Pacific during the war were convicted as war criminals. Based on studies of trial records and archival materials, this paper finds that among the 21 executed Taiwanese war criminals, at least 13 of them were convicted and consequently executed for crimes committed while serving as interpreters—formal and

informal—during the war. In addition, a handful of Taiwanese interpreters were convicted as war criminals for various degrees of prison terms. While their number is small, the trials and punishment of these Taiwanese interpreters as war criminals provide a new perspective to understand the history of interpretation/interpreters in colonial/post-colonial and wartime context. Trial records— particularly the details of “victims” and

convicted “crime”—of British courts set up in Singapore, Penang, and Kuala Lumpar and Dutch courts in the present-day Indonesia shows that most Taiwanese interpreters were convicted of crimes committed against “local civilians”. This paper argues that it was their language proficiency and interpretation duty

brought/forced many Taiwanese serving in the Japanese military into close and frequent contact with the local population, particularly the Chinese, and thereby led to occasions in which these Taiwanese interpreters were involved in the alleged crime. In addition, this paper studies several cases of Taiwanese informal interpreters who committed crimes against Chinese prisoners of war (POWs) and were put on trial in the Australian courts held in Rabaul. It finds that while these Taiwanese were originally recruited as laborers, they were assigned to

ad hoc interpretation duty because of their language proficiency under the contingency in the battlefields.

關鍵詞

臺籍戰犯，二次世界大戰，通譯，英國戰犯審判，澳洲戰犯審判

Taiwanese war criminals, the Second World War, interpreters, British war crime trials, Australian war crime trials

(6)

報告內容

Introduction

After the Second World War ended in 1945, the Allied countries conducted extensive war crime trials against Germany and Japan. While post-war trials of the major (Class A) war criminals, such as the Nuremburg Trial and the Tokyo Trial, continue to attract a good deal of scholarly attention more than half a century after the trials,1 trials of the minor (Class B/C) war criminals have been relatively under-studied.2 In spite of their much larger number—more than 4400 were convicted,3 Class B/C war criminals have received disproportionally little attention in the academia.

Among the Japanese Class B/C war criminals, it is particularly worth noting—though often

neglected—that there were a significant number of former colonial subjects, namely Taiwanese (Formosans)

1_{For example, see recent works on the Nuremburg Trial by Eugene Davidson, The Trial of the Germans: an account of the}

twenty-two defendants before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997);

Whitney R. Harris, Tyranny on Trial: The Trial of the Major War Criminals at the End of World War II at Nuremberg, Germany,

1945-1946 (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1999); Guénaël Mettraux, ed., Perspectives on the Nuremberg Trial.

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). For the Tokyo Trial, see Tim Maga, Judgment at Tokyo: The Japanese war crimes trials (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2001); Yuma Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: the pursuit of justice in the wake of

World War II (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008); Kayoko Takeda, Interpreting the Tokyo War Crimes Trial: A sociopolitical analysis (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2010). Interest in the Tokyo Trial is further extended by

personal account of persons who were involved in the trial, see for example Drexel A. Sprecher, Inside the Nuremberg Trial: A

Prosecutor’s Comprehensive Account (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1999); Norbert Ehrenfreund, The Nuremberg Legacy: How the Nazi War Crimes Trials Changed the Course of History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Elaine B Fischel, Defending the Enemy: Justice for the WWII Japanese war criminals (Minneapolis: Bascom Hills Books, 2009).

2_{The few exceptions are works by Philip Piccigallo, The Japanese on Trial (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1979); Alan}

B. Lyon, Japanese War Crimes: The Trials of the Naoetsu Camp Guards (Loftus, Australia: Australian Military History Publications, 2000)

3

A total of 5700 were put on trial, and 4403 were convicted. See 法務大臣官房司法法制調查部編刊,『戰爭犯罪裁判概史要』， 1973， 266-269 頁, 轉引自内海愛子，『キムはなぜ裁かれたのか : 朝鮮人 BC 級戰犯の軌跡』，東京都 : 朝日新聞, 2008， 7 頁。

(7)

and Koreans who served in the Japanese military during the war. According to existing documents, 173 Taiwanese were convicted in war crime trials after the war. Among these Taiwanese war criminals (TWCs), 26 were sentenced to death (and 21 were consequently executed).4 In comparison, there were a total of 148 Koreans war criminals (KWC), among them 23 were sentenced to death.5

It was reported that during the war, more than 80,000 Taiwanese-native soldiers and more than 126,000 Taiwanese “auxiliary military personnel” were recruited or mobilized by the Japanese colonial and military authorities. Among them, there were more than 30,000 casualties.6 It would be fair to conclude that by the end of the war, more than 200,000 Taiwanese had fought—as “Japanese”—for the Empire and Emperor of Japan in the Second World War. The Japanese wartime mobilization of the Taiwanese certainly constituted part of what Takashi Fujitani has called “politics of disavowal”.7 But in comparison, the history of Taiwanese

4

The number of Taiwanese war criminals sentenced to death is given as 26 in most accounts; see Zhong 2001, p.262 and Li 2005, pp.4, 6. However, it should be noted that the Japanese source quoted by Zhong further explains that 5 of the 26 TWCs who were recorded as “dead” were those who died, of illness or suicide, during imprisonment. See 東京裁判ハンドブツク編集委員會編, 東京裁判ハンドブツク tokyo saiban handobukku (Tokyo: Aoki, 1989), p.225. This account is confirmed by the Name List of Korean- and Taiwanese-native War Criminals, an official record compiled by the Bureau of Repatriation and Emergence Aid of Japan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare (Kosei-sho) in 1955 (hereafter as MHW Name List) 日本厚生省引揚援護局，《韓國臺灣 出身戰爭裁判受刑者名簿》（昭和 30 年 12 月 1 日现在）, in which 2 under the Australian jurisdiction were listed as “death from accident”, 1 under the Australian jurisdiction was listed as “death from illness”, 1 under the Australian jurisdiction was listed as “death from suicide”, and 1 under the Chinese jurisdiction was listed as “death from illness” (pp.36-38). Thereby, this paper confirms that 26 TWCs were recorded as “dead”, and among them 21 were actually executed.

It should be further noted that, as this paper will further explain in the later section on the Australian trials, 5 TWCs who were sentenced to death were commuted to life imprisonment on 27th June 1947, and thereby spared of death. With the other 21 TWCs who were executed, this paper confirms that the total number of TWCs sentenced to death is 26.

5_{MHW Name List, p.4. The number is identical to the number given in other scholarly works, see Utsumi Aiko chosenjin bishikyu}

senpan no kiroku (Tokyo: Keisoshobo, 1982) 内海愛子, 《朝鮮人 BC 級戦犯の記録》 (東京：勁草書房, 1982), p.ii; and Tokyo saiban handobukku henshu iinkai, Tokyo saiban handobukku (Tokyo: Aoki, 1989) 東京裁判ハンドブツク編集委員會編, 《東京 裁判ハンドブツク》(東京：青木書房, 1989), p.225.

6_{Cai Jintang, Zhanzheng tizhi xia de Taiwan （Taipei: Richuangshe, 2006）蔡錦堂，}_{《戰爭體制下的臺灣》（臺北：日創社文}

化事業有限公司，2006）, p.121.

7_{Takashi Fujitani, Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans during World War II (Berkeley: University}

of California Press, 2011).

(8)

mobilized by the Japanese during the Second World War is rather under-studied, if not ignored,8 and Taiwanese who had served in the Japanese military remains, to paraphrase from Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, the “forgotten armies” of the War.9

And not surprisingly, the history of Taiwanese war criminals has drawn very little attention so far.10 Based on the records available today, Taiwanese war criminals were put on trials at military tribunals by five

8

Most studies are oral history published in Chinese in the 1990s; see Zheng Liling, Taiji Ribenbing de “zhanzheng jingyan” [war experiences of Taiwanese-native Japanese soldiers] (Banchiao: Taipei xianli wenhua zhongxin, 1995); Chou Wan-yao (Zhou Wanyao), ed.. Taiji Ribenbing zuotanhui jilu bing xiangguan ziliao [record from the roundtable discussion by Taiwanese-native Japanese soldiers and related materials] (Taipei: Institute of Taiwan History Preparatory Office, Academia Sinica, 1997); Pan Guozheng, Tianhuang dianxia no chizi [loyal sons of his excellence the Tenno] (Xinzhu: Qifengtang chubanshe, 1997); Hui-yu Caroline Ts’ai (Cai, Huiyu), ed., Zouguo liangge shidai de ren: Taiji Riben bing [original English title: The Lives and Times of Taiwanese Veterans] (Taipei: Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, 1997); Tang Xiyong and Chen Yiru, eds., Taibeishi

Taiji Ribenbing chafang zhuanji [special investigative report on Taiwanese-native Japanese soldier in Taipei city] (Taipei: Taibeishi

wenxian weiyuanhui, Taipei Municipal Government, 2001). In addition, only a handful of scholarly works have studied this topic, see Chou Wan-yao (Zhou Wanyao), Haixing xi de niandai: Riben zhimin tongzhi moqi Taiwanshi lunji (The era of sea voyage: collection of works on the history of the final stage of the Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan) (Taipei: Yunchen wenhua, 2002); Cai Jintang, Zhanzheng tizhi xia de Taiwan [Taiwan under the wartime institutions] (Taipei: Richuangshe, 2006). And only a few works are available for the English-speaking readers, see Chen Yingzhen, “Imperial Army Betrayed”, in T. Fujitani, Geoffrey M. White, and Lisa Yoneyama, eds., Perilous Memories: The Asia-Pacific War(s) (Durham and London: Duke University Press 2003),

pp.181-198; Chih-huei Huang, “The Yamatodamashi of the Takasago volunteers of Taiwan: A reading of the postcolonial situation”, in Harumi Befu and Sylvie Guichard-Anguis, eds., Globalizing Japan: Ethnography of the Japanese Presence in Asia, Europe, and

America (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), pp.222-250. Study of this “ignorance” in historiography and its significance in

postwar Taiwan, see Shichi Mike Lan, “(Re-)Writing History of the Second World War: Forgetting and Remembering the Taiwanese-native Japanese Soldiers in Postwar Taiwan”, positions: Asia Critique, Vol.21, No.4, Fall 2013, pp.801-852

9

Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Asian Empire and the War with Japan (London: Penguin, 2005).

10

Zhong Shumin has written several works on this topic, see Zhong Shumin, “Fulu shourongsuo: jindai taiwanshi de yiduan beige [Prisoners of war internment camps: a sad story in modern Taiwan history]”, in Cao Yonghe xiansheng bashi shouqing lunwenji bianji weiyuanhui, ed., Cao Yonghe xiansheng bashi shouqing lunwenji [papers compiled in honor of the eightieth birthday of Mr Cao Yonghe] (Taipei: Lexue shuju, 2001) 鍾淑敏，〈俘虜收容所──近代臺灣史的一段悲歌〉，收於《曹永和先生八十壽慶論文集》（臺北：樂學書局, 2001），pp.261-288; and Zhong Shumin, “Zhanzheng zuifan yu zhanhou chuli: yi fulu shourongsuo jianshiyuan wei zhongxin [war crime and postwar settlement: focusing on the guards at prisoners of war interment camps]”, paper presented at the International Conference on Social and Economic Transformation in Postwar Taiwan, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, Taipei, December 23-24, 2009. In addition, Li Zhanping has conducted extensive interview with former TSJ and published two books based on oral history, see Li Zhanping, Qianjin poluozhou: taiji zhanfu jianshiyuan [Going to Borneo:

(9)

different Allied countries: Australia, China, Holland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Among them, Australia convicted the largest number of Taiwanese war criminals (95), followed by China (41), the United Kingdom (26), the Netherland (7), and the US/the Philippines (4).11

Earlier studies have pointed out that most of the 173 Taiwanese war criminals were former camp guards of the Allied prisoners of war (POWs) in Southeast Asia.12 And it has been further pointed out that among these Taiwanese camp guards who were tried as war criminals, 8 were sentenced to death.13 The “Name List of Korean- and Taiwanese-native War Criminals” (《韓國臺灣出身戰爭裁判受刑者名簿》), an official record compiled by the Bureau of Repatriation and Emergence Aid of Japan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare (Kosei-sho 日本厚生省引揚援護局) in 1955 (hereafter as MHW Name List), also confirms that the majority of Taiwanese (and Korean) war criminals were former POW camp guards,14 followed by “interpreters” working for military police, and then “ordinary people”. However, A closer look at the MHW Name List shows that in terms of the wartime designation and job profile of those Taiwanese war criminals who were sentenced to the death penalty, the group of “interpreters” is the most significant: a total of 11 Taiwanese who were formally designated as “interpreters” were sentenced to death and executed. In comparison, 5 other executed TWCs were POW camp guards, 3 were auxiliary military personnel who worked at warehouses, 2 were police officers, and 1 was businessman.15

Taiwanese-native guards of prisoners of war] (Nantou: Guoshi guan Taiwan wenxian guan [Taiwan archive section, Academic Historica], 2005), and Li Zhanping Zhanhuo wenshen de jianshiyuan: taiji zhanfu beige [Camp guards tattooed by the war: Taiwanese prisoners of war] (Nantou: Guoshi guan Taiwan wenxian guan, 2007).

11_{Nippon Kosei-sho Hikiage engo-kyoku, 《Kankoku Taiwan Shusshin Senso Saiban Jukeisha Meibo》 ;《Taiwan Shusshin Senso}

Hanzai Saiban Shibotsusha Ichiran》日本厚生省引揚援護局，《韓國臺灣出身戰爭裁判受刑者名簿》；《臺灣出身戰爭犯罪裁判死歿者一覽》[Bureau of Repatriation and Relief, Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, Name List of Korean- and

Taiwanese-native War Criminals; List of Executed and Dead Taiwanese War Criminals] （昭和 30 年 12 月 1 日现在）1955, p.4.

12_{Zhong 2001, p.262; Li 2005, pp.6-7.} 13

The number is 8 from a chart compiled by Zhong Shumin, based on 3 different works of war crime documents compiled by Japanese scholar Chaen Yoshio; see Zhong 2001, pp.280-281.

14_{Nippon Kosei-sho Hikiage engo-kyoku, 《Kankoku Taiwan Shusshin Senso Saiban Jukeisha Meibo》日本厚生省引揚援護局，}

《韓國臺灣出身戰爭裁判受刑者名簿》 [Bureau of Repatriation and Relief, Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, Name List

of Korean- and Taiwanese-native War Criminals] （昭和 30 年 12 月 1 日现在）1955, p.2.

15_{The number of executed former POW camp guards adds up to 5 (number by countries: 1 by the United States, 8 sentenced to}

death by Australia but only 4 were executed), see Nippon Kosei-sho Hikiage engo-kyoku, 《Kankoku Taiwan Shusshin Senso

(10)

While existing scholarship and oral history have studied and provided a better understanding of

Taiwanese who had served as POW camp guards,16 very few scholarly works have examined the Taiwanese “interpreters” in military service.17 Furthermore, so far no work on war crimes has studied or provided any explanation to the high number of former “interpreters” put on trails and convicted as war criminals. While the killing and/or ill treatment of the Allied POWs has been identified in war crime tribunals as the major reason behind the death sentence handed down to most Taiwanese camp guards,18 no reason has been clearly defined or identified to explain the death sentence handed down to Taiwanese “interpreters”. Zhong Shumin points out, in her most recent work on POW camps and Taiwanese camp guards, that many Taiwanese

interpreters were prosecuted and later received severe sentence in war crime tribunals in China, Indonesia (the Dutch courts), and Malaya (the British courts). Zhong further identifies that the charges against these

interpreters were often recorded in the available fragmented court records simply as “ill-treatment” or “killing” of local residents.19 But what exactly did these “interpreters” do during the war that was later considered as a sufficient ground to indict them as war criminals and to sentence some of them to death? Why and in what context did these “interpreters” change their job responsibilities from undertaking interpretation, supposedly between the Japanese military/police forces and local residents, to committing “ill-treatment” or

Saiban Jukeisha Meibo》日本厚生省引揚援護局，《韓國臺灣出身戰爭裁判受刑者名簿》 [Bureau of Repatriation and Relief, Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, Name List of Korean- and Taiwanese-native War Criminals] （昭和 30 年 12 月 1 日现 在）1955, pp.4, 36-38。.

16_{For works in Chinese, see Zhong 2001, Li 2005, and Zhong 2009. In comparison, there are many more Japanese works on the}

topic of Koreans serving as POW camp guards during the war, see note 6.

17_{Few exceptions are: Xu Xueji’s work that studies the general condition of Taiwanese serving as interpreters during the Japanese}

colonial period, see Xu Xueji, “Rizhi shiqi taiwan de tongyi [Taiwanese interpreters of the Japanese-rule period]” Fu Jen Historical Journal, No.18 (2006) 許雪姬, 〈日治時期台灣的通譯〉，《輔仁歷史學報》，第 18 輯（2006）, pp.1-35; Chen Wanpin, Interpreter’s National Identity: The Case Studies of War Interpreters during Kominka Period in Taiwan. MA Thesis, Fu Jen Catholic University, 陳宛頻, 通譯的國族認同之探討: 以皇民化時代戰場通譯為例. 輔仁大學碩士論文, 2013. I would like to thank Miss Chen for her generosity in sending me her thesis.

18_{See personal account and recollection by former Taiwanese war criminals in Li 2005, p.14, 42-43, 56, 89, 91, 134. Scholars also}

made the same conclusion based on court records and archival materials, see Li 2005, pp.116-121, 138, 142, 153-154; Zhong 2001, pp.279-287; and Zhong 2009, pp.1, 11.

19

Zhong 2009, pp.5-7.

(11)

“killing”? This paper will utilize archival materials, focusing on the 21 executed TWCs, and try to study the history of Taiwanese wartime interpreters who were convicted as war criminals after the war.

Taiwanese as Wartime Interpreters

As a land of many waves of immigrants and foreign rulers, Taiwan is a place full of cross- cultural/ cross-lingual interaction since the ancient time. Among its aboriginal population of Austronesian origin (consist of more than a dozen major tribes, each with its own distinct language), the Chinese migrants (consist of many distinct ‘dialect’ groups from various parts of southern China) from the 16th to the 19th century, the

Dutch, the Spaniards, the Japanese, and the second major wave of Chinese migrants after 1945, the

‘language-scape’ of Taiwan has been highly diversified and evolving over history. Expectedly, there must be a constant need for, and thereby a great deal of stories about, interpretation. But so far, little has been written about interpreters in Taiwan, not to mention Taiwanese who performed interpretation in military operation during wartime.

Interpreters in general have attracted a great deal of scholarly attention. Many—if not most—interpreters who got recognized, and thereby studied by scholars, are individuals who interpreted for “great men”, such as the interpreters of Napoleon, George Washington, and Woodrow Wilson;20 some were themselves close to become “great men” as they also served as diplomats.21 As scholars point out, “Interpreting and diplomacy have tended to overlap”.22 However, interpreters were present and needed in many other occasions. In the time of wars, for example, interpreters were deployed long before diplomatic efforts came in to settle conflicts, and long after military conflicts were ceased. They were indispensable in the occupation of a foreign land (and its people), in interrogation of enemy soldiers, and in intelligence work, just to name a few examples. These unique conditions have led to scholars’ recent interest in studying wartime interpreters—particularly in relations to politics of language, identity, and justice—in the context of Asia, Europe, and elsewhere.23 But

20_{Jean Delisle and Judith Woodsworth, eds., Translators through History (Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 1995), pp.267, 270} 21

Jean Delisle and Judith Woodsworth, eds., Translators through History (Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 1995), pp.269-272

22_{Jean Delisle and Judith Woodsworth, eds., Translators through History (Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 1995), p.274.} 23

See recent studies by Myriam Salama-Carr, ed., Translating and Interpreting Conflicts (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007); Hilary Footitt and Kelly, Michael, eds., Languages and the Military: Alliances, Occupation and Peace Building (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), particularly Part IV. Alice Kaplan has produced two fascinating accounts of military interpreters in France in the Second World War, see The Interpreter (University of Chicago Press, 2005); and Louis Guilloux (Alice Kaplan, trans.) Ok, Joe (University of Chicago Press, 2003). For studies of wartime interpreters in the Asian context, see Hyung-ju

(12)

similar to the “unknown soldiers”, wartime interpreters were often forgotten and became unknown once the war ended, and thereby hardly recorded, recognized, or studied.

In light of the issue of military and language, this paper will discuss two groups of Taiwanese wartime interpreters who were convicted as war criminals—and many executed—after the war. Group 1 consists of Taiwanese wartime interpreters who had formal interpreter status during the war. They were officially designated as “interpreters” (通譯, as tsu-yaku in Japanese or tongyi in Chinese), as recorded in official Japanese documents.24 This group consisted of those Taiwanese who served as interpreters under the Japanese military police (J: kempetai) during the war, and many were convicted after the war in the British, the Dutch, and the Chinese courts. Most of them were sentenced to death and executed; others were sentenced to various prison terms. Group 2 consists of Taiwanese wartime interpreters who had informal or ad hoc

interpretation duty during the war. They were Taiwanese who were originally recruited and designated NOT

as formal “interpreters” in military service, but were (re-)assigned—because of language proficiency—to perform interpretation under the contingency in the battlefields. Similar to Group 1, those in Group 2 were put on war crime trials after the war, and several were sentenced to death.

As mentioned earlier, 11 out of the 21 executed TWCs had the job classification as “interpreters”; 6 were convicted and executed by the United Kingdom, 3 by ROC, and 2 by the Netherland.25 These TWCs made up the majority of Group 1. If we look more closely at each Allied country’s trial, in the British trials, a total of 6 TWCs were convicted and executed between 1946 and 1948, and all of the 6 were interpreters. In addition, the British courts convicted 3 more Taiwanese interpreters (sentenced for imprisonment of 6 months, 3 years, and 8 years respectively). In the ROC trials, a total of 5 TWCs convicted and executed, and 3 of them were interpreters. In the Dutch trials, a total of 2 TWCs convicted and executed, and both of them were

Ahn, Between Two Adversaries: Korean Interpreters at Japanese Alien Enemy Detention Centers during World War II (Fullterton, California: Oral History Program, California State University, 2002); Yong Hyun Kim, Susanne Kim Nelson ed. Into the Vortex of

War: A Korean Interpreter’s Close Encounter with the Enemy. (Author House, 2008).

24_{This article uses the term「通訳」(tsu-yaku), instead of 「通訳者」, because in documents such as《Kankoku Taiwan Shusshin}

Senso Saiban Jukeisha Meibo》《韓國臺灣出身戰爭裁判受刑者名簿》 [Name List of Korean- and Taiwanese-native War

Criminals] and Japanese trial reports compiled by 茶園義男, these Taiwanese were listed as「通訳」(tsu-yaku).

25_{Nippon Kosei-sho Hikiage engo-kyoku, 《Kankoku Taiwan Shusshin Senso Saiban Jukeisha Meibo》 ;日本厚生省引揚援護}

局，《韓國臺灣出身戰爭裁判受刑者名簿》[Bureau of Repatriation and Relief, Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, Name List

of Korean- and Taiwanese-native War Criminals]（昭和 30 年 12 月 1 日）1955； Kosei-sho Engo-kyoku,《Taiwan Shusshin Senso Hanzai Saiban Shibotsusha Ichiran》厚生省援護局,《臺灣出身戰爭犯罪裁判死歿者一覽》[Bureau of Relief, Ministry of Health and Welfare, List of Executed and Dead Taiwanese-native War Criminals] (昭和 43 年 8 月 26 日) 1968

(13)

interpreters. These numbers show that the rate of conviction of death sentence was unusually high among

Group 1.

In terms of job portfolio, in the British trials, 3 out of the 6 TWCs-wartime interpreters executed had served with the Penang Military Police (kempetai) during the war; one had served with the Kuala Lumpur Military Police; one had served in the military forces in Car Nicobar Island; the other had served with the police force in Kuala Besut, Malaya.26 The other 3 TWCs-military interpreters convicted to various terms of imprisonment in the British trials served respectively with the Penang Military Police27, Borneo Military Police28, and Singapore Military Police.29 Conspicuously, Taiwanese who served as wartime interpreters were closely associated with the Military Police. It is well recognized that during the Second World War, Japanese Military Police was widely deployed in the occupied areas to be in charge of maintaining social order, more often than not through means of terror against local residents. And this is consistent with the trial records of TWCs convicted by the British. According to rather limited records of the British trials available today, the alleged crimes of TWCs were mostly mistreatment/torture of local civilian residents. Among the 6 TWCs-military interpreters executed by the British, those 3 who had served with the Penang Military Police were accused of “torturing, interrogating, and causing death of local residents” in Penang and “interrogating and causing death of civilians” in Taiping;30 the one who had served with the Kuala Lumpur Military Police was accused of “interrogating local residents”31; the one who had served in the military forces in Car Nicobar

26

Nippon Kosei-sho Hikiage engo-kyoku, 《Kankoku Taiwan Shusshin Senso Saiban Jukeisha Meibo》 ;日本厚生省引揚援護局，《韓國臺灣出身戰爭裁判受刑者名簿》[Bureau of Repatriation and Relief, Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, Name List

of Korean- and Taiwanese-native War Criminals]（昭和 30 年 12 月 1 日）1955； Kosei-sho Engo-kyoku,《Taiwan Shusshin Senso Hanzai Saiban Shibotsusha Ichiran》厚生省援護局,《臺灣出身戰爭犯罪裁判死歿者一覽》[Bureau of Relief, Ministry of Health and Welfare, List of Executed and Dead Taiwanese-native War Criminals] (昭和 43 年 8 月 26 日) 1968.

27

茶園義男編.解說, BC 級戦犯英軍裁判資料(上). 東京都 : 不二出版社 1988 Chaen Yoshio, BC-kyū senpan Eigun saiban

shiryō [records of the British trials of Class B/C war criminals] top part (Tōkyō : Fuji Shuppan, 1988)，p.117.

28_{茶園義男編.解說, BC 級戦犯英軍裁判資料(上). 東京都 : 不二出版社 1988 Chaen Yoshio, BC-}_{kyū senpan Eigun saiban}

shiryō [records of the British trials of Class B/C war criminals] top part (Tōkyō : Fuji Shuppan, 1988)，p.133

29_{茶園義男編.解說, BC 級戦犯英軍裁判資料(下). 東京都：不二出版社 Chaen Yoshio, BC-}_{kyū senpan Eigun saiban shiryō}

[records of the British trials of Class B/C war criminals] bottom part (Tōkyō : Fuji Shuppan, 1989)，p.164

shiryō [records of the British trials of Class B/C war criminals] top part (Tōkyō : Fuji Shuppan, 1988)，pp.112-113.

(14)

Island was accused of “torturing, interrogating, and causing death of local residents”;32 and the other one who had served with the police force in Malaya was accused of “torturing and causing death of local residents”.33 In addition, there were 3 other TWCs-military interpreters convicted to various terms of imprisonment: the one had served with the Penang Military Police was accused of “torturing local residents”34; the one who had served with the Borneo Military Police was accused of “torturing Chinese”35; and while the alleged crime of the one who had served with the Singapore Military Police was not specified in the available record,36 it is reasonable to assume, based on the typical activities of Military Police, that the alleged crime was also dealing with local residents.

The cases of Taiwanese interpreters convicted in the British trials clearly show that the job as interpreters brought these Taiwanese into close contact with “local residents” during the war, and their alleged crimes—and the consequence of conviction (and in some cases, execution) in war crime trials—were partly resulted from their involvement with local residents. The same can be found in the Dutch and ROC trials. One of the 2 TWCs-military interpreters executed by the Dutch was convicted in a trial in Batavia, for crimes committed in “organized terror in interrogation of civilians” and “interrogating and supervising civilians” using “inhumane means” while he was serving with the Military Police;37 the other was convicted in a trial in Medan, for crimes committed in “mistreatment of suspects, organized terror”, whom most likely would be

32_{茶園義男編.解說, BC 級戦犯英軍裁判資料(下). 東京都：不二出版社 Chaen Yoshio, BC-}_{kyū senpan Eigun saiban shiryō}

[records of the British trials of Class B/C war criminals] bottom part (Tōkyō : Fuji Shuppan, 1989)，pp.159-160

33_{茶園義男編.解說, BC 級戦犯英軍裁判資料(上). 東京都 : 不二出版社 Chaen Yoshio, BC-}_{kyū senpan Eigun saiban shiryō}

[records of the British trials of Class B/C war criminals] top part (Tōkyō : Fuji Shuppan, 1988)，p.123.

34_{茶園義男編.解說, BC 級戦犯英軍裁判資料(上). 東京都 : 不二出版社, 1988 Chaen Yoshio, BC-}_{kyū senpan Eigun saiban}

36_{茶園義男編.解說, BC 級戦犯英軍裁判資料(下). 東京都：不二出版社, 1989 Chaen Yoshio, BC-}_{kyū senpan Eigun saiban}

shiryō [records of the British trials of Class B/C war criminals] bottom part (Tōkyō : Fuji Shuppan, 1989)，p.164

37_{茶園義男編, BC 級戦犯和蘭裁判資料-全卷通覽. 東京都 : 不二出版社, 1992 Chaen Yoshio}_,_BC-_{kyū senpan Oranda saiban}

shiryō zenkan tsūran [records of the Dutch trials of Class B/C war criminals] (Tōkyō : Fuji Shuppan, 1992), p.93; 巢鴨法務委員會

編, 戰犯裁判の実相. 上卷. 東京都 : 不二出版社, 1981 , p.100

(15)

local residents, while he was serving with the Military Police.38 And in the ROC trials, one of the 3 TWCs-military interpreters executed had served with the Guangdong Navy Military Police, and was convicted with “illegal arrest, confinement, torturing, and causing death” of local residents”39; and another one served with the South China Army Military Police.40

Further archival research on the British, Dutch, and Chinese trial records is needed in the future to examine more details and provide a fuller picture of those Taiwanese interpreters. At the moment, this paper has to rely on secondary sources to study individual cases. One of the better-studied Taiwanese

interpreters/convicted TWCs is Yasuda Muneharu.41 Yasuda was recruited into the Japanese military in November 1941, specifically as an “interpreter of Annanese (Vietnamese)” of the rank of gunzoku (military auxiliary personnel).42 He was first dispatched to Malaya, then Sumatra, and was stationed in Car Nicobar Island, an island of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean at the end of the war.43 After the Japanese surrender, Yasuda was arrested for alleged war crime and sent to Singapore for trial. He was convicted by the British court and sentenced to death in March 1946; executed in Singapore in May 194644

Thanks to earlier research done by Japanese scholar Kimura Kōichirō, we are able to get a glimpse into the training before deployment and the actual activities and experiences of a Taiwanese military interpreter in the battlefields through Yasuda’s case—particularly the trial records as hold in the Public Record Office in London. Records retrieved by Kimura show that Yasuda was born in a village near Taipei in 1907, given the Chinese name of Lai Enqin. In 1941, at the Southern Association in Taiwan, Yasuda attended

38_{巢鴨法務委員會編, 戰犯裁判の実相. 上卷. 東京都 : 不二出版社, 1981 , p.118.}

39_{茶園義男編, BC 級戦犯軍事法廷資料—廣東編. 東京都 : 不二出版社, 1984 Chaen Yoshio, BC-}_{kyū senpan gunji hōtei shiryō.}

Kanton hen [records of the military courts of Class B/C war criminals, Guangdong part] (Tōkyō : Fuji Shuppan, 1984)，p.175

40_{茶園義男編, BC 級戦犯軍事法廷資料—廣東編. 東京都 : 不二出版社, 1984 Chaen Yoshio, BC-}_{kyū senpan gunji hōtei shiryō.}

Kanton hen [records of the military courts of Class B/C war criminals, Guangdong part] (Tōkyō : Fuji Shuppan, 1984)，p.179

41

Unless noted otherwise, information about Yasuda is quoted from the Chinese edition of 木村宏一郎 (陳鵬仁譯), 被遺忘的戰爭責任 (台北: 致良出版社, 2010) Kimura Kōichirō (C: Mucun Hongyilang), Chen Pengren, trans., Beiyiwang de zhanzheng zeren [Forgotten war responsibilities]. Taipei: Zhiliang publication, 2010. Japanese original please refer to 木村宏一郎, 忘れられた戦争 責任 : カーニコバル島事件と台湾人軍属 (東京: 青木書店, 2001) Kimura Kōichirō, Wasurerareta sensō sekinin :

Kānikobarutō jiken to Taiwanjin gunzoku [Forgotten war responsibilities: Car Nicobar Island Incident and Taiwanese military auxiliary personnel] Tōkyō : Aoki Shoten, 2001.

42 _{Kimura Kōichirō, pp.39, 43.} 43_{Kimura Kōichirō, pp.15-17, 44-45} 44_{Kimura Kōichirō, pp.16-17}

(16)

elementary-level Annanese (Vietnamese) classes in March and completed the classes in July; then he moved on to enroll in middle-level Annanese classes and Malay language classes in August, before being recruited as an “interpreter of Annanese (Vietnamese)” into the Japanese military in November.45 His experiences before deployment show that in addition to the native language of Taiwanese (Chinese dialects of Minnan/Hokkien or Hakka) and the school language of Japanese, Taiwanese interpreters such as Lai/Yasuda were trained and then assigned to interpret non-native languages. The choice of non-native language such as Annanese and Malay in language training was clearly an effort to (utilize Taiwanese as human resources to) fulfill the need of Japan’s advancement into Southeast Asia. And what is more significant is the timing of Yasuda’s training, which started nine months before Japan’s attack of Pearl Harbor and military invasion of Southeast Asia; it shows the extent of Japan’s planning for advancement into Southeast Asia.

Trial records further shed light on Yasuda’s wartime activities as an interpreter in Car Nicobar Island. Most notably, Yasuda was assigned to take part in the interrogation—and consequently was accused of committing war crime of “ill-treatment”—of local “civilian residents” who were suspected of espionage in July and August 1945.46 According to the testimony by one accused Japanese sergeant, Yasuda was the only interpreter present at all three rounds of interrogation.47

As Delisle and Woodsworth point out in the case of German interpreter Eugen Dollmann, who served as interpreter between Hitler and Mussolini in World War Two, Dollmann “took pains to point out that he was made a member of the SS without having being consulted”. In his own words, Dollmann recalled “I woke up one morning…to find myself in the SS”.48 In many cases, interpreters may be forced into a situation without one’s own control or consent. In his own testimony, Yasuda admitted using violence during the interrogation of civilian residents,49 nevertheless he was convicted of murder in the court.50 Whether or not a war criminal like Yasuda was given a fair trial is not this paper’s concern. What this paper wants to argue, based on the case of Yasuda and other Taiwanese interpreters convicted of war crime, is to show how an interpreter may be forced into a situation without one’s own control or consent, especially in an unusual situation such as wars. While the status/job portfolio as an interpreter alone did not lead to the conviction or execution of any TWCs, the status/job portfolio as an interpreter was nevertheless a critical factor that led/forced some Taiwanese interpreters such as Yasuda into a situation in which they were put into close contact with local civilian

45_{Kimura Kōichirō, pp.38-39} 46_{Kimura Kōichirō, pp.136, 146}

47_{Kimura Kōichirō, pp.151-152. It should be noted that in the testimony by one witness, Yasuda conducted interrogation in English;}

see Kimura Kōichirō, p.147

48

Jean Delisle and Judith Woodsworth, eds., Translators through History (Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 1995), p.274

49 _{Kimura Kōichirō, pp.209-211} 50 _{Kimura Kōichirō, p.229}

(17)

residents and, subsequently (if not consequently), situations in which the (alleged) war crime was committed. Thereby, the status/job portfolio as interpreters was at least partially responsible for the conviction and execution of some TWCs.

Cases of interpreter on trial in Southeast Asia, such as Yasuda, can also be examined in another larger context: the postwar return of colonial powers and the rise of anti-colonial voices. During the wartime, Japan’s conquest of European colonies in Southeast Asia—or from another perspective, in the eyes of the colonized people, the sudden surrender and collapse of European powers, made many realized how fragile colonial powers were and how little colonial powers could do when the colonies and the colonized people were under threat. It would be fair to argue that anti-colonial sentiment rose along with Japan’s military expansion across Southeast Asia. Thereby after the war, to the European colonial powers returning to re-gain control of their colonies in Southeast Asia, one of the highest priorities was to re-establish and assert their sole ruling legitimacy and authorities.

By conducting war crime trials in which the victims were exclusively and explicitly the colonized people, colonial powers found a rather public and immediate means to re-claim and prove their legitimacy in ruling the colonies. On the one hand, the returning colonial authorities were acting to punish the Japanese aggressors who had invaded the colonies, as a way of re-establishing and exercising its sovereignty over the colonies

without. On the other hand, the returning colonial authorities were acting on behalf of the colonized, as a way

of re-establishing and exercising its sovereignty over the colonies within. This is particularly critical in view of their humiliating defeat at the hands of the Japanese in the past and the rising anti-colonial sentiment and action throughout colonies in Southeast Asia at the present. The collapse of empires was well underway even before the war ended. In view of this ruling crisis, empires returning to Southeast Asia were eager to adopt any means to hold on to their powers immediately after the war. Under the circumstances, trials of war crime against “local residents” or the “native population” became one of the most immediate and effective ways for all the returning colonial powers to re-establish their ruling legitimacy in colonies throughout Southeast Asia in the immediate postwar years.

And equally important is the location of the trials. By conducting these trials in the colonies, instead of extraditing the accused class-B/C war criminals to the imperial capital such as London, or to an international military tribunal like the class-A war criminals in Tokyo, or to a neutral international court in a third country (such as the latter-day International Court of Justice, which was set up in June 1945 and began to operate in

(18)

April 1946)51, the colonial authorities intentionally kept these trials physically close (and relevant) to the

colonized subjects. And in doing so, made these trials one of the most visible ways (or rituals)—in the eyes of both the colonial and the colonized—of demonstrating the legitimacy and authorities of the newly returning colonial governments.

And because of the significance of such trials, war crime against “local residents” or the “native population” became one of the focal points of postwar war crime trials conducted by returning colonial powers such as the British and the Dutch throughout Southeast Asia. As a result, war criminals who alleged had committed crime against “local residents” or the “native population” became the main target of

prosecution. But among the numerous Japanese officers and soldiers who had committed crime against local population, who would be picked out first by the local population? One of these targets would be the

Taiwanese who had served as interpreters.

After the war, one of the most common practices of identifying war criminals was by survey, in which local residents were asked to identify those who had committed any alleged crime against them during the war. In this process, those Japanese who had the most direct and frequent contact with the local residents were most likely to be identified as war criminals. Under the circumstances, the Taiwanese who served as interpreters between the Japanese military authorities and the local residents soon became one of the most conspicuous targets of war crime accusation and prosecution. From this perspective, colonial empires’ attempt to re-establish and consolidate their authorities contributed, partly, to the trials of Taiwanese interpreters as war criminals in Southeast Asia.

Furthermore, in comparison to their Japanese counterparts, Taiwanese interpreters were at a higher risk of being identified by the local residents, especially the Chinese Overseas in Southeast Asia. Not only the Taiwanese spoke the language of these local residents, they also shared common culture and heritage. Most Chinese Overseas in Southeast Asia traced their origin back to provinces in southeastern China, so did the Taiwanese. During the war, having been given the order to serve as interpreters, the Taiwanese were able to communicate with Chinese Overseas in Southeast Asia because of such common ground. But when local

51_{“The Court”, see International Court of Justice website, http://www.icj-cij.org/court/index.php?p1=1 (accessed in August 15,}

2014)

(19)

residents of Southeast Asia came out to identify war criminals after the war, the Taiwanese became an obvious target for the local Chinese Overseas, because: 1) culturally and socially, the Taiwanese names were easier to identify, as they share common surnames/family names with many Chinese Overseas; 2) politically, the Taiwanese were on the Japanese side against the Chinese Overseas. As a result, during the Japanese occupation, the Taiwanese working for the Japanese were often seen by the Chinese Overseas in Southeast Asia as “traitors” and worse than the Japanese. And for some Taiwanese, they paid the ultimate price as they were identified and prosecuted as war criminals after the war. Trials of “traitors” or “treason” were commonly found in China, the US, and France after the Second World War,52 but in these cases the alleged “traitors”

were put on trial by the government of their own country. In comparison, the cases of the Taiwanese discussed here were unique, as they were seen as “traitors” by the Chinese Overseas but were put on trial—under the colonial context in Southeast Asia—by a third party, the returning colonial authorities.

The special “connection” between the Chinese Overseas and the Taiwanese was particularly relevant to one Taiwanese war criminal mentioned earlier in the British trials, as he was specifically convicted of the crime of “interrogation of mostly Chinese”53. But the same could be said about several other Taiwanese war

criminals accused and convicted in the British courts in Penang and Kuala Lumpur, who had their names recorded in court records with their original Chinese forms, as pronounced and spelled phonetically in southern Fujian dialect (also known as Minnan or Hokkian). A brief explanation on the significance of

52_{Studies of Chinese traitors, often known as Hanjian (traitors to the Han people), who collaborated with the Japanese during the}

war, see Frederic Wakeman Jr., “Hanjian (Traitor)! Collaboration and Retribution in Wartime Shanghai”, in Wen-hsin Yeh, ed.,

Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA.: University of California Press, 2000),

pp.298-341; Timothy Brook, Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005). It is worth pointing out that the postwar Chinese authorities also dealt with the unique case of the Taiwanese as “traitors”, see Jiu-jung Lo, “Trials of the Taiwanese as Hanjian or War Criminals and the Postwar Search for Taiwanese Identity”, in Kai-wing Chow, Kevin M. Doak and Poshek Fu, eds., Imagining National Identity in Modern East Asia (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), pp. 279-316. But in comparison, the trials of the Taiwanese in Southeast Asia as studied in this paper were more complicated. In the US, the trial of John Provoo was the best example; see Barak Kushner, “Treacherous Allied: The Cold War in East Asia and American Postwar Anxiety”, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 45(4), 2010, pp.812-843. For the trial of Vichy personnel, see Eric Conan and Henry Rousso (Nathan Bracher, trans.) Vichy: An

Ever-present Past (Hanover : University Press of New England, 1998)

(20)

Taiwanese names under the Japanese colonial rule, and particularly during the wartime, is needed here. As militarism rose further in Japan in the 1930s, total mobilization of the population was expanded from the mainland to the colonies of Taiwan and Korea. To mobilize the colonized people for Japan’s war efforts, a policy called “kominka”, meaning to make the colonial subjects into imperial subjects, was widely

implemented and forced upon people of the colonies. One of the key points of kominka was “kaiseimei (name-changing)”—demanding colonial subjects in Taiwan and Korea to adopt a Japanese name. While the Japanese colonial policy of kaiseimei encountered certain degree of resistance from the public and was not thoroughly implemented in the colonies, it was common to find colonial subjects who were mobilized to work or fight in Japanese military adopted Japanese names. Apart from ideological reason of pledging allegiance to the Japanese Empire, changing to Japanese names also had a practical side for military operation.54 Chinese

names, while written in characters that were comprehensible to the Japanese, were pronounced completely different in their original Chinese language and in Japanese language. The same character as pronounced in Chinese would be difficult, if not impossible, for a Japanese to understand and pronounce; and vice versa, for a Chinese, the Japanese pronunciation of Chinese characters would be impossible to understand and

pronounce. Thereby, for those Taiwanese serving in various capacities in Japanese military, it was common to adopt a Japanese name.

For example, Taiwanese war criminals convicted in the Australian trials, as this paper shall discuss in the next section, universally adopted this practice of name-changing, as each of them had his name recorded in trial records as pronounced and spelled phonetically in Japanese. In comparison, in at least three cases in Penang and another three cases in Kuala Lumpur, the accused Taiwanese war criminals—all had served as interpreters—were recorded not with their Japanese names, but instead had their original Chinese names as pronounced and spelled phonetically in southern Fujian dialect recorded in trials records. In Penang trials, three TWCs were convicted and executed by the British courts; they had all served as interpreters with the Penang Military Police (kempetai) during the war, and were accused of “torturing, interrogating, and causing death of local residents” in Penang and “interrogating and causing death of civilians” in Taiping. In the Japanese records, their names were recorded with characters of their original Chinese names (郭張興, 楊樹

54

I would like to thank Professor Chin Hsiang-jung for this point.

(21)

木, 許祺禪 respectively); no Japanese names were given.55

In the British records, their names were recorded respectively as Kwek Tiong Hin, Yeow Chew Bok, and Khor Kee Sian; each was exactly the three characters of their original Chinese names as pronounced and spelled phonetically in southern Fujian dialect.56 In Kuala

Lumpur trials, one TWC who had served as an interpreter with the Kuala Lumpur Military Police was

convicted of “interrogating local residents” and executed. In the Japanese record, his name was recorded only with characters of his original Chinese name (鄭錦樹).57 In the British records, his name was recorded as Ten

Ten Chuan, which was fairly close to the three characters of his original Chinese name as pronounced and spelled phonetically in southern Fujian dialect.58 In addition, in the British records of Kuala Lumpur trials,

two TWCs who had served as interpreters were accused, and were recorded with names that can only be pronounced and spelled phonetically in southern Fujian dialect;59 according to the Japanese records, at least

one of them had served with the Penang Military Police and subsequently was accused of “torturing local residents”60. It would be fair to auume that in these cases, local residents—as victims in the alleged crime and

accusers in the trials—were the Chinese Overseas.

shiryō [records of the British trials of Class B/C war criminals] top part (Tōkyō : Fuji Shuppan, 1988)，pp.112-113.

56_{The National Archives (the United Kingdom), Reference: WO 235/931 (Description: Defendant: Kwek Tiong Hin Place of Trial:}

Penang); Reference: WO 235/931 (Description: Defendant: Yeow Chew Bok Place of Trial: Penang); Reference: WO 235/931 (Description: Defendant: Khor Kee Sian Place of Trial: Penang)

58

The National Archives (the United Kingdom), Reference: WO 235/949 (Description: Defendant: Ten Ten Chuan Place of Trial: Kuala Lumpur)

59

The National Archives (the United Kingdom), Reference: WO 235/1059 (Description: Defendant: Cheah Kam-Sang Place of Trial: Kuala Lumpur); Reference: WO 235/1026 (Description: Defendant: Ee-Fook-Seong Place of Trial: Kuala Lumpur; Date: 1947 Aug. 19-Oct. 26)

(22)

It may be possible that the aforementioned six TWCs in the British trials simply did not have Japanese names, and thereby had their names recorded in their original Chinese forms. But it is also highly likely that the reason of having the names of these TWCs recorded in trial records, as pronounced and spelled

phonetically in southern Fujian dialect, was that their accusers were local Chinese Overseas. It would be fair to argue that only the local Chinese Overseas could and would identify the alleged Taiwanese war criminals in the latters’ original Chinese/southern Fujian names. To better understand the trials of Group 1 Taiwanese wartime interpreters who had served and subsequently were put on war crime trials in Southeast Asia, it is important to recognize this context of Chinese Overseas and their special “connection” with the Taiwanese.

While Group 1 consists of Taiwanese wartime interpreters who had formal interpreter status during the war and subsequently tried and convicted as war criminals after the war, there were another group, Group 2, of Taiwanese wartime interpreters who had informal or ad hoc interpretation duty during the war, but subsequently were tried and convicted as war criminals after the war. Group 2 consists of TWCs who were originally recruited and designated NOT as interpreters, but were assigned—because of language

proficiency—to perform interpretation under the contingency of war. As we explore further into archival documents related to the 21 executed TWCs, it becomes apparent that several executed TWCs who were not listed under the job designation of “interpreters” on government and court records were actually performing the role of interpreters during the war and, subsequently, were prosecuted and punished after the war for what they had done while serving as informal or ad hoc interpreters during the war.

Notably, several TWCs who originally served as laborers or POW camp guards during the war and were subsequently sentenced to death in the Australian courts constituted Group 2. As trial records showed, they were indeed performing interpretation duty during the war and, most importantly, while they were engaged in the alleged war crime.61 One of the most notable examples of Group 2 Taiwanese wartime interpreters can be found in the trial of “Chinese POW killing”, which was conducted by the Australian court in Rabual in April 1946.62 The alleged war crime in this trial was the killing of Chinese POWs by Japanese soldiers and

61_{It is worth pointing out that based on the available statistics, Australia is the most significant country in the trials of Taiwanese}

war criminals. In terms of the sheer number, Australian courts convicted the highest number of TWCs among all the Allied countries, a total of 95; among them 7 were sentenced to death and executed (which is also the highest among all Allied nations in absolute number of TWCs sentenced to death and executed). See Kosei-sho 1955. Although the number adds up to 109, according to Chaen 1990 and Chaen 1991.

62

Nippon Gaimu-sho Toan，《Kowa Joyaku Hakko-go: Syamen Kankoku Kankei, Osutoraria-no Bu》日本外務省檔案: 講和條約

(23)

Formosans guards in 1943. These Chinese POWs were part of the 88th Division, the 3rd Army, of the

Nationalist Army. They were captured by the Japanese forces in China in July 1942,63 and subsequently sent to Rabaul in January 1943.64 Afterwards, in two separate occasions about 3rd and 11th March 1943, a good number of Chinese POWs (24 in the first occasion, 6 in the second) were shot and killed, allegedly by Japanese soldiers and Formosans guards. Two Japanese soldiers and seven Formosans guards were charged for the killing and put on trial, held in Rabaul, between 10 and 16 April, 1946. All the accused were sentenced to “death by hanging” under the charge of “killing Chinese laborers”, on 16 April 1946.65

The seven accused Formosans were:66

 Hayashi Hajime (AWC 2683) 林一 (林發伊)67

 Kiohara (Kiyohara) Takeo (AWC 2913) 木代原武雄 (陳銘志)68  Okabayashi Eikyu (AWC 2685) 岡林永久

 Yanagawa Uetane (AWC 2914) 柳川植種

發效後: 赦免勸告關係, オーストラリアの部 [Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive (JMFA): After the Peace Treaty became effective, on the issue of pardon and appeal: Australia], D-1-3-0-3-9-2, pp. 376-438. According to this record, in the trial 1 Japanese Sergeant, 1 Japanese Corporal, two members of the Formosan Volunteer’s Corps were sentenced to death by hanging and executed on 17 July 1946; 5 other members of the Formosan Volunteer’s Corps were sentenced to death by hanging but commuted to life imprisonment on 4 July 1947, see p.381.

63

court testimony by Captain Liu Wei Pao, 10th April, 1946, in Proceedings of Military Tribunal, Sgt. Matsushima, Tozaburo and others, Department of the Army, A471.80915, Australian National Archive.

64

court testimony by Major Lee Wai Sing, 11th April, 1946, in A471.80915

65_{Record of Military Court, Court, Place, Date and Formation: Rabaul, 10-16 Apr (19)46, 8 MD, in A471.80915} 66

Memorandum for Judge Advocate General, 14 May, 1947, in A471.80915

67

of Korean- and Taiwanese-native War Criminals]（昭和 30 年 12 月 1 日）1955

68_{Nippon Kosei-sho Hikiage engo-kyoku, 《Kankoku Taiwan Shusshin Senso Saiban Jukeisha Meibo》 ;日本厚生省引揚援護}

局，《韓國臺灣出身戰爭裁判受刑者名簿》[Bureau of Repatriation and Relief, Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, Name List

of Korean- and Taiwanese-native War Criminals]（昭和 30 年 12 月 1 日）1955

(24)

 Shimura Yuzo (AWC 2911) 志村勇三  Furuya Eisuke (AWC 2912) 古谷榮助

 Takabayashi (sic, Takebayashi) Tsuruichi (AWC 2684) 武林鶴一

After the trial, Hayashi Hajime and Kiohara Takeo, together with the two convicted Japanese soldiers were hanged on 17th July, 1946. As for Okabayashi, Yanagawa, Shimura, Furuya, and Takabayashi, their lives

were spared as they were required to serve as witnesses to another war crime trials. Later on, their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment, on 27th June 1947.69

From the trial records, we can learn more about these TWCs’ job as well as crimes these TWCs were accused of committing. Major Lee Wai Sing, one of the defense witnesses, testified that “Each of the 7 Formosans accused used either rifles or revolvers and shot into the pit” which a group of sick Chinese POWs were ordered to go into on 3rd March, 1943; and he added that the accused Formosans did the same thing

again on 11 March, 1943.70 Another defense witness Lieutenant Wong Yu Shing testified that from the time

of the arrival of Chinese POWs in Rabaul in January 1943 and the time of the killing in March 1943, “the people who controlled us (the Chinese POWs) all the time were the (seven) accused (Formosans)”.71 From

these testimonies it is clear that the accused TWCs were assigned to be in charge of supervising Chinese POWs and, subsequently involved in the killing of some Chinese POWs.

But at the trial, several Chinese officers who served as witnesses in court also testified that the Formosans were usually unarmed. When asked “How many Formosans brought weapons with them to the (Chinese POW) camp” on the first occasion of the killing, witness Captain Liu Wei Pao testified that “As far as I remember the Formosans were not carrying arms when they entered our camp”; and the answer was the same when Captain Liu was asked about the second occasion of killing.72 Major Lee Wai Sing also testifies

69

Record of Military Court, Court, Place, Date and Formation: Rabaul, 10-16 Apr (19)46, 8 MD, in A471.80915“; the “commuted sentences (were) promulgated to (the) accused (on) 12 July 1947”

70

71_{court testimony by Lt. Wong Yu Shing, 11}th_{April, 1946, in A471.80915} 72

court testimony by Captain Liu Wei Pao, 10th April, 1946, in A471.80915

(25)

that with the exception of one Formosan, “the only time the others (other Formosans) were armed was during the shooting”.73 A Japanese witness, Paymaster Major Shimizaki Masaomi, who was “in charge of general

affairs” of the 26th Supply Depot, was called to the court and he further testified that “They (Formosans) were

not given any military training, they were used wholly as labourers” and the use of firearm was never explained to the Formosans.74

The above testimonies show that the Formosans were originally deployed as laborers; they were not given combatant training or duties, and they were originally not deployed for any assignment that involved Chinese POWs. Their job designations, as recorded in Japan’s government sources such as the

aforementioned MHW Name List, were members of Formosan Special Labor Volunteer’s Corp 台灣特設勤勞

奉公團.75

Attached to the 26th Depot in Rabaul,76 these Taiwanese laborers were engaged in the unloading,

transporting and collecting of goods. So why these Formosan laborers ended up being assigned to “control” other laborers such as the Chinese POWs in Rabaul? The answer, as shown in other trial records, is language proficiency.

Language Proficiency of Taiwanese as Informal Interpreters

73

74_{court testimony by Paymaster Major Shimizaki Masaomi, 15}th_{April, 1946, in A471.80915} 75

For further information, see 近藤正己著，許佩賢譯，〈對異民族的軍事動員與皇民化政策——以臺灣軍夫為中心〉，《臺灣文獻》46：2，（1995）Kondo Masami (Xu Peixian trans.) “Dui yiminzu de junshi dongyuan yu huangminhua zhengce—yi Taiwan junfu weili [military mobilization of the alien nation and the kominka policy—focusing on the Taiwanese military servants]”，

Taiwan Wenxian, Vol.46, No.2 (1995), pp.216-217.

76

of Korean- and Taiwanese-native War Criminals]（昭和 30 年 12 月 1 日）1955； Kosei-sho Engo-kyoku,《Taiwan Shusshin Senso Hanzai Saiban Shibotsusha Ichiran》厚生省援護局, 《臺灣出身戰爭犯罪裁判死歿者一覽》[Bureau of Relief, Ministry of Health and Welfare, List of Executed and Dead Taiwanese-native War Criminals] (昭和 43 年 8 月 26 日) 1968

在國際戰犯審判中的台籍戰犯: 被殖民者的戰爭與對「殖民戰爭責任」的一個新思考

科技部補助專題研究計畫成果報告

期末報告

N 在國際戰犯審判中的台籍戰犯: 被殖民者的戰爭與對「殖

民戰爭責任」的一個新思考

中 華 民 國 104 年 03 月 28 日

科技部補助專題研究計畫成果報告

（期末報告）

在國際戰犯審判中的台籍戰犯:

被殖民者的戰爭與對「殖民戰爭責任」的一個新思考

中華民國 104 年 03 月 28 日