Jeffrey Archer - A Twist in the Tale

Staff officers are not in the habit of disobeying Prime Ministers, so the Colonel resigned himself to a prolonged stay in Japan.

It took several months to set up the tribunal and during that time Colonel Moore continued supervising the return of British troops to their homeland. The paperwork was endless and some of the men under his command were so frail that he found it necessary to build them up spiritually as well as physically before he could put them on boats to their various destinations. Some died long after the declaration of surrender had been ratified.

During this period of waiting, Colonel Moore used Major Sakata and the two NCOs in whom he had placed so much trust, Sergeant Akida and Corporal Sushi, as his liaison officers. This sudden change of command did not affect the relationship between the two senior officers, although Sakata admitted to the Colonel that he wished he had been killed in the defense of his country and not left to witness its humiliations. The Colonel found the Japanese remained well-disciplined while they waited to learn their fate, and most of them assumed death was the natural consequence of defeat.

The war tribunal held its first plenary session in Tokyo on April 19, 1946. General Tomkins took over the fifth floor of the old Imperial Courthouse in the Ginza quarter of Tokyo — one of the few buildings that had survived the war intact. Tomkins, a squat, short-tempered man who was described by his own staff officer as a ‘pen-pusher from the Pentagon,’ arrived in Tokyo only a week before he began his first deliberations. The only rat-a-tat-tat this General had ever heard, the staff officer freely admitted to Colonel Moore, had come from the typewriter in his secretary’s office. However, when it came to those on trial the General was in no doubt as to where the guilt lay and how the guilty should be punished.

‘Hang every one of the little slit-eyed, yellow bastards,’ turned out to be one of Tomkins’ favorite expressions.

Seated round a table in an old courtroom, the twelve-man tribunal conducted their deliberations. It was clear from the opening session that the General had no intention of considering ‘extenuating circumstances,’ ‘past record’ or ‘humanitarian grounds.’ As the Colonel listened to Tomkins’ views he began to fear for the lives of any innocent member of the armed forces who was brought in front of the General.

The Colonel quickly identified four Americans from the tribunal who, like himself, did not always concur with the General’s sweeping judgments. Two were lawyers and the other two had been fighting soldiers recently involved in combat duty. The five men began to work together to counteract the General’s most prejudiced decisions. During the following weeks they were able to persuade one or two others around the table to commute the sentences of hanging to life imprisonment for several Japanese who had been condemned for crimes they could not possibly have committed.

As each such case was debated, General Tomkins left the five men in no doubt as to his contempt for their views. ‘Goddam Nip sympathizers,’ he often suggested, and not always under his breath. As the General still held sway over the twelve-man tribunal, the Colonel’s successes turned out to be few in number.

When the time came to determine the fate of those who had been in command of the POW camp at Tonchan the General demanded mass hanging for every Japanese officer involved without even the pretense of a proper trial. He showed no surprise when the usual five tribunal members raised their voices in protest. Colonel Moore spoke eloquently of having been a prisoner at Tonchan and petitioned in the defense of Major Sakata, Sergeant Akida and Corporal Sushi. He attempted to explain why hanging them would in its own way be as barbaric as any atrocity carried out by the Japanese. He insisted their sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment. The General yawned throughout the Colonel’s remarks and, once Moore had completed his case, made no attempt to justify his position but simply called for a vote. To the General’s surprise, the result was six-all; an American lawyer who previously had sided with the General raised his hand to join the Colonel’s five. Without hesitation the General threw his casting vote in favor of the gallows. Tomkins leered down the table at Moore and said, ‘Time for lunch, I think, gentlemen. I don’t know about you but I’m famished. And no one can say that this time we didn’t give the little yellow bastards a fair hearing.’

Colonel Moore rose from his place and without offering an opinion left the room.

He ran down the steps of the courthouse and instructed his driver to take him to British HQ in the center of the city as quickly as possible. The short journey took them some time because of the melee of displaced refugees that were always thronging the streets night and day. Once the Colonel arrived at his office he asked his secretary to place a call through to England. While she was carrying out his order Moore went to his green cabinet and thumbed through several files until he reached the one marked ‘Personal.’ He opened it and fished out the letter. He wanted to be certain that he had remembered the sentence accurately...

‘If for any reason you should require my help in your deliberations, do not hesitate to contact me personally.’

‘He’s coming to the phone, sir,’ the secretary said nervously. The Colonel walked over to the phone and waited. He found himself standing to attention when he heard the gentle, cultivated voice ask, ‘Is that you, Colonel?’ It took Richard Moore less than ten minutes to explain the problem he faced and obtain the authority he needed.

Immediately he had completed his conversation he returned to the tribunal headquarters. He marched straight back into the conference room just as General Tomkins was settling down in his chair to start the afternoon proceedings.

The Colonel was the first to rise from his place when the General declared the tribunal to be in session. ‘I wonder if I might be allowed to open with a statement?’ he requested.

‘Be my guest,’ said Tomkins. ‘But make it brief. We’ve got a lot more of these Japs to get through yet.’

Colonel Moore looked around the table at the other eleven men.

‘Gentlemen,’ he began. ‘I hereby resign my position as the British representative on this commission.’

General Tomkins was unable to stifle a smile.

‘I do it,’ the Colonel continued, ‘reluctantly, but with the backing of my Prime Minister, to whom I spoke only a few moments ago.’ At this piece of information Tomkins’ smile was replaced by a frown. ‘I shall be returning to England in order to make a full report to Mr. Attlee and the British Cabinet on the manner in which this tribunal is being conducted.’

‘Now look here, sonny,’ began the General. ‘You can’t—’

‘I can, sir, and I will. Unlike you, I am unwilling to have the blood of innocent soldiers on my hands for the rest of my life.’

‘Now look here, sonny,’ the General repeated. ‘Let’s at least talk this through before you do anything you might regret.’

There was no break for the rest of the day, and by late afternoon Major Sakata, Sergeant Akida and Corporal Sushi had had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

Within a month, General Tomkins had been recalled by the Pentagon to be replaced by a distinguished American marine who had been decorated in combat during the First World War.

In the weeks that followed the new appointment the death sentences of two hundred and twenty-nine Japanese prisoners of war were commuted.

Colonel Moore returned to Lincolnshire on November 11, 1948, having had enough of the realities of war and the hypocrisies of peace.