9. In blatant defiance of the Geneva Convention, Allied prisoners of war under Japanese control were routinely tortured for information
During World War II, the Japanese regularly tortured those they captured. As Uno Shintaro, an officer stationed in China, later recounted: “torture was an unavoidable necessity. Murdering and burying them follows naturally. You do it so you won’t be found out”. Among the methods used by the Japanese was the “water cure”, wherein a person is forced to drink excessive quantities of water. Summarized by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, “the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position. Water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach until he lost consciousness. Pressure was then applied, sometimes by jumping upon his abdomen to force the water out. The usual practice was to revive the victim and successively repeat the process”.
Another method employed by the Japanese was the use of “bamboo torture“. Tying prisoners over a bed of sharpened bamboo shoots, capable of growing a couple of inches per day, the plant penetrates and impales the individual in a matter of days. Placed in a position of agonizing pain, the prisoner would suffer as the plant worked its way through his body, eventually killing him unless he relented and provided information. Whilst some have claimed the use of bamboo by the Japanese is apocryphal and ineffective, a 2008 investigation by Mythbusters determined the shoots are capable of stabbing through several inches of ballistic gelatin in less than three days.