New Book Describes Kempeitai Actions In Graphic Detail

[Mulboyne]

FEER: Japan's Gestapo
"Japan's Gestapo: Murder, Mayhem and Torture in Wartime Asia" by Mark Felton. You have been warned. "This book is not for the fainthearted or easily disgusted," reads the first line. And it's no hyperbole; Mark Felton describes in gut-wrenching detail the physical, sexual and emotional tortures wrought on Allied soldiers and Asian civilians by the Japanese military police. What Mr. Felton labels "Japan's Gestapo" is properly called the Kempeitai, founded in 1881 in response to the daunting intrusions of the Western world. By the time World War II began, the Kempeitai was already a powerful and integral part of the Japanese security apparatus, with its members accustomed to using violent methods to accomplish their objectives. Entangled in several branches of the Japanese government, the Kempeitai's powers surpassed those of the German Gestapo. Its responsibilities included combat, intelligence and espionage, the management of civilian and prisoner-of-war camps, propaganda, biological and chemical warfare, and experimentation on prisoners...Mr. Felton at times seems to judge all Japanese culture on the basis of the behavior of the Kempeitai. He tells the tale of battered Allied soldiers stripped naked and exhibited behind bars at the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. This instance, he postulates, "reveals a truly bizarre and sadistic streak rooted in the Japanese character -- similar in many ways to the present delight in ritual humiliation and torture to be found in many modern Japanese game shows on television"...more...

Felton also wrote this book.