Tokyo War Crimes Trials
The Tokyo War Crimes Trials (1946–1948) brought leading Japanese political and military figures to justice after the Second World War. Australia played a significant part through its judges, prosecutors and occupation forces, contributing to one of the most important international tribunals of the twentieth century.
Who was Vivian Bullwinkel?
Ashes and Sakura: an Australian story of the making of a Pacific nation
Set against the remote Pacific island of Morotai and the ruins of postwar Japan at war’s end, Ashes and Sakura follows Tom Darcy, a young Australian soldier serving with the British Commonwealth occupation forces in Japan after the Second World War. As he encounters the devastation of a defeated nation and forms unexpected bonds with those on the other side of the conflict, the novel explores war, memory, love and reconciliation.
Australians to give evidence at Jap trials
Fourteen Australians, including former prisoners of war and military personnel, were selected to travel to Tokyo to give evidence before the International War Crimes Tribunal. Witnesses included Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, survivor of the Banka Island massacre, and survivors of the Thailand–Burma Railway and the Sandakan–Ranau death march, who would testify about Japanese wartime atrocities.