Table Of ContentInterpreters and War Crimes
Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book raises new questions and provides
different perspectives on the roles, responsibilities, ethics and protection of inter-
preters in war while investigating the substance and agents of Japanese war crimes
and legal aspects of interpreters taking part in war crimes. Informed by studies
on interpreter ethics in conflict, historical studies of Japanese war crimes and
legal discussion on individual liability in war crimes, Takeda provides a detailed
description and analysis of the 39 interpreter defendants and interpreters as wit-
nesses of war crimes at British military trials against the Japanese in the aftermath
of the Pacific War, and tackles ethical and legal issues of various risks faced by
interpreters in violent conflict.
The book first discusses the backgrounds, recruitment and wartime activities
of the accused interpreters at British military trials in addition to the charges
they faced, the defence arguments and the verdicts they received at the trials,
with attention to why so many of the accused were Taiwanese and foreign-born
Japanese. Takeda provides a contextualised discussion, focusing on the Japanese
military’s specific linguistic needs in its occupied areas in Southeast Asia and the
attributes of interpreters who could meet such needs. In the theoretical examina-
tion of the issues that emerge, the focus is placed on interpreters’ proximity to
danger, visibility and perceived authorship of speech, legal responsibility in war
crimes and ethical issues in testifying as eyewitnesses of criminal acts in violent
hostilities. Takeda critically examines prior literature on the roles of interpreters
in conflict and ethical concerns such as interpreter neutrality and confidentiality,
drawing on legal discussion of the ineffectiveness of the superior orders defence
and modes of individual liability in war crimes. The book seeks to promote inter-
sectoral discussion on how interpreters can be protected from exposure to mani-
festly unlawful acts such as torture.
Kayoko Takeda is a Professor in the College of Intercultural Communication
at Rikkyo University in Japan and teaches Translation and Interpreting Studies.
Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies
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Multimodal Approaches to Chinese-English Translation and Interpreting
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Translational Spaces
Towards a Chinese-Western Convergence
Sun Yifeng
African Perspectives on Literary Translation
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Interpreters and War Crimes
Kayoko Takeda
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Quality, Cognitive Overload, and Strategies
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Interpreters and War Crimes
Kayoko Takeda
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Kayoko Takeda
The right of Kayoko Takeda to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Takeda, Kayoko, author.
Title: Interpreters and war crimes / Kayoko Takeda.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2021. |
Series: Routledge advances in translation and interpreting studies | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2020045323
(print) | LCCN 2020045324 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367557492
(hardback) | ISBN 9780367557508 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003094982 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: War crimes trials–Pacific Area–History–20th century. |
Military courts–Great Britain–History–20th century. | World War,
1939-1945–Atrocities–Pacific Area. | Translators–Legal status, laws,
etc.–Criminal provisions–History–20th century. | Japan–Armed
forces–Official and employees–Legal status, laws, etc.–Criminal
provisions–History–20th century. | Criminal liability (International
law)–History–20th century.
Classification: LCC KZ1185 .T35 2021 (print) | LCC KZ1185 (ebook) |
DDC 341.6/90268–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020045323
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020045324
ISBN: 978-0-367-55749-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-55750-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-09498-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Galliard
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Note on names and terms viii
Introduction: Shooting the messenger? 1
PART I
Interpreters as defendants at British military trials for
Japanese war crimes 17
1 The accused interpreters 19
2 Charges against interpreters 40
3 Interpreters’ defences 63
4 Fates of the accused interpreters 80
PART II
Interpreters in war and confict zones 101
5 Interpreters’ proximity to violence 103
6 Interpreters’ visibility and perceived authorship of speech 113
7 Interpreters’ joint responsibility in war crimes 124
8 Interpreters as witnesses of crimes 138
Conclusion: Protecting the interpreter 153
Bibliography 160
Index 176
Acknowledgements
In these challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic, I appreciate my good for-
tune in staying healthy and being able to complete this book. Undoubtedly, this
was not possible without the support, assistance and encouragement I received
from many individuals and institutions. First, I have to thank people who read
the manuscript of this book in part or in its entirety and returned to me effec-
tive and thoughtful feedback. Shi-chi Mike Lan, who has taught me how trained
historians think and work over the years, provided insightful comments on Part I
and generously shared materials sourced from Taiwan. Cheah Wui Ling kindly
and expertly commented on Chapter 7 as a legal scholar. Above all, I am greatly
indebted to Kaede and John who read multiple versions of the manuscript as my
forever first reader/critic/proofreader duo.
I have been fortunate to discuss my research with esteemed historians at differ-
ent stages of this project and receive their kind advice and suggestions. My heart-
felt thanks go to Barak Kushner and his team, Beatrice Trefalt, Eiichiro Azuma,
Hideho Wada, Kerstin von Lingen, Robert Cribb, Sandra Wilson, Wolfgang Form
and Yuma Totani. I would also like to extend my sincere appreciation to the fol-
lowing scholars for sharing their valuable input on my work and being my sources
of inspiration: Anthony Pym, Craig Smith, Hilary Footitt, Jesús Baigorri Jalón,
Kirsten Malmkjær, Lucía Ruiz Rosendo, Michael Cronin and Theo Hermans. I
am deeply grateful to the institutions and people that gave me opportunities to
present early drafts of this book: Akiko Sakamoto at the University of Portsmouth,
Andrea Rizzi at the University of Melbourne, Chuan Yu at Monash University,
Hideko Russell at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey,
the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, Kaoru Ueda at the Hoover
Institution, Kathryn Bachelor at University College London, Lawrence Wong
at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Minhua Liu at Hong Kong Baptist
University, Rachel Lung at Lingnan University, Ryoko Sasamoto at Dublin City
University and the Taiwan Association of Translation and Interpretation. I ben-
efitted from the feedback I received from their communities in building, organis-
ing and adjusting my arguments in this book.
During my sabbatical year as a visiting fellow at Cambridge, my wonderful
colleagues and the students and staff at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern
Studies and Wolfson College helped me expand my intellectual curiosity while
Acknowledgements vii
also making my stay pleasant and special. Thank you! At Wolfson I learned how
to explain my research in twenty seconds to people from a variety of disciplines. In
particular, many thanks to Claudio, David, Ed, James, Kristin and Ram for show-
ing genuine interest in my work and introducing me to different perspectives.
My sincere gratitude is also extended to the Japan Society for the Promotion
of Science (KAKEN 17K02988), the Hoover Institution at Stanford University
and Rikkyo University for their generous financial support. I owe a great deal to
my colleagues and students at Rikkyo for their support and patience throughout
this project, especially to Tetsuya Shimozaki who assisted me in collecting and
organising archival documents. My special thanks to Ariel and Hyangjin for keep-
ing my body and spirits sound every week. Most of all, I am thankful to my fam-
ily on both sides of the Pacific for their steadfast support. Lastly, I would like to
express my great appreciation to Katie Peace and Jacy Hui at Routledge for their
kind guidance and assistance.
Note on names and terms
In the Japanese naming convention, family name comes first, followed by given
name. For the sake of consistency, this book adopts the Western order of given
name before family name as it largely draws on archival documents written in
English. The only exceptions are the names of Dutch interpreters in nineteenth-
century Japan, which are presented in the traditional Japanese name order
because they are historical figures. There are slight inconsistencies in how the
names of some Japanese defendants are spelled within the relevant documents of
the British military trials for Japanese war crimes. The standard spelling for trans-
literated Japanese names is used in those instances. The spelling and name order
of Chinese and other non-Western names found in the archival documents are
preserved. For Japanese-language titles of works cited, translations are provided
by the author of this book.
There are a number of references to the Asia–Pacific War, Kenpeitai and Nisei
throughout this book. The Asia–Pacific War refers to the wars Japan engaged
in covering the period from the Manchurian Incident (1931) through the
Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and the Pacific War (1941–1945).
The Kenpeitai (sometimes spelled as Kempeitai) was the military police of the
Japanese Army. In Japanese-occupied territories during the Asia–Pacific War, the
Kenpeitai was notorious for its brutality in the name of maintaining public order.
The Kenpeitai is referred to as Military Police, MP or Gendarmerie in some archi-
val documents in English. For consistency, the term Kenpeitai is used in this
book. Nisei (literally, second-generation) refers to individuals born in the United
States and Canada to parents who immigrated from Japan in the context of this
book. Kibei is a subgroup of American Nisei who received some schooling in
Japan and then returned to the United States.
Introduction
Shooting the messenger?
Interpreters are generally expected to be “invisible”. Metaphors to describe them,
such as conduit, ghost, air and kuroko (stagehands dressed in black in Japanese
traditional performing arts), indicate a societal supposition of interpreters being
nothing but automatons receiving words in one language and rendering them in
another. There is even a narrative that the more skilled interpreters are, the more
they disappear into the background. Despite this common expectation of inter-
preters to be faithful language converters hidden in the shadows, over a hundred
wartime interpreters came under the spotlight as key actors in the courtroom
during war crimes trials against the Japanese in the aftermath of the Asia–Pacific
War (1931–1945).
On 26 July 1945, towards the end of the war, the United States, Britain
and China issued the Potsdam Declaration, calling for Japan’s surrender and
laying out terms of the surrender. Included was a forewarning of “stern justice”
against “all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our
prisoners”.1 Following the defeat of Japan, thousands of Japanese were pros-
ecuted for war crimes in international and national courts. The most promi-
nent was the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (more commonly
known as the Tokyo War Crimes Trial or Tokyo Trial)—the Japanese coun-
terpart of the Nuremberg Trial. The Tokyo Trial took place from May 1946 to
November 1948, with 23 former Japanese military and political leaders as the
accused,2 and was presided over by judges representing 11 nations. In addition,
there were separate military trials administered by individual Allied nations:
Australia, China, France, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the Soviet Union,
the United Kingdom and the United States. Excluding those held by China
under the Communist Party and the Soviet Union, there were a total of 2,244
trials against 5,700 defendants in 51 locations in the Asia Pacific over the period
between February 1946 and April 1951.3 They are referred to as minor trials
or Class BC trials as they dealt with Class B (war crimes) and Class C (crimes
against humanity) crimes as opposed to Class A (crimes against peace), which
were addressed at the Tokyo Trial.
Little known is that over a hundred wartime interpreters associated with the
Japanese military were prosecuted in these Class BC trials. Most were convicted
as war criminals, and at least 32, including 11 Taiwanese and 6 Koreans, were
