During the Second World War, there were many war crimes committed by different armies.
Some of the most barbaric and brutal crimes include the treatment of prisoners of war
by the Japanese army in the Pacific. Many allied servicemen who found themselves under
the custody of the Japanese were kept in terrible conditions, and were underfed, malnourished
and forced to conduct back breaking hard work. Many died on work projects supervised by the
Japanese, or on death marches such as the Baatan Death March. Executions were also carried
out by the Japanese, many which were incredibly brutal with some being beheaded by swords.
But one of the most shocking war crimes of the Second World War, allegedly saw a number
of allied prisoners captured by the Japanese in Indonesia being fed to sharks inside of
pig baskets. Join us today as we look at the story behind this, and remember to support
our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
It’s been estimated that between 3 to 14 million people were killed as a result of
Japanese war crimes, through human experimentation, massacre, forced labour or starvation. Many
soldiers would confess to their crimes after the war, and a number of high profile war
criminals were sentenced to death but the majority went unpunished. Following the Germans
occupying the Netherlands, martial law was declared in the Dutch East Indies now Indonesia.
The Dutch would declare war on the Japanese following the attack on Pearl Harbour, and
the Japanese invaded on the 10th January 1942 and within less than three months the army
would overrun the colony quickly, which led to the Dutch surrendering.
The Battle of Java took place between the 28th February and the 12th March 1942, and
the Allies fought against the Japanese within a week or so of the battle, it was clear that
to the allies defeat was inevitable. With this, a surrender of Java was issued by the
Royal Netherlands East Indies Army, and in the aftermath of this the land began to be
under Japanese occupation. Many of those resented the occupiers, and because of this they were
brutally imprisoned and were put down. The senior British Australian and American commanders
in Java were summoned and after the surrender was signed, they were promised the rights
of the Geneva Convention for their soldiers, but this was not adhered to.
Following the surrender, 200 allied soldiers fled to the hills around Malang and they would
form resistance groups to carry out guerrilla attacks against the Japanese. However, within
a short time, the soldiers were allegedly captured by the Military police of the Japanese
army, and it was then when it was alleged that the Pig basket atrocity took place. The
men who had been captured, were then forced into 3 foot long bamboo baskets which were
then used for transporting pigs. It was claimed that following this, the men were then thrown
into the back of open transport trucks and were then driven through the countryside.
The weather was very hot and close to 40 degrees celsius, and the trucks then drove towards
the railway lines. After they reached them, the allied soldiers in the baskets were then
transported again inside the baskets in open rail wagons towards the coast. As they approached
their final destination, the Allied soldiers were suffering heavily with heat stroke, and
dehydration along with the pain in which being confined in a pig basket would cause. It would
be excruitating, with often 5 foot men shoved into 3 feet bamboo baskets.
When they reached the coast, they were then loaded on fishing boats and were taken off
the coast to the water off Surabaya, which was known for being shark infested. The predators
would circle around the waters, and then confined to the baskets, the men were then thrown one
by one into the ocean. The men drowned and then it’s claimed were eaten by the sharks.
One witness, a 15 year old girl at the time Elizabeth van Kempen told how she witnessed
the atrocity. She was standing with her father near to Mount Seamer and she heard the screams
of the soldiers. Other witnesses claimed they saw or heard of the event, the pig basket
atrocity and would state they saw the transports of the men.
Elizabeth van Kempen would state, One day around noon, the hottest time of the day,
a convoy of about four or five Army trucks passed the street where we were playing, loaded
with so-called “pig baskets,” which were normally used to stack pigs during transport
to the slaughterhouse or the market. Indonesia being a Moslem country, pigs were only for
European and Chinese customers in the market. Moslems (Javanese) were not allowed to eat
them and considered pigs (same as dogs) as “dirty animals” from which contact should
be avoided. In other words: any connection with pigs and dogs was shameful.
To our astonishment the pig baskets were crammed with Australian soldiers, some of them still
wearing parts of their uniform, a few even their special hat. They were tied in pairs,
two to each other, facing each other, and stacked, like pigs, in the baskets, lying
down. Some were in a terrible state, crying for water, I saw one of the Japanese guards
opening his fly and urinate on them. I remember being terrified and I can never forget this
picture in my mind. Later my father told me the trucks were driven through the town as
a show to the Indonesians for utter humiliation of the white race, finally being dumped into
the harbour to drown.
The Commander in Chief of the Japanese forces based inside of Java at the time, was the
Leftenant General Hitoshi Imamura. He would never face charges specifically for this atrocity,
however was later found guilty of other war crimes including the executions of allied
prisoners of war. He was tried by Australian military tribunal and was then sentenced to
10 years imprisonment being held at Toyko’s Sugar Prison.
What is shameful is that the men who had been forced into the small and tight bamboo cages
were paraded through the streets. This was almost like medieval executions such as hanging,
drawing and quartering, in which a condemned person was shown off to the local population
as a way of deterring them from committing crimes. The sight of the Allied soldiers inside
of the boxes must have been terrifying, and there must have also been many more witnesses
who saw the events that day. The fact the men became bait for the sharks shows how much
disdain the Japanese had for their enemy during World War 2, and also how they would stop
at nothing to inflict such horrifying scenes.
The Pig Basket Atrocity was a shocking war crime conducted by the Japanese which was
never brought to trial or punished. This was the case with many atrocities and massacres
conducted during the Second World War as a whole, as there would be very few who would
actually face justice. It is a horrifying account of the lengths that some people would
go to to inflict suffering death and humiliation onto an enemy, and it shows how cruel the
Japanese army could really be. The atrocity saw many men being thrown literally to the
sharks, who would feed on them.
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