During World War 2, there were many men and women who were accused of treason.
The Nazis executed thousands of people for the crime, and many of those were people who
refused to fight for the Germans meaning they were betraying the Reich.
But for centuries treason was a serious offence people would pay for their lives with, during
the reign of Henry VIII one man was even boiled alive after being found guilty of treason.
The Second World War saw people executed on gallows and also at the firing ranges, if
they were condemned for treason.
But there was a Canadian Japanese man who during the Second World War was executed for
treason, and he was one of only two Canadians in history to have ever faced prosecution
for war crimes.
But as he made his way to the gallows, Kanao Inouye shouted Banzai, showing his true allegiance
to the Japanese Army.
Join us today as we look at the execution of the Japanese Canadian traitor, and remember
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Kanao Inouye was born on the 24th May 1916 in Kamloops, British Columbia in Canada.
He was a second generation Japanese Canadian, as his father had emigrated to Canada from
Tokyo.
His father served in the Canadian army during the First World War and was distinguished.
His father had served with the 131st battalion of the New Westminster Regiment and had been
awarded the Military Medal.
He gained his citizenship in 1920, four years after his son was born.
Kanao described his childhood in Canada as idyllic and peaceful, and he said that he
enjoyed his schooling and also got on rather well with most of his schoolmates.
Some considered him a teacher’s pet, but following his graduation from the Vancouver
Technical High School, his family pressured him to travel to Japan to study at a higher
level.
His father died in 1929, but despite this his family had many connections in Japanese
industry.
His grandfather was the president of the Keio Electric Tramways, and a member of Japan’s
Parliament and House of Peers.
It was hoped that Kanao Inouye with his grasp of English and Japanese customs and way of
life would make him the perfect man in the trade deals for the company between American
and Asia.
But he struggled to shift from Canadian culture to Japanese culture, and when he travelled
to Japan he was treated with suspicion.
They did not appreciate his heritage, and he found it difficult to engage in conversations
with the Japanese locals.
He longed to return to Canada and said, ‘We used to go together with others and they always
came around and asked us what we fellows were doing in Japan because we were not wanted
there.’
During one incident he was even arrested and was questioned and was subjected to water
torture by the Japanese.
He was tied up and restrained, and waster was forced down his throat until his stomach
became distended, and a wet towel was kept over his face to simulate drowning.
This torture went on for a while, and Inouye even went to a sanatorium to recover following
this.
However as the Second World War waged on, in Japan Inouye would be conscripted into
the war effort.
He was seen as an ideal person to become a civilian interpreter, and he was sent to prisoner
of war camps in Hong Kong to speak with British and other allied prisoners.
However he was now in the company of Canadians, but he was in charge.
One former prisoner would state, ‘Inouye went out of his way to be offensive to Canadian
prisoners.
He continually directed very foul and abusive language at them.’
He was nicknamed the ‘Slap Happy,’ or the ‘Kamloops Kid,’ and he went out of
his way to taunt prisoners and ranted at them.
He screamed that the Rising Sun flag would fly one da high over Ottawa, and that the
sisters of the prisoners would be assaulted by victorious Japanese forces.
He had gone power mad, and he had turned himself over to the Japanese war effort, despite his
harsh punishment.
Many prisoners began to fear him, and he would sometimes appear at the door of a hunt and
whisper, ‘Where is Slap Happy?’
If soldiers responded he would take them out of the barrack and then beat them severely.
There were accusations levelled against him in which were linked to war crimes.
A first charge in his war crimes trial arose from a beating Inouye had given to two Canadian
officers on the 21st December 1942.
Whilst on the assembly parade that morning, the two men were missing, and the commandant
then accused two officers named Atkinson and Norris of helping the men escape.
The commandant ordered Inouye to slap the officers, and he did this, beating them so
hard that they collapsed.
When they were on the ground, he then battered them, kicking them and Atkinson was brutalised
so badly that he almost lost an eye.
Inouye days later tried to apologise saying he lost his temper, but Norris refused to
accept this.
He had been assigned to the Sham Shui Po Prison camp, but then he was discharged from the
army in 1943.
However in 1944 he was conscripted as an interpreter to work for the Kenpetitai military police
in Hong Kong who were notorious in their brutality.
The work of the military police was mostly murder, and they routinely tortured people
until they were dead.
There were some survivors who told of Ken Inouye’s brutality there.
One witness said he was ‘the chief torturer of my body and soul.’
Inouye used the water torture method upon this man, and one witness was a 55 year old
British woman named Mary Power.
She was implicated in spying, and was tortured using water by Inouye.
For half an hour she almost drowned, and she was then hanged from a hook with her feet
barely touching the ground.
Inouye then lit a cigarette and burned her face, cheeks and hands until she fainted from
the pain.
Following the defeat of the Japanese during the Second World War, Kanao Inouye was arrested
in Kowloon and he was then tried for war crimes.
One court official said that he committed acts of ‘wanton and barbarous cruelty that
it was mere accident or fate whether the victims survived or not.’
However there was an issue with his conviction of war crimes.
It was said that as he was found guilty of torturing prisoners and civilians, it was
said on appeal that he could not be prosecuted for war crimes committed by an enemy army
because he was a Canadian citizen.
This meant that his death sentence that had been handed out to him was revoke initially,
but the courts would not stop there to punish him.
Instead of war crimes, he was then in April 1947 indicted on charges of high treason.
It was said during this trial that he could change his story like a chameleon, and he
claimed he was a soldier doing his duty.
He said he had felt embittered against the Canadian people, but that he had eagerly joined
the Japanese Army, and had allegedly served in the China campaign.
He claimed that he felt proud to serve in the Kempetei and enjoyed brutalising spies
to help the Japanese war effort.
More evidence of his brutality came to light, but his lawyer tried to prove that as he had
no allegiance to the British crown, that he could not therefore be guilty of treason.
At one point during the proceedings he said, ‘My body is the Emperor’s body, Long live
the Emperor.’
Despite these questions, it took 10 minutes to found Inouye guilty.
The judge donned a black cap and then proclaimed that he would be sentenced to death.
There was another appeal lodged but this was not successful, and his execution was then
planned.
He was held inside of Hong Kong’s Stanley prison to await his execution.
Inside of the prison was an execution chamber complete with a gallows, and it was this that
claimed the life of Kanao Inouye.
He was led up the stairs of the gallows accompanied by a number of guards, and as he reached the
top he came face to face with an executioner.
The executioner placed a cap over his head, and the noose and during this part Inouye
shouted his final words, the Japanese war cry of ‘Banzai,’ showing his true allegiance.
Shortly after this the trapdoor was opened and he fell through and was executed.
Kanao Inouye’s story is one which was unique up until 2010, as he was the only Canadian
man at that point in History to have faced prosecution for war crimes.
But he was instead executed for treason as he was deemed to have inflicted such suffering
against his own citizens.
He was a man who at the age of 31 went to the gallows for being a brutal prison guard
during world War 2.
His final words being Banzai showed his true colours and where he had nailed his support
during the Second World War.
But today he’s considered a forgotten executed evil guard of the Second World War.
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