Mitsubishi Materials apologies for enslaving American WWII soldiers
A major Japanese corporation will offer a landmark apology for using American PoWs for forced labour during the Second World War.
A senior executive at Mitsubishi Materials will apologise to 94-year-old former prisoner James Murphy and relatives of other former PoWs who toiled at plants operated by its predecessor company in Japan during the conflict.
The event is being hosted by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the centre which primarily educates people about the Holocaust, called it an important gesture, coming ahead of the 70th anniversary in August of the end of the war that has heightened scrutiny of Japan’s attitude to its past abuses.
“As far as I know, this is a piece of history,” said Mr Cooper, who is helping moderate the closed-door meeting at the centre’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.
“It’s the first time a major Japanese company has ever made such a gesture. We hope this will spur other companies to join in and do the same.”
The centre said the apology would be made by Hikaru Kimura, senior executive officer for Mitsubishi Materials.
Masato Otaka, spokesman for the Japanese embassy in Washington, said to the extent of his knowledge, it was an initiative of Mitsubishi Materials and the Japanese government had no involvement.
Japan’s government issued a formal apology to American PoWs in 2009 and again in 2010, but until now, the dwindling ranks of veterans have gained little traction in their demand that Japanese corporations that used them as slaves at mines and industrial plants under often brutal conditions do the same.
Some 12,000 American prisoners were shipped to Japan and forced to work at more than 50 sites to support imperial Japan’s war effort, and about 10% died, according to Kinue Tokudome, director of the US-Japan Dialogue on PoWs, who has spearheaded the lobbying effort for companies to apologise.
Japan’s government recently acknowledged that tens of thousands of South Koreans, Chinese and Second World War PoWs were conscripted to fill labour shortages at factories, mines and other sites as part of its successful attempt to win United Nations world heritage status for 23 historical Japanese industrial sites.
Ms Tokudome said Mitsubishi Materials would be apologising for its use of forced labour by some 900 American troops at four locations operated by its predecessor company, Mitsubishi Mining. Only two living survivors of that ordeal could be located to accept the apology, and of them, only Mr Murphy is fit enough to make the trip to Los Angeles.
Speaking from Santa Maria, California, Mr Murphy recounted how he was shipped to Japan as a PoW, two and a half years after his capture in the Philippines where he was serving as a radio operator for the US Army Air Corps.
He had survived the notorious Bataan Death March, when thousands of Americans and Filipinos are believed to have perished as they were made to trudge 65 miles to prison camps after their defeat by Japanese forces.
Mr Murphy spent a year at a copper mine near Hanawa with about 500 other PoWs, an experience he described as “a complete horror”.
“It was slavery in every way: no food, no medicine, no clothing, no sanitation,” he said, adding that it was all the more painful knowing that Mitsubishi built fighter aircraft used against American forces.
He said he forgave his captors after the war, but has hankered for an apology for 70 years.
He participated in a class action lawsuit attempting to sue the Japanese government for the year he spent in the copper mine, which failed.
No money is being offered by the corporation, but Mr Murphy said he considered the upcoming apology “a big deal”.
Mr Murphy said if other companies followed suit, it would help provide closure for surviving PoWs and build a better relationship between Japan and the United States, already close allies.
Another former PoW, Lester Tenney, 94, who met Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe briefly during a high-profile visit to Washington in April, reserved comment on the planned apology until he heard it, but added: “At least it is a step in the right direction after all these years.”
Mr Tenney was forced to work for coal mine near the town of Omuta during the war. He will also attend Sunday’s event.
A delegation from Mitsubishi Materials will then travel on Tuesday to a small museum in Wellsburg, West Virginia, which commemorates American PoWs who survived the Bataan Death March.
A statement from the museum said the delegation would announce a donation to support educational programming at the museum, and Edward Jackfert, a former PoW, will thank Mitsubishi Materials “for being the first Japanese company to come forth and publicly apologise”.
