Kempeitai

History

The Kempeitai was established in 1881 by a decree called the Kempei Ordinance (憲兵条例), figuratively "articles concerning gendarmes". Its model was the Gendarmerie of France. Details of the Kempeitai's military, executive, and judicial police functions were defined by the Kempei Rei of 1898, which was amended twenty-six times before Japan's defeat in August 1945.

The force initially consisted of 349 men. The enforcement of the new conscription legislation was an important part of their duty, due to resistance from peasant families. The Kempeitai's general affairs branch was in charge of the force's policy, personnel management, internal discipline, as well as communication with the Ministries of the Admiralty, the Interior, and Justice. The operation branch was in charge of the distribution of military police units within the army, general public security and intelligence.

In 1907, the Kempeitai was ordered to Korea where its main duty was legally defined as "preserving the (Japanese army's) peace", although it also functioned as a military police for the Japanese army stationed there. This status remained basically unchanged after Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910.

The Kempeitai maintained public order within Japan under the direction of the Interior Minister, and in the occupied territories under the direction of the Minister of War. Japan also had a civilian secret police force, Tokko, which was the Japanese acronym of Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu ("Special Higher Police") part of the Interior Ministry. However, the Kempeitai had a Tokko branch of its own, and through it discharged the functions of a secret police.

When the Kempeitai arrested a civilian under the direction of the Justice Minister, the arrested person was nominally subject to civilian judicial proceedings.

The Kempeitai's brutality was particularly notorious in Korea and the other occupied territories. The Kempeitai were also abhorred in Japan's mainland as well, especially during World War II when Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, formerly the Commander of the Kempeitai of the Japanese Army in Manchuria from 1935 to 1937, used the Kempeitai extensively to make sure that everyone was loyal to the war.

According to United States Army TM-E 30-480, there were over 36,000 regular members of the Kempeitai at the end of the war; this did not include the many ethnic "auxiliaries". As many foreign territories fell under the Japanese military occupation during the 1930s and the early 1940s, the Kempeitai recruited a large number of locals in those territories. Taiwanese and Koreans were used extensively as auxiliaries to police the newly occupied territories in Southeast Asia, although the Kempeitai recruited French Indochinese (especially, from among the Cao Dai religious sect), Malays and others. The Kempeitai may have trained Trình Minh Thế, a Vietnamese nationalist and military leader.

The Kempeitai was disarmed and disbanded after the Japanese surrender in August 1945.

Today, the post-war Self-Defense Forces' internal police is called Keimutai (See Japanese Self-Defense Forces). Each individual member is called Keimukan.

Japanese Secret Services and the Axis Powers

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Kempeitai forged various connections with certain pre-war European intelligence services. Later when Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, the Japanese Secret Services formed formal links with these intelligence units, now under German and Italian fascists, known as the Abwehr and the Italian SIM. Along these lines, the Japanese Army and Navy, contacted their corresponding Wehrmacht intelligence units, Schutzstaffel (SS), or Kriegsmarine concerning information regarding Europe and vice versa. Europe and Japan realized the benefits of these exchanges (for example, the Japanese sent data about Soviet forces in the Far East and in Operation Barbarossa from the Japanese Embassy, and Admiral Canaris offered aid in respect to the Portuguese neutrality question in Timor).

One important contact point was at the Penang Submarine base, in British Malaya. This base served Axis submarine forces (Italian Regia Marina, German Kriegsmarine and the Dai Nippon Teikoku Kaigun, or Imperial Japanese Navy). Here at regular intervals, technological and information exchanges occurred. Until the end of conflict, Axis forces used the bases in Italian occupied Ethiopia, the Vichy France territory of Madagascar and some "officially" neutral places like the Portuguese Colonies of Goa in India.

Human rights abuses

The Kempeitai ran extensive criminal and collaborationist networks, extorting vast amounts of money from businesses and civilians wherever they operated. They also ran the Allied prisoner of war system, which often treated captives with extreme brutality. Many of the abuses were documented in Japanese war crimes trials, such as those committed by the Kempeitai East District Branch in Singapore.

The Kempeitai also carried out revenge attacks against prisoners and civilians. For example, after Colonel Doolittle's raid on Tokyo in 1942, the Kempeitai carried out reprisals against thousands of Chinese civilians and captured airmen, or in 1943 the Double Tenth massacre which was in response to an Allied raid on Singapore Harbour. All these actions together—including Unit 731's vivisection campaign—include some of the worst atrocities committed during World War II.

Organization

The Kempeitai maintained a headquarters in each relevant Area Army, commanded by a Shosho (Major General) with a Taisa (Colonel) as Executive Officer and comprising two or three field offices, commanded by a Chusa (Lieutenant Colonel) and with a Shosa (Major) as executive officer and each with approximately 375 personnel.

The field office in turn was divided into 65-man sections called 'buntai'. Each was commanded by a Tai-i (Captain) with a Chu-i (1st Lieutenant) as his Executive Officer and had 65 other troops. The buntai were further divided into detachments called bunkentai, commanded by a Sho-i (2nd Lieutenant) with a Junshikan (Warrant Officer) as Executive Officer and 20 other troops. Each detachment contained three squads: a police squad or keimu han, an administration squad or naikin han, and a special duties squad or Tokumu han.

Kempeitai Auxiliary units consisting of regional ethnic forces were organized in occupied areas. Troops supplemented the Kempeitai and were considered part of the organization but were limited to the rank of Shocho (Sergeant Major).

The Kempeitai had 315 officers and 6,000 enlisted men by 1937. These were the members of the known, public forces. Allies estimated that by the end of World War II, there were at least 7,500 members of the Kempeitai, figuring in undercover personnel and so on. This number might be even higher.

Wartime mission

The Kempeitai was responsible for the following:

By 1944, despite the obvious tide of war, the kempeitai were arresting people for antiwar sentiment and defeatism.

Uniform

Personnel wore either the standard M1938 field uniform or the cavalry uniform with high black leather boots. Civilian clothes were also authorized but badges of rank or the Japanese Imperial chrysanthemum were worn under the jacket lapel. Uniformed personnel also wore a black chevron on their uniforms and a white armband on the left arm with the characters ken (憲, "law") and hei (兵, "soldier").

A full dress uniform comprising a red kepi, gold and red waist sash, dark blue tunic and trousers with black facings was authorized for officers of the Kempeitai to wear on ceremonial occasions until 1942. Rank insignia comprised gold Austrian knots and epaulettes.

Personnel were armed with either a cavalry sabre and pistol for officers and a pistol and bayonet for enlisted men. Junior NCOs carried a shinai (竹刀, "bamboo kendo sword") especially when dealing with prisoners.

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