The Fallen: A True Story of American POWs and Japanese Wartime Atrocities

In the waning months of World War II, the American B-29 bomber attacks on Japanese cities grew in intensity. In this book, author Marc Landas takes the reader on a journey that started with a B-29 raid in May, 1945, and ended with consequences that no one could have ever imagined. The pilot of one of the B-29s on that fateful raid was Marvin Watkins. Along with his crew of nine other men, they were returning to their base when they were attacked by Japanese fighters. Suffering fatal damage, Watkins ordered his crew to bail out while he stayed at the controls of the plane. One by one, the men bailed out. But as it turned out, their worst fears were just beginning, for after being captured by the Japanese Kempei Tai, they faced horrors unimaginable to most people. The surviving eight men from Watkins' B-29, along with thirty-nine other American POWS, were either beheaded by the Japanese, or, in the case of Watkins' crew, subjected to inhumane and fatal medical experiments. On three different occasions, the beheadings occured, and on one of the occasions, the war had already ended. The men who were used for the medical experiments had seawater pumped into their veins as well as having lungs, stomachs, and livers removed. They were alive but unconscious the entire time; they ultimately died. In November, 1945, the Americans, acting on a tip from an informant about the downing of Watkins' plane, began an investigation into the possibility of Japanese atrocities being committed against the American POWs. Over the course of the next 2+ years, the investigation turned up allegations of behheadings and medical experiments. Many Japanese were indicted and a trial began in 1948. Through the meticulous work of the American investigators and prosecutors, several Japanese officers were found guilty of murder and handed sentences ranging from death by hanging to several years of hard labor. However, due to the rising threat of the Soviet Union and China, the Americans realized that an allied Japan would help stem the flow of Communism in the region. In a move that left me as a reader dumfounded, the Americans gave all of the convicted Japanese officers clemency in the name of establishing friendly relations between the United States and Japan. I found this to be a very eye-opening book. It is inconcievable to me how the Japanese, who were found guilty at trial, were allowed to get off scott-free, while the American POWs were murdered at the hands of these same Japanese officers. As for the book itself, the author does an extraordinary job of describing the downing of the B-29, as well as the beheadings and the other atrocities committed by the Japanese. People who think the United States was barbaric in using the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki should read this book and learn what real barbarism was.