Book on Hirohito

* “Book Reveals Hirohito the Militarist” (Aug. 11), about Herbert Bix’s biography of Hirohito, magnifies the need for answers to long-time questions asked by ex-prisoners of war of the Japanese. We have known that the answers lie hidden in the secret records of Japan and the U.S. Or worse, were destroyed by Japan.

Who in Japan ordered the inhumane, uncivilized treatment of the captured prisoners of war? Who ordered the transport of POWs to Japan for use as slave laborers of their industrial complex? Who ordered the POWs transported in unmarked “hell ships” traversing oceans controlled by Allied submarines, thus condemning to death thousands of Allied POWs who had already suffered years of unbearable atrocities? Who in Japan ordered an immediate massacre of all POWs enslaved in Japan, upon news that the homeland invasion by the Allied forces had begun?

The answers to these and to related questions lie with the very top military planners, and now we know that Emperor Hirohito knew of these orders and undoubtedly approved. In light of these new revelations, ex-POWs’ slave-labor lawsuits against Japanese corporations for compensation and apologies take on a new dimension of credence. (I am an ex-POW and was a slave laborer in the Mitsubishi copper mine in Hanawa, Japan.)

JAMES T. MURPHY

Santa Maria