Allied war crimes during World War II

Area bombing of cities

In June 1938, the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, stated that the bombing of civilians was contrary to international law. In the early years of the war, Britain's policy was to restrict aerial bombing to military targets.^[2]: 210 In February 1942, Britain adopted a policy of area bombing aimed at undermining the morale of enemy civilians, which the head of RAF Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, later stated was not contrary to international law.^{[2]: 210–211} Although Britain's area bombing of German cities, including the bombing of Dresden (which killed at least 25,000 people), is sometimes considered a war crime,^[31] the legality of aerial bombing of civilian areas was unclear at the time.^{[8][2]: 194–197}

Unrestricted naval warfare

On 4 May 1940, in response to Germany's intensive unrestricted submarine warfare, the British Admiralty announced that all vessels in the Skagerrak were to be sunk on sight. This commenced Britain's unrestricted naval warfare campaign. Sociologist Nachman Ben-Yehuda argues this was contrary to the terms of the Second London Naval Treaty and other relevant international law at the time.^[32]

Historian Alfred de Zayas writes that while it was British policy to rescue shipwreck survivors, German military documents provide credible evidence that the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force sometimes fired on survivors after the sinking of German vessels.^{[33]: 245–259} In July 1941, the submarine commander Anthony Miers of HMS Torbay twice ordered his crew to kill enemy shipwreck survivors in the Mediterranean. Historian Jürgen Rohwer calls this "the only instance of a war crime committed by a British submarine commander."^[34]: 84 Miers was reprimanded but later was awarded the Victoria Cross and promoted to admiral.^{[35][3]: 671–672}

Britain refused to recognise small hospital ships and often attacked them. They also refused to recognise hospital ships which they believed were used for military purposes in contravention of the Hague Convention. By May 1943, Britain had attacked nine German and 10 Italian hospital ships.^[33]: 262 On 12 September 1942, the Italian hospital ship Arno was sunk by RAF torpedo bombers off Tobruk. On 1 December, the British sank another Italian hospital ship, the Città di Tapani. The sinkings followed British intercepts of German coded messages showing that the ships were reportedly carrying military supplies, which was in contravention of the Hague Conventions.^{[34]: 192, 194, 214 [36]: 556}

On 18 November 1944, the German hospital ship Tübingen was sunk by two Beaufighter bombers off Pola, in the Adriatic Sea. Four crewmembers were killed and 16 wounded. A German military investigation concluded that the sinking was a war crime. A British investigation found that the ship was attacked in error. There was no official order to attack the ship and British policy was not to attack red cross vehicles and vessels.^{[33]: 263–268}

Abuses against enemy military and POWs

On the Western Front from June 1944 to May 1945, there were numerous cases of British troops killing enemy POWs, violating and looting the bodies of dead enemy troops, and forcing POWs to undertake military work in contravention of the Geneva Convention. Longden states that the killing of prisoners and enemy soldiers attempting to surrender was not on a large scale. However, it was more common when the British believed the enemy had previously killed British POWs or had fired on British troops after pretending to surrender, and when the British encountered SS troops and guards at liberated concentration camps.^{[37]: 382–385, 390–393, 400, 405–407}

Longden states that the desecration of corpses was uncommon on the Western Front, but did occur.^[37]: 53 In the Asia-pacific theatre, during the Burma campaign, there are cases of British soldiers removing gold teeth from dead Japanese troops and displaying Japanese skulls as trophies.^[38]

German POWs were sometimes forced to undertake tasks on the frontline such as digging trenches, carrying wounded soldiers, and digging graves for dead soldiers. There were also reports of German POWs being forced to clear minefields and fire on German positions.^{[37]: 377–378} The British classified German military personal captured after the German surrender as "Surrendered Enemy Personnel" rather than prisoners of war, thus avoiding the protections provided to them under the Geneva Convention.^{[39]: 502–503}

The "London Cage", a MI19 prisoner of war facility in the UK during and immediately after the war, was subject to allegations of torture.^[40] The Bad Nenndorf interrogation centre in occupied Germany, managed by the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre, was the subject of an official inquiry in 1947, which found that there was "mental and physical torture during the interrogations" and that "personal property of the prisoners were stolen".^[41]

Abuses against civilians

On the Western Front in 1944-1945, British troops sometimes killed civilians or destroyed their homes if they had undisclosed weapons in them or showed support for the Nazis.^{[37]: 123, 373}

Italian statistics record eight rapes and nineteen attempted rapes by British soldiers in Italy between September 1943 and December 1945. However, it is likely that this understates the incidence of rape as many victims probably did not report the crime for fear of retribution or dishonouring their family.^[42] Although there were numerous reports of British troops sexually assaulting German civilians, they were lower than the British authorities expected.^[37]: 127 Nevertheless, reports of sexual assaults in Germany and other occupied areas increased in the final months of the war and in the early months of peace.^{[37]: 275–276}

Looting farms and other civilian properties of food, alcohol, livestock and valuables was common, particularly when British troops reached Germany.^{[37]: 312, 321–325, 337–339} The British paid French civilians over £60,000 compensation for looting and theft by October 1944. In May 1945, British and US authorities paid £220,000 compensation for looting in the Nijmegen region of the Netherlands.^{[37]: 328, 337} Over 280,000 claims for compensation were settled by March 1945. The authorities generally tolerated British looting in Germany until fighting ceased in May.^{[37]: 344, 346}

During the Allied occupation of Japan, members of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), which included British, Australian, Indian and New Zealand personnel, were convicted of 80 rapes between May 1946 and September 1951. Official statistics are not available for BCOF's first three months in Japan (February to April 1946).^[43] Historian Robin Gerster believes the official statistics undercount the incidence of rape. The penalties given to members of the BCOF convicted of serious crimes included 10 years imprisonment in one murder case and five years imprisonment in one rape case.^[44]

Area bombing of cities

The American policy of area bombing of cities and towns in Axis and occupied territory is sometimes considered a war crime, particularly in relation to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the bombing of Tokyo and the bombing of Dresden.^{[1][2]: 1–2} However, the legality of aerial bombing of civilian areas was unclear at the time.^{[8][2]: 194–197}

Unrestricted naval warfare

On 7 December 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the US Navy declared unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan, in contravention of international law.^{[45][46]: 1–2}

On 16 September 1942, a US Army Air Force (USAAF) B-24 Liberator bomber was ordered to attack the German submarine U-156 which was rescuing survivors after it had sunk the British troopship Laconia. The submarine displayed a red cross flag and had survivors on its deck and in life rafts it was towing. The bomber attacked the submarine with bombs and depth charges, forcing the submarine to cut the rafts adrift and crash dive. One of the B-24's bombs also landed among the life rafts, overturning them. The following day, the same B-24 attacked another German submarine with survivors on board.^{[47]: 59–66} According to historians Sally and Thomas Malleson, the attack on the U-156 was a prima facie war crime.^[48]: 94

On 26 January 1943, the American submarine USS Wahoo sank the Japanese transport ship Buyo Maru off New Guinea. The submarine's commander Dudley Morton then ordered his crew to fire on the survivors in the water and on lifeboats, thinking that they were Japanese troops. In fact, the majority of the survivors were British Indian prisoners of war. Out of the 1,126 men on board the Japanese ship, 195 Indian troops and 82 Japanese soldiers died in the sinking and subsequent attack. The attack on the survivors of the sinking breached international law.^{[46]: 171–175}

During and immediately after the Battle of the Bismarck Sea (March 3–5, 1943), U.S. patrol boats and Allied aircraft systematically attacked the survivors of the Japanese warships and troop transport ships sunk or wrecked in the battle. The Allies justified the attacks on the grounds that the survivors were Japanese troops close to their military base and could have quickly returned to the front line.^{[49]: 275–278 [50]: 694–695 [33]: 317 note 4}

Abuses against enemy military and POWs

Illegal orders to take no prisoners were sometimes issued by allied commanders. In July 1943, general Patton gave a speech to officers of the US 45th Division, which some of them considered as orders to shoot enemy prisoners.^{[51]: 183–184} Following the Malmedy massacre of US POWs by SS troops in December 1944, there were formal and informal orders in some American units not to take SS prisoners and, sometimes, no German prisoners at all.^[52][53] Major-General Raymond Hufft admitted that he gave orders to take no prisoners when his troops crossed the Rhine.^[54]: 184

There were a number of incidents where American forces killed surrendering troops and prisoners of war in western Europe. Among the deadliest were the Biscari massacre of 11 July 1943, in which American soldiers killed 73 Italian and German prisoners; ^{[3]: 636 [56]} the Chenogne massacre, in which 50 to 80 German prisoners were shot;^[57][58] and the massacre of about 30 to 50 German guards following the American liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945.^{[59][60]: 612–614}

In April 1945, during Operation Teardrop, eight survivors of the sunken German submarine U-546 were tortured by US military personnel in order to gain information on supposed V-1 flying bomb or V-2 rocket attacks on the continental United States.^{[61][47]: 687}

The killing of POWs and enemy soldiers who were attempting to surrender was particularly common in the Asia-Pacific theatre.^[62][63] Historian John W. Dower writes that while it was "not official policy" for Allied personnel to take no POWs, "over wide reaches of the Asian battleground it was everyday practice".^[62] Niall Ferguson and others state that this was a reaction to the bitterness of the fighting in this theatre, to reports of the Japanese mistreating Allied soldiers and prisoners of war and faking surrender to launch surprise attacks, to Allied propaganda dehumanising the Japanese, and to the logistical problems of taking prisoners.^{[63]: 180–182, 186–188 [64]: 116–117 [65]: 53–56}

Although some American officers condoned the shooting of surrendering Japanese soldiers, senior officials attempted to stamp it out. Additional leave and other inducements were offered to soldiers who took prisoners, and General Macarthur ordered investigations into alleged shootings of surrendering Japanese.^[63] Propaganda leaflets assured the Japanese that if they surrendered they would be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. Ferguson suggests that these efforts probably contributed to the fall in the captured-to-killed ratio of Japanese soldiers from 1:100 in late 1944 to 1:7 by July 1945.^{[63]: 181, 190}

There were also several highly publicised cases of American troops collecting body parts from dead Japanese soldiers as trophies.^[66] According to historian James Weingartner, "The percentage of U.S. troops who engaged in the collection of Japanese body parts cannot be ascertained, but it is clear that the practice was not uncommon."^[65]: 57 In January 1944, the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered all theatre commanders to supress the practice, but efforts to enforce the directive were patchy.^{[65]: 57–67}

Abuses against civilians

Ninety-five US personnel were executed for war crimes, mostly for rape or murder of civilians.^{[67]: 225, 368} There were also cases where possible war crimes involving the killing of civilians did not lead to prosecutions, such as in the Sicilian town of Canicatti in July 1943, when an American officer and some infantry shot dead six to eight Italian civilians who were looting a soap factory.^{[68][69]: 114}

There were 904 reported allegations of rape committed by American personnel during the war, resulting in 461 convictions.^{[70]: 11–12} Criminologist J. Robert Lilly, assuming that only five per cent of rapes were reported, estimates that American servicemen committed 3,640 rapes in France and 11,040 in Germany from 1944 to 1945.^{[70]: 11–12} Black soldiers were more likely than white soldiers to be charged by military courts with rape, and were usually more severely punished.^[71] In the American-occupied zones in Germany and Austria, the number of rapes peaked in mid-1945.^[72][73]

Yuki Tanaka writes that there were "relatively limited" instances of rape of civilians by American forces in the Pacific theatre until the last months of the war. However, there was "a sharp increase" in rapes from the time the Americans invaded Okinawa.^[74]: 110 George Feifer writes that despite officers warning that the death penalty would be enforced for rape "there were probably thousands of incidents [of rape]" during the battle of Okinawa and immediately after.^[75]

There were 76 reported cases of rape or rape and murder in Okinawa in the first five years of occupation, but Tanaka believes most cases went unreported.^[74]: 110 Historian Peter Schrijvers states that there were 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of Kanagawa Prefecture after the Japanese surrender.^[76] However, historian Brian Walsh states that this claim originates from a misreading of Japanese Government crime figures that had actually reported 1,326 criminal incidents of all types involving American forces, including an unspecified number of rapes.^[77]

The Yokohama police reported 197 cases of American troops committing rape in September 1945, and the metropolitan police reported 165 such cases in Tokyo and Kanagawa prefecture from March 1946 to September 1946. Tanaka considers these figures represent only a small proportion of actual rapes committed by American forces because many went unreported.^{[74]: 118, 125–126} For the Far East Command as a whole, there were 455 reports of American troops committing rape from 1947 to the end of 1949, resulting in 104 court martials and 53 convictions.^[77]: 1223 Walsh concludes, "there is no credible evidence of mass rape by American soldiers during the Occupation."^[77]: 1203

Abuses against enemy military and POWs

Following the German invasion of France in 1940, the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau investigated reports of French soldiers firing at surrendering German troops and air crew who were shot down in France, and of breaching the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. However, there were no recorded prosecutions, mostly due to the German policy of establishing "friendly relations" with Vichy France.^{[83]: 148–151}

During the Italian campaign of 1943-1945, there were reports of Moroccan Goumiers in the French Expeditionary Corps raping and killing prisoners of war, as well as mutilating their bodies.^{[84]: 301–303}

Abuses against civilians

Following the German invasion of France, French troops killed 21 prisoners without trial at Abbeville on 20 May 1940. The prisoners, who were initially detained by Belgian authorities in Bruges, were mainly fascists and nationalists accused of collaboration, as well as communists, foreigners and Jewish refugees. Lieutenant René Caron and Sergeant Emile Mollet were later prosecuted by German authorities over the massacre and sentenced to death by firing squad in 1942.^{[83]: 146, 302 note 15}

There were many reports of French troops committing rapes, murders, thefts and other crimes against civilians during the Italian campaign of 1943-1945 and the invasion of Germany in 1944-1945. Most of these crimes were attributed to French colonial troops in African units, particularly the goumiers.^{[91]: 557–558 [92]: 301–303 [93]}

The Italian government recorded 5,000 alleged crimes committed by French colonial troops. Among these were reports of murders and 700 rapes in Frosinone province including 75 rapes in Ceccano in May 1944.^{[91]: 557–558} Goumiers also committed mass rapes in Sessa Arunca.^{[92]: 301–303} Complaints from Allied generals led the commander of the French Expeditionary Corps, General Alphonse Juin, to institute a crackdown in which 15 French African soldiers were reportedly executed and 54 imprisoned.^[91]: 558

As the Allies advanced into Germany in 1945, there were many reports of French colonial troops sexually assaulting German women. Historian Jill Stephenson states that while these reports might partly reflect local prejudice against African soldiers, the number of such reports in Württemberg lends them credibility.^[93] According to historian Perry Biddiscombe, French forces committed 385 rapes in the Constance area, 600 in Bruchsal and 500 in Freudenstadt."^{[94]: 614, 635 note 27} The 6th Army group commander, Lieutenant-General Jacob Devers, investigated reports of mass rapes committed by Moroccan troops in April and May 1945, and estimated the number of rapes at under 2,000, some of which he concluded were actually committed by Germans and foreign workers.^{[95]: 610–611}

Murder of POWs

According to Mitch-am and Avon Hohenstaufen, the Canadian army unit "The Loyal Edmonton Regiment" murdered German prisoners of war during the invasion of Sicily.^[101]

Wanton destruction of property

On 10 April 1945, the Canadian Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders destroyed homes in the German village of Sögel in reprisal for civilians joining a skirmish in which five Canadian soldiers were killed. On 14 April, the Highlanders also demolished homes in the town of Friesoythe after a popular commander was killed in a skirmish with German soldiers. The reprisals, ordered by Major-General Christopher Vokes, were contrary to the Hague Convention.^{[102][37]: 373}