Kempeitai

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Kempeitai (憲兵隊, "Law Soldier Regiment") is the Japanese word for military police. When the word is used in English, it refers specifically to Japanese military police of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945.

The Kempeitai was established in 1881, under military police legislation. It was directly controlled by the Army Minister. The chain of command was as follows: Army Ministry - Military Administration Bureau - Provost Marshal General, who served as its Chief. Prime Minister General Hideki Tojo was once the chief of the Kempeitai.

Gradually, the Kempeitai's role was expanded to the regulation of public order and conduct (mostly in regard to Communists, a category that included anti-war groups.) Thus it had the ability to arrest those whom it regarded as subversive to the public order. Its function therefore somewhat resembled the Religious Police of Saudi Arabia. However, when the kempeitai arrested civilians, the accused had recourse to civilian court. This was not the case when the Kempeitai also became the de facto police force of territory occupied by Japanese military. For this reason, many equate Kempeitai with the German Gestapo; hence the mistaken belief that it was the Japanese secret police. This is incorrect because Japanese secret police did exist whose name is Tokkou keisatu (special police). All military police forces in other countries are translated as Kempeitai in Japanese. The Kempeitai recruited large number of locals in its occupied territory, especially in Korea, to supplement the force.

Some from the Anglo-American world comment that "Japan and its territories did not have the writ of habeas corpus, so individuals had no rights and were presumed guilty when arrested (by military police)". However, this is wrong attribution. European civil laws have "presumption of innocent" under an inquistorial system rather than adversarial system of Anglo-American common law.

The principal reason the Kempeitai was generally feared was that anyone arrested in occupied territory came under the military court of justice whose proceedings were more lax compared to a civilian court, especially in places the military considered to be in a state of revolt, in which case, the accused could be executed summarily provided proper military procedure was followed. The Kempeitai dealt severely with anti-Japanese movements within Japanese territory and were feared especially by the Chinese in Japanese-occupied territory.

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Organization

The Kempeitai maintained a headquarters in each relevant army area, comprising two or three field offices, each with approximately 375 personnel.

The field office in turn was divided into 65-man sections called 'buntai', which were further divided into sub-sections called bunkentai, with approximately 25 personnel.

Each sub-section contained three squads: a police squad or keimu han, an administration squad or naikin han, and a special duties squad or Tokumu han.

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Wartime mission

The Kempeitai was responsible for the following:

  • Travel permits
  • Labor recruitment
  • Counterintelligence and counter-propaganda (run by the Tokko-Kempeitai as 'anti-ideological work')
  • Supply requisitioning and rationing
  • Psychological operations and propaganda
  • Rear area security
  • Running prisoner of war and forced labor and special camps (The Kempeitai apparently provided guards for several 'human experimentation' units which housed 'difficult' prisoners, including over 3,500 Americans, Chinese, Europeans, Koreans and Russians sent to Unit 100 and Unit 731.}
  • Provision of "comfort" women (jugun ianfu) for the "comfort houses" (These were brothels maintained by the IJA for the use of its troops. Originally Japanese volunteers were used but as these became rare or limited to the use of officers, many Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and some European women were kidnapped and placed in these facilities to be "used" by members of Japan's military. The Kempeitai also regulated the accommodation facilities of the brothels, checked the identities of their customers, and controlled the violence and drunkenness within.)
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Arrest authority

The Kempeitai could arrest any civilian or military personnel for crimes specified in military courts. All assigned personnel were superior privates, non-commissioned officers, warrant officers and officers. Other personnel were attached as needed. Army theorist Sadao Araki provided the Kikosaku security doctrine to support such operations.

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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 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"). 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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Strength

According to US Army TM-E 30-480 there were over 36,000 regular Kempeitai personnel by the end of the war; this did not include the many native "auxiliaries" used for pacification purposes. The Kempeitai also used criminals and outlaws as law enforcers with torture commonly used to extract confessions. The Japanese placed heavy emphasis on physical violence to maintain discipline with even the most minor infractions being dealt with immediately. This organization may have trained Trinh Minh The, a Vietnamese nationalist and military leader. The Kempeitai recruited paramilitary troopers of the Cao Dai faith. It also recruited a large auxiliary consisting of Taiwanese indigenous peoples and Koreans.

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See also

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External links

ja:憲兵

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