Did you know a Japanese ship crew once massacred German citizens?

Friendly fire incidents can occur in wartime, but the deliberate killing of the civilians of an allied nation has never been considered anything other than an atrocity. And yet, this is exactly what happened on board the Japanese destroyer Akikaze on March 18, 1943, almost exactly 82 years ago. The roughly 60 victims were not only mostly Germans – allied to Japan, – but priests, missionaries and their dependents.
 
The northeast part of New Guinea had been a part of the German Empire before World War I, and several groups of German missionaries decided to stay even after the country lost its colonies. The town of Wewak was the seat of the Roman Catholic Vicariate of Central New Guinea, led by Bishop Josef Lörks.

The Japanese invaded New Guinea in January 1943, and moved all missionaries to a nearby mission on Kairiru Island. Meanwhile, some 200 miles (320 km) away, a group of around 20 Protestant missionaries lived on Manus Island in similar conditions, with cordial relations between them and the Japanese garrison.
 
In mid-March, the destroyer Akikaze, bringing supplies, was ordered to pick up some 42 Catholic missionaries and their helpers from Kairiru and the Protestants from Manus. Beside Bishop Lörks, the groups included clergymen, nuns, a plantation owner and an overseers, several Chinese and Malay servants, and two Chinese and one European infant. Most of the Westerners were German citizens, except for a Hungarian missionary (also from an Axis country) and two monks from the United States.

The Akikaze received sealed orders and headed for Rabaul, with instructions to only open the orders once at sea. Once he did so, the ship’s commander, 2nd Lieutenant Commander Tsurukichi Sabe, who had been treating the passengers well, balked to learn that he was to execute all of them with no reasons given. Disobeying an order was unthinkable, so he regretfully set about the grim task.
 
The passengers were herded into a bow cabin, and a wooden scaffold was erected at the ship’s stern, hidden from sight by a large canvas. One by one, the men and women were called up on the deck and asked their name, age, nationality and other questions to give the impression it was all just an identity check. They were then led to behind the canvas, blindfolded, their wrists tied by ropes, and hoisted into the air in a position not entirely unlike a crucifixion. They were then shot dead by a team of four riflemen and a light machine gunner. The destroyer accelerated to 24 knots during the execution; the roar of the engines and the wind suppressed the gunfire, and the wind pushed the dead bodies over the stern, making it easier to cut down and drop into the sea.

The 60 or so victims were murdered in three hours; the babies simply thrown overboard. Commander Sabe had the deck washed clean of blood, swore the crew to secrecy, and held a small Shinto ceremony for the souls of the victims.
 
The reasons for the massacre, or even the identity of the man who gave the order, was never discovered. During the war, the Japanese had an intense distrust of Westerners and Christians at the best of times. It’s been speculated that someone in the Imperial Japanese Navy might have believed that the missionaries were sending information to the Allies by hidden radios, leading to Japanese defeats in the region. It’s also been suggested (not entire without grounds) that the clergymen might have been in contact with downed Allied airmen hiding in the jungle.

Nobody was ever put on trial for the murders. The Akikaze was sunk in November 1944, along with any documents or witnesses that could have clarified events. Some higher-ranking officers were investigated but never proven guilty. Most of the investigation was done by Australia, but none of the victims were Australian citizens, and relevant laws in effect at the time were phrased in such a way that Japan’s murder of the citizens of a country allied to it did not formally count as a war crime.