In the Sino-Japanese War, around 1937, Japanese troops executed Chinese soldiers by beheading in the vicinity of 潞安城 in the Da Xing Mountains of Shanxi Province. The castle was littered with corpses of Chinese soldiers who had been beheaded or stabbed with bamboo spears by the Japanese. There was a stench of death in the air. In various parts of China, Japanese troops were executing Chinese prisoners of war by beheading. The moment a Chinese head was beheaded and blood splattered in a bang, the prisoner's body was reflexively thrown into the air in front of him.
After World War II, many war criminals were executed by beheading from the Japanese army in China, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific front, and after 1942, the Japanese army executed many Chinese prisoners of war. After 1942, the Japanese executed many Chinese prisoners of war. 20,000 of the Chinese POWs were repatriated to the Japanese mainland and taken to forced labor. About 15% of them died of malnutrition and other diseases.
During the Sino-Japanese War, the only photos that were allowed by the Japanese military censors were those of Japanese soldiers hailing their victory. Civilians who possessed censored and unauthorized photos were severely punished by the military police. Most of the tragic war photos were not allowed to be taken during the war. The censorship was particularly severe during the war's annihilation and defeat, and all interviews and information gathering were forbidden. Even when photos were sent to the Japanese mainland, they were rarely published in the paper. Photographs that were inevitably rejected were not censored and were kept in a small amount of secrecy within the company. Because of their secrecy, the dates, places, and names of the photographs were unknown. In Japan, the Kempeitai and police sabers suppressed speech and reporting.
The Army Ministerial Order of July 31, 1937, and the Navy Ministerial Order of August 16, 1937, strictly forbade the publication of any photographs that were disadvantageous or horrific to our military. After Japan's defeat after World War II, some Japanese magazines published old unauthorized photos of the Japanese invasion of China. These photos were indeed censored by the Japanese military and not allowed to be published. Conscientious Japanese people began to look back on the war of aggression, and in such a climate, it was only natural that old photos that were not good for the Japanese military would be published.
