War crime trials

Elaine Fischel, left, was a legal secretary during the war crimes trial in Japan for the defense. Seated next to her is an unknown Japanese woman that presumably helped work on cases.

John Brannon, right, sits with a Tokyo Shimbun newspaper reporter looking at a book. Brannon was a defense attorney for the Japanese war criminals.

Hideki Tojo was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army, the leader of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, and the 27th Prime Minister of Japan during much of World War II, from October 17, 1941, to July 22, 1944. As Prime Minister, he was responsible for ordering the attack on Pearl Harbor, which initiated war between Japan and the United States, although planning for it had begun in April 1941, before he entered office.

Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo was Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Empire of Japan at both the start and the end of the Japanese-Allied conflict during World War II. He also served as Minister of Colonial Affairs in 1941, and assumed the same position, renamed the Minister for Greater East Asia, in 1945.

Ambassador Toshio Shiratori was a Japanese ambassador to Italy from 1938-1940. He was an advocate of military expansionism, counseling an alliance between Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan to facilitate world domination. Shiratori was found guilty of conspiring to wage aggressive war by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in November 1948 and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Teiichi Suzuki, who served as a lieutenant general in the Imperial Army, was the last surviving member of a group of top leaders convicted of war crimes. He was the primary planner of Japan's wartime economy, serving as state minister of the Planning Board from 1941 to 1943.

An unknown man sits in the examiner's box and is examined by the defense attorney in the courtroom while giving testimony for the prosecution against the Japanese war criminals during the War Crimes Trial. It was held in the War Ministry Building in Tokyo, Japan. The military police officer standing next to the examiner's box is unknown.

The Honorable Justice Alan James Mansfield, associate prosecutor, introduces exhibits as evidence during the opening session of trail of the twenty-eight accused Japanese war criminals before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in the War Ministry Building in Tokyo, Japan. Others are unidentified.

John Brannon, defense counsel for the accused Shigetaro Shimada, reads an affidavit in which Shimada claims to have no knowledge of Pearl Harbor plans and atrocities by naval personnel under his command. Shimada was one of the 26 alleged major Japanese war criminals on trial at the International Military Tribunal for Far East at the War Ministry Building in Tokyo, Japan. Others in the background are unidentified.

From left to right, Gael Sullivan, Chicago, Illinois, Assistant Postmaster General of the United States; Millard Tydings, Senator from Maryland; and Postmaster General Robert Hannegan, St. Louis, Missouri attend the trial of Tojo and 26 other Japanese accused war criminals at the War Ministry Building in Tokyo, Japan.