Japanese war crimes
The U.S. officially classified all 3,649 military and civilian casualties and destruction of military property at Pearl Harbor as non-combatants as there was no state of war between the U.S. and Japan when the attack occurred. Joseph B. Keenan, the chief prosecutor in the Tokyo Trials, says that the attack on Pearl Harbor not only happened without a declaration of war but was also a treacherous and deceitful act. In fact, Japan and the U.S. were still negotiating for a possible peace agreement which kept U.S. officials very distracted when Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor. Keenan explained the definition of a war of aggression and the criminality of the attack on Pearl Harbor:
Strafing off Barber's Point
The "Kiho Maru", "Myojin Maru", "Shin-ei Maru",and the "Sumiyoshi Maru" had set out days before the Attack on Pearl Harbor. According to one of the survivors Seiki Arakaki (1920–1987) his sampan the "Kiho Maru" captained by Sutematsu Kida had been at sea since December 4. On the morning of December 7th he and the crew saw columns of smoke rising from Pearl Harbor and believed “Something was happening”. When night fell, Oahu was abnormally dark from the wartime blackout. That night he learned of the Attack from another sampan with a radio that pulled up alongside. On December 8 the "Kiho Maru" set course to return to her home port of Kewalo Basin along with the three other sampans also returning to Kewalo Basin. Arakaki recalled when the four fishing boats were two miles from Barber's Point, “There were four or five Army P-40s flying over us,… Each picked out a target and attacked”. Sutematsu Kida, his son Kiichi Kida, and Kiho Uyehara were killed leaving only Arakaki alive but shot in the knee. On the "Myojin Maru" captained by Kaichi Okada; he, Ogawa Mataichi, and Riyozo Okogi were killed off only Sannosuke Onishi (1899–1982) survived. On the other two sampans five were wounded and two were unscathed. A Coast Guard destroyer arrived and sent launches to connect the ship to the two crippled sampans and tow the boats the rest of the way to Kewalo Basin.The seven wounded were sent to Queens Hospital and put under armed guard. Arakaki said in his AP interview he and the other fishermen had been interrogated, accused of aiding Japanese submarines and being in possession of “enemy bullets”. In retrospect the strafing was believed to be in reprisal to the Attack in Pearl Harbor being that the fishing industry was ethnically dominated by Japanese-Americans. The report stated the sampans were “returning fire”. Despite these allegations the incident was an instance of mistaken identity when the planes incorrectly identified the sampans as Japanese naval vessels.