Thanks for the response. I’ve been curious about this picture since I first saw it, I’ve always wondered if the Australian had ever been identified. In the National Archives I came across a file about it. The file had a statement by a missionary named father Edmond Kunisch who says a Japanese soldier named Paul Yamashita (who is seen in the photograph immediately to the left of the soldier raising his sword) in November 1943 had told him that “three days prior he had captured one White man and three Malays in a Kanaka rest house.” The pictures were found in a small album of negatives, possibly an officer’s collection, in a bivouac area on Hollandia. The negatives were processed by allied intelligence. Along with the album was a diary of a Kunio Yunome, written in it was the entry for 24 October “…I myself with my own JAPANESE sword beheaded an enemy soldier prisoner…” Yunome was a member of Japanese intelligence, an interpreter who spoke English, Portuguese, and some German. He had also lived in Canada.
Story of Atrocities by Japs on Hapless Prisoners is released by the U.S.; Deliberate Starvation, Torture, Death Japanese Atrocities during World War II in Philippines
I remember watching on the History Channel where an Australian was about to be executed for insulting a Japanese Officer but the Australian made the Japanese officer back down,which was very rare since they did not backdown from something they seemed so important , like teaching the PoW's how they should be dealt with.
