Following the surrender of Allied forces in Singapore, Nishimura was in charge of the eastern half of Singapore Island, during the period in which the Sook Ching massacre took place. Nishimura himself was often at odds with the commander of the 25th Army, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, at times engaging in conduct that seemed deliberately insulting.[2] As a result, his division was denied the Emperor's Victory Citation, and he was recalled to Japan and forced to retire in April 1942.
From June 1943 – February 1944, Nishimura was appointed governor of the Shan States in northern Burma. From February 1944, Nishimura was appointed Japanese military Governor of Sumatra, a post he held until the end of the war.
Trials for war crimes
After the end of the war, Nishimura was tried by a British military tribunal in Singapore for the events related to the Sook Ching massacre. He was found guilty of war crimes, and was sentenced to life imprisonment, of which he served four years in Singapore before being sent back to Tokyo to complete his sentence.
As he was being repatriated to Japan, Nishimura was forcibly removed from a ship at Hong Kong by Australian military police and brought before an Australian military tribunal on Manus Island, where he was investigated with events in connection to the Parit Sulong Massacre. Although Lt. Hackney who had survived the Parit Sulong Massacre was shown Nishimura's photo, Hackney could not determine that Nishimura was the culprit. Nowadays in Japan, Nishimura's photo as a war criminal is often insisted to be probably one of another person. Hiroshi Kato, a former Japanese journalist, claims that this error seems to have already occurred at the Manus Island camp.[3] It is unclear if this photo was the same one Hackney saw, but it is possible that Hackney saw a photo that was already wrong. After all, other evidence was discovered stating that Nishimura had ordered the shootings at Parit Sulong and the destruction of bodies. Nishimura was charged, found guilty and was executed by hanging on 11 June 1951.
In 1996, Australian journalist Ian Ward suggested that the Australian Army prosecutor, CaptainJames Godwin—a former Royal New Zealand Air Force pilot who had been ill-treated as a POW in Sumatra—had "manipulated" evidence to implicate Nishimura. Ward's impressions were prompted by fabricated evidence from a U.S. lobbyist seeking compensation for Japanese POWs.[4][5] Ward also claimed that Godwin took no action on the testimony of Lieutenant Fujita Seizaburo, who reportedly stated that he was directly responsible for the Parit Sulong massacre. Fujita fled and was not charged. Fujita's fate is unknown.
Extensive research conducted by Professor Gregory Hadley and James Oglethorpe and published in the Journal of Military History in 2007 subsequently showed that the evidence that purported to indict James Godwin was a later fabrication created to further political causes in the 1990s.[6]
^Hadley, Gregory.; Oglethorpe, James. (April 2007). "MacKay's Betrayal: Solving the Mystery of the "Sado Island Prisoner-of-War Massacre"". The Journal of Military History. 71 (2): 441–464. doi:10.1353/jmh.2007.0118. S2CID159847866.
