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Bridging Australia and Japan: Volume 2 BRIDGING AUSTRALIA AND JAPAN VOLUME 2 THE WRITINGS OF DAVID SISSONS, HISTORIAN AND POLITICAL SCIENTIST BRIDGING AUSTRALIA AND JAPAN VOLUME 2 THE WRITINGS OF DAVID SISSONS, HISTORIAN AND POLITICAL SCIENTIST EDITED BY KEIKO TAMURA AND ARTHUR STOCKWIN ASIAN STUDIES SERIES MONOGRAPH 15 Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] Available to download for free at press.anu.edu.au ISBN (print): 9781760463755 ISBN (online): 9781760463762 WorldCat (print): 962408104 WorldCat (online): 962408205 DOI: 10.22459/BAJ.2020 This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The full licence terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode Cover design and layout by ANU Press This edition © 2020 ANU Press CONTENTS Preface . vii Acknowledgements . ix 1 . David Sissons and the history of Australia’s war crimes trials: A spectral interaction in the archives . 1 Georgina Fitzpatrick David Sissons’ wartime service: Note by Georgina Fitzpatrick . 17 2 . Japanese intentions toward Australia (1939–42) . 21 DCS Sissons 3 . The Cowra breakout . 33 DCS Sissons 4 . The Australian war crimes trials and investigations (1942–51) . 57 DCS Sissons 5 . Observation and correspondence . 129 Duntroon lecture, July 1978, DCS Sissons . 131 ‘The trials: Were they justice or vengeance?’, DCS Sissons, Sydney Morning Herald (16 August 1985) . 147 Some observations on Australian war crimes trials involving cannibalism/mutilation of the dead, DCS Sissons . 155 The fate of the Japanese garrisons at Nauru and Ocean Island, DCS Sissons . 161 Sissons’ correspondence . 163 Major Herbert Francis Dick, Georgina Fitzpatrick . 164 6 . David Sissons, political scientist and writer on postwar Japanese politics: An introduction . 193 Arthur Stockwin Human rights under the Japanese Constitution . 197 Dissolution of the Japanese Lower House . 218 7 . Legacy of David Sissons . 267 Keiko Tamura DCS Sissons select bibliography . 275 PREFACE This is the second volume ofBridging Australia and Japan: The writings of David Sissons, historian and political scientist. This volume is the third and final publication in the series of Sissons’ writings, which started with Breaking Japanese Diplomatic Codes: David Sissons and D Special Section during the Second World War, edited by Desmond Ball and Keiko Tamura in 2013. The first volume of Bridging Australia and Japan, with a focus on Sissons’ writings on Australia–Japan relations, was released in 2016. For this volume, the editors chose his work on the Pacific War, war crimes trials and investigations, and Japanese politics in the 1950s and 1960s. Sissons’ previously unpublished work in this volume was selected from the Papers of DCS Sissons (MS 3092) at the National Library of Australia (NLA) in Canberra.1 An idea of a publication project was discussed soon after David Sissons’ death in 2006. Right from its outset, its main goal has always been to make his writings available to a wider readership. Sissons dedicated his life to research and writing, and his articles are often cited by succeeding researchers due to their high-quality content backed by meticulous research. In recent years, however, some articles became difficult to access. In addition, Sissons left unpublished research papers in the NLA collection. We selected those articles that we consider seminal in the fields of studies in which Sissons was involved. All three books are now available in digital format through ANU Press, and we hope a wide circle of readers and researchers are able to learn from his writings for years to come. This volume starts with Georgina Fitzpatrick’s chapter on her experience of encountering and engaging with Sissons’ manuscript at the NLA while she was carrying out research on Australian war crimes trials. Chapter 2 covers the Japanese intentions towards Australia, particularly on the contentious issue of whether or not Japan had a plan to invade Australia. Sissons’ research clearly demonstrates that Japan did not have any plans to invade Australia many years before the issue 1 To review the finding aid for this collection, go to nla.gov.au/nla.obj-337994618/findingaid. vii BRIDGING AUSTRALIA AND Japan: VOLUME 2 attracted a big controversy.2 Sissons’ thorough research is showcased in Chapter 3 in his detailed account of the Cowra breakout. As a young recruit, he joined a search party at Cowra soon after the breakout. Although his personal experience is not included, his writing is riveting and sheds new light on the incident. Sissons’ essay in Chapter 4 on the Australian war crimes trials and investigations is a significant contribution to the field of war crime research. This paper was uploaded on the internet after Sissons’ death, but did not have a secure hosting website. We are happy to provide a permanent home for this significant work in this publication. The following two chapters include Sissons’ writing and correspondence on his research on war crime trials. Readers will appreciate the depth and rigour of his questioning in his observations and the extent of his efforts to reach out to informants. Contemporary researchers might carry out a similar level of enquiry, but it would be much more difficult to capture their efforts in the digital era. The last two chapters cover Sissons’ writings in political science at the early stage of his academic career. As Stockwin’s introduction indicates, these papers, which were written 50 years ago, still have some relevance in contemporary research. The last chapter by Keiko Tamura discusses Sissons’ legacy and records the project’s history. A selected bibliography of Sissons shows the breadth of the field in which Sissons carried out his research and writing. Many of the writings that were included in these publications were originally produced decades ago. It is obvious that some new research results have appeared, and some of Sissons’ writings might require updating and revision. Yet, the essence of his enquiries and the references that he recorded are still relevant to contemporary scholars to learn from and be inspired by. Were that to happen, our efforts in bringing this project to a conclusion are worthwhile. 2 About public controversy on this issue, see Peter Stanley, Invading Australia: Japan and the battle for Australia, 1942 (Camberwell, Victoria: Viking, 2008), Chapter 11. viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This is the second of two volumes of the works of David Sissons, historian and political scientist. In preparing volume two, the last of the ANU Press series on David’s writings, we would like to acknowledge David’s widow, Bronwen Sissons, for her invaluable support for the project. In fact, her continuous enthusiasm for this project sustained us over its 13 years duration. David was lucky to have such a partner as Bronwen, who understood his passion for research and supported him intellectually and emotionally throughout his career. After his death, Bronwen provided necessary financial assistance for the project. Through discussion with Bronwen, we learned more about David’s attitudes not only to his research topics, but also to his life. That insight was valuable in compiling his writings for the publication. We would also like to express our gratitude to their children for their understanding and support for the project. They are Meredith, Miranda, and Hilary who sadly passed away in December 2017. We thank many people who played invaluable roles in the production of this volume. First of all, we would like to thank Dr Georgina Fitzpatrick. Georgina contributed the first chapter of this volume, which reveals interesting insights into working on David’s papers at the National Library of Australia (NLA) for her research on war crimes trials. In addition, she made a significant contribution towards resurrecting David’s lecture that was delivered at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1978. She skilfully transcribed David’s handwritten lecture manuscript as well as providing comprehensively updated references. Georgina also prepared the notes associated with Sissons’ article in the Sydney Morning Herald, which is reproduced in the same chapter. Georgina’s enthusiasm as well as her deep academic insights into the field of war crimes trials helped us significantly in our consideration of this important and complex issue and guided us in the process of compiling this volume. We would like to thank Dr Craig Reynolds, the chair of the Asian Studies Editorial Board of ANU Press and series editor of the Asian Studies Monograph Series, for his continuing support throughout the publication project. We owe greatly to his enthusiasm and measured patience in overseeing this project to its successful ix BRIDGING AUSTRALIA AND Japan: VOLUME 2 completion. We thank Emeritus Professor Tessa Morris-Suzuki and Professor Donna Weeks for their useful comments and encouragement. We thank Professor David Cohen, who gave permission to include David’s seminal paper on Australian war crimes trials and investigations as Chapter 4 in this volume. We are grateful to Amy Ng who offered her expertise to assist us in production of the manuscript. We would like to thank the ANU Publication Subsidy Committee for a grant to assist towards the copyediting of this volume as well as the first volume. The copyediting was ably done by Justine Molony as for volume one of this series. We also would like to thank Emily Tinker and her staff at ANU Press for their skilful assistance. Above all, we would like to acknowledge David Sissons’ legacy. He had the foresight to deposit his papers at the NLA for researchers who would follow in his footsteps. We hope that, in a published form, his writings will be available to a wider readership and further research will be undertaken as a result. Keiko Tamura and Arthur Stockwin x 1 DAVID SISSONS AND THE HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA’S WAR CRIMES TRIALS: A SPECTRAL INTERACTION IN THE ARCHIVES Georgina Fitzpatrick I never met David Sissons; he died a few years before I began to work on a history of the 300 Australian-run war crimes trials of Japanese suspects in the aftermath of the Pacific War.
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