Tokyo
In a war for territory, resources and oil, American planes indiscriminately bomb cities, killing women and children. Some of the aircraft are hit and 38 crew parachute to enemy soil. After a summary trial, all are beheaded.
Plus ca change. Those air raids took place in the final months of the second world war, when American B-29s abandoned the last rules of warfare and dropped hundreds of tonnes of high explosives and napalm on Japan. By August 1945, almost 70 cities had been reduced to smouldering ash and more than half a million people, mostly civilians, were dead. The architect of the bombing, Curtis LeMay, reportedly said: 'If we had lost the war, we would have been tried as war criminals.'
In the event, the war criminals were all judged to have been on the other side. The most infamous Class-A category prisoners, including wartime prime minister Hideki Tojo, were tried in the Tokyo War Crimes tribunals and executed. But what about the B- and C-class leaders who were condemned during the little-known Yokohama Trials?
A new movie, Best Wishes for Tomorrow, is currently being shot in Tokyo and depicts the fate of the man who ordered the beheading of the 38 American airmen.
General Tasuku Okada was tried in 1948 in Yokohama, where he argued that the airmen were not entitled to prisoner-of-war status, says scriptwriter Roger Pulvers.