Hiroshi Abe (born c. 1922) was a Japanese soldier and a repenting war criminal. As a first lieutenant in the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

's Fifth Rail Regiment during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he supervised construction of the

Burma Railway The Burma Railway, also known as the Siam–Burma Railway, Thai–Burma Railway and similar names, or as the Death Railway, is a railway between Ban Pong, Thailand and Thanbyuzayat, Burma (now called Myanmar). It was built from 1940 to 1943 ...

at Songkurai. Over twelve thousand Allied

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold priso ...

died under his supervision. Abe was sentenced to death by hanging as a B/C class war criminal and imprisoned in

Changi Prison Changi Prison Complex, often known simply as Changi Prison, is a prison in Changi in the eastern part of Singapore. History First prison Before Changi Prison was constructed, the only penal facility in Singapore was at Pearl's Hill, beside t ...

. In 1947, his sentence was commuted to 15 years. He was released in 1957.

"The construction of the railway was in itself a war crime. For my part in it, I am a war criminal."

In 1995, Abe testified against the Japanese government in a lawsuit seeking compensation for Koreans in Japan during World War II. "This was probably the first time for a former Japanese officer to testify in court in the trial of war compensation issues."Proceedings at the prefectural court and the lower-court judgement (1991-1996)
ne.jp; accessed 23 December 2015.

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1920s births Possibly living people Japanese people convicted of war crimes Prisoners and detainees of Singapore Japanese people imprisoned abroad Imperial Japanese Army personnel of World War II Imperial Japanese Army officers Japan Ground Self-Defense Force personnel Prisoners sentenced to death by the British military {{Japan-mil-bio-stub