Yokohama War Crimes Tribunal (BC-Class Trials)

The Yokohama War Crimes Tribunal (横浜軍事法廷) was the principal venue for the trial of Japanese Class-B and Class-C war criminals by the United States military following World War II. The trials were convened at the Yokohama District Court (横浜地方裁判所), located at Nihon-Ōdōri 9, Naka-ku, Yokohama — a stately building originally completed in August 1930 (Shōwa 5) as part of the reconstruction after the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923.

On December 18, 1945, Lieutenant General Robert L. Eichelberger, commander of the U.S. Eighth Army headquartered in Yokohama, ordered the requisitioning of the courthouse. The building's grand jury courtroom (陪審法廷), with its approximately 200 square meters of floor space and 5.4-meter ceiling height — considered the finest in East Asia at the time — was converted into the military tribunal courtroom.

The trials commenced in February 1946 and continued through October 1949. Over this period, 319 separate trials were conducted involving 996 Japanese defendants, ranging from enlisted personnel to generals, as well as civilians. The accused were charged primarily with war crimes committed against Allied prisoners of war and civilian internees, including mistreatment, torture, execution without trial, forced labor, and denial of medical care.

Of the 996 defendants, 854 were convicted. 124 received death sentences, of which 51 were ultimately carried out. All convicted persons served their sentences or were executed at Sugamo Prison (巣鴨プリズン) in Tokyo. By 1958, all remaining prisoners from these trials had been paroled.

While the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) at Ichigaya in Tokyo tried 28 Class-A war criminals — leaders who had planned and waged aggressive war — the Yokohama trials focused on Class-B offenders (those who ordered atrocities) and Class-C offenders (those who directly committed them). Together, the Ichigaya and Yokohama tribunals formed the two pillars of American war crimes prosecution in occupied Japan.

When the Yokohama District Court building was slated for reconstruction, the historic jury courtroom was dismantled and relocated to the Toin Gakuen Memorial Academium (桐蔭学園メモリアルアカデミウム), completed in 2001 on the campus of Toin University of Yokohama in Aoba-ku. It was restored to its original 1930 appearance and is one of only two surviving jury courtrooms in Japan (the other being at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto). The courtroom is open to the public and serves as a tangible reminder of three eras of justice: the prewar jury system, the postwar military tribunals, and modern legal education.

The current Yokohama District Court building stands on the same site at Nihon-Ōdōri 9, rebuilt in a modern style but without the original courtroom interior.