Kempeitai

The Kempeitai was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945. The principal reason why the Kempeitai was generally feared was that they did not hesitate to torture people whom they arrested, quite often, without warrant of any kind whatsoever. The Kempeitai's brutality was particularly notorious in Korea and those parts of the world which were later held under the Japanese military rule, including Hawaii. The Kempeitai were abhorred in Japan's mainland, too, especially during the Second World War when General Hideki Tojo used them extensively in order to make sure that everyone was committed to his (or in his view, His Majesty Hirohito's sacred) war. Under Tojo, the Kempeitai reduced Japan to a police state.

The handling of civilians in Hawaii earned the Kempeitai more ill repute. For example, a half-Hawaiian local named Charlie Kaapu was arrested by the Kempeitai purely on the say-so of a Japanese major whom Kaapu had cuckholded.