Translating the Devil

After the Japanese surrender in Malaya and Singapore in 1945, the British and their allies spent two years rebuilding governments and stabilizing economies. This included establishing security and collecting evidence on captured Japanese military personnel for war crime trials. To assist in this task a group of Canadian servicemen in the newly formed Army Intelligence Corps were sent to assist their commonwealth colleagues in translating military documents and interrogating Japanese prisoners. Translating the Devil is a collection of memoirs and notes made by Captain Llewellyn Fletcher, Canadian Army Intelligence. They are compiled as a chronological narrative in a form that may be shared by historians, colleagues and old friends. Fletcher lived in Japan as a language instructor at Keio University between 1927 and 1931. When the Japanese invaded SE Asia he volunteered his services to the War Department in Ottawa since he could read and speak Japanese.