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spidge · 23-04-2008, 03:45 AM

There was an "atrocity" committed by a POW camp guard in New Zealand. His brother was one of the 23 Coastwatchers (my avatar) who was beheaded on Tarawa in 1942.

He went berserk and mowed them down with a machine gun. They say he could not have known of his brothers death.

I would have helped him!

Allied atrocities have to be placed into the correct context. Many of the Australians for instance 6th/7th/9th divisions had come from the Middle East where it was predominantly a clean war on both civilians and the enemy and POW's were treated fairly well.

When these Australian troops came up against this type of warfare they reciprocated in kind without hesitation.

A friend of my fathers from the 9th division was repulsed at the Japanese "dirty tricks" and all of his company shot the Japanese twice. If they wanted to die with honour, they were obliged with another bullet, just in case any of them made a miraculous recovery and decided to explode a grenade amongst them.

23-04-2008, 03:45 AM	#6 (permalink)
spidge Legendary Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 8,068	There was an "atrocity" committed by a POW camp guard in New Zealand. His brother was one of the 23 Coastwatchers (my avatar) who was beheaded on Tarawa in 1942. He went berserk and mowed them down with a machine gun. They say he could not have known of his brothers death. I would have helped him! Allied atrocities have to be placed into the correct context. Many of the Australians for instance 6th/7th/9th divisions had come from the Middle East where it was predominantly a clean war on both civilians and the enemy and POW's were treated fairly well. When these Australian troops came up against this type of warfare they reciprocated in kind without hesitation. A friend of my fathers from the 9th division was repulsed at the Japanese "dirty tricks" and all of his company shot the Japanese twice. If they wanted to die with honour, they were obliged with another bullet, just in case any of them made a miraculous recovery and decided to explode a grenade amongst them. __________________ Spidge, ------------------------------------------------------- My Avatar is the memorial to the 22 Commonwealth Coastwatchers at the Temakin Cemetery on Betio (Tarawa Atoll) who were beheaded by the Japanese on 15th October 1942. http://www.dva.gov.au/media/publicat...mem_beito.html "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war." (Winston Churchill made this prophetic pronouncement in a House of Commons speech in 1938, just after Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich agreement with Hitler. Chamberlain returned from Germany with the signed agreement in hand, proclaiming that "peace in our time" had been achieved. Churchill attacked Chamberlain's "politics of appeasement" in this and many other speeches.) What did the Australians do in ww2 and other conflicts? Check out this site: http://www.diggerhistory.info/00-pag...ster-index.htm Last edited by spidge; 23-04-2008 at 10:11 PM.