Japanese Atrocities.

Discussion in 'War Against Japan' started by Kaiser, Mar 27, 2005.

  1. REK

    REK Senior Member

    Originally posted by PalidaMortis@Jun 26 2005, 03:01 AM
    Seems to me the only virtue some Japanese exhibited was their assistance with a handful of jewish refugees from certain death at the hands of the Germans


    If some of you are not aware of the PalidaMortis reply, it refers to the Wartime Japanese Consul in Kovno, Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara, who signed visas for Jews to allow them into Japan. These Jews could then travel to a friendlier country.

    There were many other Consul's in other European countries who did the same. The number was estimated to be in excess of 200,000.
    I just stumbled across the (very old) posts quoted above. It's something I didn't know about.

    What I did know (and it may or may not be connected in some way) is that in September/October 1945 my father passed through Bangkok, where there was a community of about 70 German Jewish refugees who had managed to get visas. Interestingly, the Japanese occupiers of the Thailand had given them no trouble, perceiving them as Germans - i.e. their allies!
     
  2. tasha1011

    tasha1011 Junior Member

  3. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    The Japanese refusal to acknowledge those events stands in stark contrast to the subsequent handling of Japanese internment in Canada. They received apologies and compensation. Hardly seems equitable when you consider the horrific treatment of Canadian POW's!

    Japanese Internment Camps in Canada
     
  4. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    The Japanese refusal to acknowledge those events stands in stark contrast to the subsequent handling of Japanese internment in Canada. They received apologies and compensation. Hardly seems equitable when you consider the horrific treatment of Canadian POW's!

    Japanese Internment Camps in Canada

    We played their game in the face to face fighting however we were not like them. Thank God!

    Their treatment of our POW's (in the field) only incensed the Australians to "take no prisoners".
     
  5. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    Tasha,

    Hello and welcome to the forum.

    Regards
    Tom
     
  6. gavin.woodbutcher

    gavin.woodbutcher Junior Member

    Hi all, have just come upon this forum this subject in particular.

    I know that this a very emotive subject, but, as my wifes grandfather died as a consequence of what I am about to ask, I feel justified.

    Does anyone know anything concrete regarding the conspirosy theory over the assassination of Colonel Cyril Wild, cheif british war crimes investigator, on 25th September 1946? Everything I find looks to the fact the Wild had enough evidence to take down the Emporer, but this would have interfered with the US getting their hands on bio warefare information gained by Japan during ww2.

    The official report states the aircraft crashed in bad weather, I can't buy it myself as the pilots were just far too experianced to make that sort of mistake.
     
  7. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Hi all, have just come upon this forum this subject in particular.

    I know that this a very emotive subject, but, as my wifes grandfather died as a consequence of what I am about to ask, I feel justified.

    Does anyone know anything concrete regarding the conspirosy theory over the assassination of Colonel Cyril Wild, cheif british war crimes investigator, on 25th September 1946? Everything I find looks to the fact the Wild had enough evidence to take down the Emporer, but this would have interfered with the US getting their hands on bio warefare information gained by Japan during ww2.

    The official report states the aircraft crashed in bad weather, I can't buy it myself as the pilots were just far too experianced to make that sort of mistake.

    Hello and welcome to the forum Gavin.

    Lots of experienced pilots were killed during the war due to accidents and it still happens today in the Military-Far too many British troops were killed in Iraq in 2003 due to flying accidents on the first few days of the invasion. If it happens now it certainly happened then.

    There seems to be quite a lot on Col. Wild on the net all with the same theme I think-On the assumption its not what you've posted I've added the link below for you to check out all the returns.

    Colonel Cyril Wild - Google Search=

    Regards
    Andy
     
  8. PBI_1944

    PBI_1944 Member

    The strange death of the pilot mirrors the strange suicide of Iris Chang, author of THE RAPE OF NANKING. I agree with other posters regarding Japanese culpability for war crimes. Japan has never made full restitution to Allied POWs and maintains a perinally silent demeanor, though it was awash in torture and mass death. I was not suprised to see Reagan's grant full monetary compensation to interned Japanese-Americans in the 80's yet Japan never reciprocated in kind with Allied POWs though it stated it would. I was later shocked by Chang's untimely death, as she highlighted the horror of Nanking; enough time has passed now that I beleive the BBC should do a full documentary on Japanese war crimes. Unfortunately here in the U.S. it is politically incorrect to call Japan out for its human rights abuses.
     
  9. Blackblue

    Blackblue Senior Member

  10. Wills

    Wills Very Senior Member

    Friedrich H - very true, there is much revisionist history written, this cleansing, sterilizing of the German forces, made out to be honourable knights of combat! Only the commanders were Nazis the remainder decent people caught up in a war - nonsense! I lived in Germany loved the country and the people, yet some in a moment of truth would tell you - 'we would not be saying what we do had we won!' I lost an uncle in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, whilst we will not forget, nor easily forgive, I am uneasy when I see score cards of who did what to who. I hold no hatred for young Japanese or Germans who cannot nor should answer for their ancestors.
     
  11. PA. Dutchman

    PA. Dutchman Senior Member

    "Unfortunately here in the U.S. it is politically incorrect to call Japan out for its human rights abuses."

    There are many American's former POWs of the Japanese who will completely agree with your statement. Many believe it started with MacArthur who allowed many Japanese War Criminals to go free.

    I agree with you, what really would sets me off is when the victims were Australians, British, Indians, Chinese or New Zealanders and MacArthur seem to have power over even those trials and sentences.

    He never really got dirty himself, he was always in the rear or close to it, and he never missed a meal. How many POWs of the Japanese starved to death and the Japanese criminals who allowed this were never prosecuted by MacArthur?
     
  12. Sgt Hawk

    Sgt Hawk Member

    I had the Honor years ago to interview a former POW. He was captured on Wake Island, and spent the entire war as a POW. He had scares on his back from beatings, had limited use of his right hand from being broken by a Jap Guard in the Coal Mine he worked in, he told me the guard broke his hand because he kelpt covering his mouth when he coughed from the dust. One very interesting story was the Camp CO had a cat that would roam around , they started feeding the cat getting it fat. The POW's in his barracks killed the cat, put it into a potato soup. The Camp Co wanted to know who killed the cat? No one would own up to it. The guards pulled 4 men out of the line and shot them.
     
  13. Peccavi

    Peccavi Senior Member

    There is no getting away from the horrific record of atrocities both large and small by all types of Japanese forces in World War II - occassionally your find a German soldier or General ashamed of the treatment given out by this own forces and does his best to alleviate the suffering but I never read of any act of humanity or compassion in the case of japan.

    Anyway I really do not know enough of this to comment with any authority.

    I was astonished however when reading of the Russo-Japanese war that far from being barbaric, the Japanese Army and Navy treated prisoners extremely well and granted them full rights.

    The German army was pretty honourable in 1914-18 as well. So what changed?
     
  14. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    I was astonished however when reading of the Russo-Japanese war that far from being barbaric, the Japanese Army and Navy treated prisoners extremely well and granted them full rights.

    The German army was pretty honourable in 1914-18 as well. So what changed?

    This wiki might explain some of it and like the Germans (internally) (Japanese externally), improving their skills for nearly the same amount of time prior to the commencenent of ww2.

    The events of the 1930s and 1940s

    By the late 1930s, the rise of militarism in Japan created at least superficial similarities between the wider Japanese military culture and that of Nazi Germany's elite military personnel, such as those in the Waffen-SS. Japan also had a military secret police force, known as the Kempeitai, which resembled the Nazi Gestapo in its role in annexed and occupied countries.[27] As in other dictatorships, irrational brutality, hatred and fear became commonplace.[citation needed] Perceived failure, or insufficient devotion to the Emperor would attract punishment, frequently of the physical kind.[28] In the military, officers would assault and beat men under their command, who would pass the beating on to lower ranks, all the way down. In POW camps, this meant prisoners received the worst beatings of all,[29] partly in the belief that such punishments were merely the proper technique to deal with disobedience.[28]

    These type of contests make your blood curdle and were mirrored in many areas.

    Japanese Contest to behead 100 People.jpg

    Two Japanese officers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda competing to see who could kill (with a sword) one hundred people first. The bold headline reads, "'Incredible Record' (in the Contest To Cut Down 100 People—Mukai 106 – 105 Noda—Both 2nd Lieutenants Go Into Extra Innings".
     
  15. One of the more ambigious Japanese war crimes took place Dec 25th 1941, when Hong Kong fell. The Japanese troops burst into the hospital and killed all of the Canadian and Indian soildiers residing there. Tragic
     
  16. Camac

    Camac Junior Member

    B. of A.;

    They also raped the nurses.
     
  17. Assam

    Assam Senior Member

    Same sort of deal at the hospital in Singapore, they burst in, shot the doctors & bayoneted the sick in their beds or the operating table. they are buried in a may grave (which was where the old water tank was) & had been used as a grave during the last days war prior to singapores surrender. At memorial cross resides over it now.
     
  18. Steve Leach

    Steve Leach Strategy junkie

    I think the principal difference between German atrocities and Japanese atrocities (and other war crimes of other nations) is that the Germans made genocide a national policy, not to mention that they made it a military PRIORITY to eliminate these "Untermenschen".

    The Japanese govenment may have felt indifferent to it, or even regarded such behaviour as acceptable, but they did not - as far as I know - actually publically put it on the agenda. Perhaps they would have gotten around to it after the war - who knows.

    They are both disgusting atrocities and I don't think we even need to make a comparison, or discuss the demerits of each but the systematic, industrialized mass murder of millions of Jews as public policy is a different matter to an unchecked barbaric army on the rampage.

    You can't blame the entire Japanese population for the behaviour of its army, but you can blame the German people for supporting that government the way they did.
     
  19. jspitery

    jspitery Member

    I have read the book. It was truly shocking. Stories of beheading contests and how Japanese soldiers raped and brutalized everyone in their path.

    You must know that many Japanese of that era were bread to be sociopaths. They were taught at a very young age that Chinese were less than human and should be treated as such. This idea was actually beaten into them. These individuals acted as if part of one giant mindless entity. Another book worth reading is James Bradley's Flyboys. The only compassionate Japanese the American POW's ever encountered were Japanese men that spent time in the United States. Read Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides

    I lived in Hawaii from 1981-1993 and many times I had to interact with Japanese tourist groups and would notice the old groups of Japanese men were very stern and unfriendly after speaking to their tour guides I would find out that they were WW2 Vets. I'm not saying all people of this time period were bad but I can honestly say that the look in these mens eyes and how the looked at me was very scary. Even as old men some of them still had that mindless robotic stare.
     
  20. jspitery

    jspitery Member

    It's seems to be true that here in the U.S. we go out of our way for the sake of healing and normalizing relations and trade that we sidestep the issues of abuse by the Japanese during WW2. There were some truly horrific occurrences one after the other in fact Death March at Bataan, railroad building in Malaysia, abuse of captured pilots in the Pacific. I once corresponded with a Battan Death march survivor now living in PA and he told me he was very upset at the making of the sanitized Pearl Harbor movie and Japan paying reparations to Korean women who were forced into prostitution in Japanese comfort houses and never admitting what they did to Americans, Australians and others. Not to say the poor women were not deserving. It just upset him to think the admission of guilt has to not been made in regard to his buddies that died by their hands. I have met scores of the many younger generation of Japanese people who are totally sympathetic and who embrace anything or anyone American and are truly good people. I think that's what makes things even harder to put all this behind us. The Japanese that exist today are for most part a very warm and compassionate people. We have to make an effort to differentiate between their current and older generations and some times that very hard to do If you are part of our greatest (WW2 vet) generation.
     

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