Japanese War Crimes in WWII

[saxdude]

I find the idea of an "honourable" surrender of Japan quite baffling as well, as if they were in some kind of moral or strategic highground to request anything but unconditional surrender.

True true

Though with the exception of the Soviets. They did some pretty horrible stuff before during and after the war, and their crimes would of been greater had the Germans not caught them flat footed in '41(or if Stalin hadnt shot most of his officers and the Soviets executed deep battle in a massive meeting engagement in Poland/Romania

Always with the exception oof the soviets, yet I still find that what the soviets did to the germans during the invasion of Germany was not as bad as it has been portrayed, if still quite terrible. Again, strictly reffering to those war crimes commited during the second world war.

[RubiconDecision]

The US occupation of Japan was benevolent.

The Japanese occupation of China was genocidal.

Yep, but softening up the enemy by killing a million with carpet bombing makes it benevolent?

I find the idea of an "honourable" surrender of Japan quite baffling as well, as if they were in some kind of moral or strategic highground to request anything but unconditional surrender.


Always with the exception oof the soviets, yet I still find that what the soviets did to the germans during the invasion of Germany was not as bad as it was portrayed, or equivalent even to what the Nazis did in Russia. Again, excluding the gulags and all other soviet crimes against humanity.

Yep, except the Japanese tried three times to surrender. So what you're saying is that it's fine to intentionally prevent peace from happening, in order to test two atomic bombs.

[Ciciro]

The Americans took on the Gengis Khan school of warfare. Why not just utterly immolate the enemy and the victors write history, and justify their actions.

Now the strange thing is, what would their ancestors in the military say to harming civilians? Wouldn't that be considered barbarism? Isn't the whole point of war is that soldiers fight soldiers?

I mean its not like they ever did a scorched earth campaign against other Americans.

[Ace_General]

I find the idea of an "honourable" surrender of Japan quite baffling as well, as if they were in some kind of moral or strategic highground to request anything but unconditional surrender.


Always with the exception oof the soviets, yet I still find that what the soviets did to the germans during the invasion of Germany was not as bad as it has been portrayed, if still quite terrible. Again, strictly reffering to those war crimes commited during the second world war.

I was refering specially to German crimes in Poland and east Europe, like the Liquidation of the nobility, Catholic Church, Resistance fighters, business owners, and ethnic Germans.

As an ethnic pole, just reading about the betrayal of the Polish Home Army makes me want to hunt down communists with fire and sword.

[saxdude]

Right, those bullies, I'll kill some civilians to show them! A whole lot of them. Near a million. They got what they deserved because everyone hates a bully, and if we have to be bullies then it's fine and dandy.

The Americans took on the Gengis Khan school of warfare. Why not just utterly immolate the enemy and the victors write history, and justify their actions.

You mean during '45? as opposed to since '37?

Yeah, the Americans commited war atrocities as the world had never seen before, excluding the entire war record of Japan since ing 1937.

Yep, except the Japanese tried three times to surrender. So what you're saying is that it's fine to intentionally prevent peace from happening, in order to test two atomic bombs.

And again, why should it be on their terms?

[Ciciro]

Yep, except the Japanese tried three times to surrender. So what you're saying is that it's fine to intentionally prevent peace from happening, in order to test two atomic bombs.

Nothing other than unconditional surrender was to be accepted, or even deserved.

[Ace_General]

You mean during '45? as opposed to since '37?

Yeah, the Americans commited war atrocities as the world had never seen before, excluding the entire war record of Japan since ing 1937.



And again, why should it be on their terms?

*shrug*

The American way of war is not to outmaneuver and force your enemy to surrender, but to totally destroy him with firepower. Hell, look what we did in the Korean war, Vietnam, and both Iraq wars. And with how the Union defeated the south by basically gang tackling them with manpower and industry.

[RubiconDecision]

You mean during '45? as opposed to since '37?
Yeah, the Americans commited war atrocities as the world had never seen before, excluding the entire war record of Japan since ing 1937.
And again, why should it be on their terms?

Oh it was unprecendented to be sure. Yeah, the purges in the Soviet Union. Mao's happy little purges of practically everyone who looked at him funny. The Nazi death camps were really unbelievable. But in terms of sheer numbers killed in a day, oh we Americans win by a landslide. It's no contest.

And so what if the Japanese tried to approach the Russians. So what if they'd sent peace overtures before. It doesn't matter, because we Americans didn't have to use diplomacy anymore. We sent the best two telegrams we had at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Incineration works when words fail.

[Col. Tartleton]

Its the only surrender Americans like. We set the conditions and then you meet them. Or we keep killing people until we find someone who will do what we say.

If we're winning why would we negotiate to someone else's terms?

[Sphere]

Yep, but softening up the enemy by killing a million with carpet bombing makes it benevolent?

Nagasaki



Hiroshima


Japan should have nothing but gratitude towards the US. Modern Japan is peaceful, prosperous and is no longer the deeply shameful society of the 1930's because of the level of altruism shown by US in rebuilding Japans cities, rebuilding the Japanese economy, rebuilding Japanese democracy, and perhaps most importantly rebuilding a respect for human rights in Japanese society.

Being defeated by the US was the best thing that ever happened to Japan. And putting an end to that genocidal Japanese regime was one of Americas greatest contributions to the rest of the world.

[RubiconDecision]

Nagasaki



Hiroshima


Japan should have nothing but gratitude towards the US. Modern Japan is peaceful, prosperous and is no longer the deeply shameful society of the 1930's because of the level of altruism shown by US in rebuilding Japans cities, rebuilding the Japanese economy, rebuilding Japanese democracy, rebuilding a respect for human rights in Japanese society.

The irony is incredible because the very zaibutsu who caused the 1930's Japanese invasions, who then were arrested, are the same ones who were released by the Americans who fear the consequences. When the zaibutsu were rounded up, the communists were coming to power in that vacuum. So MacArthur freaked out, and released them. So today, the heads of the kaisha that run Japan are often the very same families who were zaibutsu.

But that's celebrated in your photos. Smooth, Ace, marvelously ironic post.

[pannonian]

Japan should have nothing but gratitude towards the US. Modern Japan is peaceful, prosperous and is no longer the deeply shameful society of the 1930's because of the level of altruism shown by US in rebuilding it's enemy.

Compare with the areas formerly occupied by the Japanese. IIRC there was a global poll done just before the 2002 world cup (jointly held by South Korea and Japan), where pollees were asked who their favourite and least favourite countries were. The US bizarrely topped both counts overall. However, what I found hilarious was that South Korean pollees had Japan as a more unpopular country than North Korea. Non-Japanese recognition of Japanese atrocities during WWII still carries a lot of resentment in the western Pacific rim, and reading RD's posts in this thread, I sympathise with them. I've certainly not encountered this kind of attitude among Germans.

[saxdude]

Oh it was unprecendented to be sure. Yeah, the purges in the Soviet Union. Mao's happy little purges of practically everyone who looked at him funny. The Nazi death camps were really unbelievable. But in terms of sheer numbers killed in a day, oh we Americans win by a landslide. It's no contest.

And so what if the Japanese tried to approach the Russians. So what if they'd sent peace overtures before. It doesn't matter, because we Americans didn't have to use diplomacy anymore. We sent the best two telegrams we had at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Incineration works when words fail.

Why does it matter if they were killed in a day, or throughout five years, they were killed either way, death is death, but which death is worst? That one that came after almost 3 years of trying to negotiate peace with a nation hellbent on war? From distant machines that even actively warned the japanese of an impending attack? Or the one commited at a personal level, with bayonets and bullets and self percieved images of racial superiority, glory of the strong over the weak, bitterness and boredom. 3 to 10 million southeast asian and allied war prisoners killed from '37 to '45 because of the Japanese invasion, but you are trying to imagine that is small potatoes compared to the incomparible evil of America, who put most of the effort in bringing Japan to it's knees towards the last year and a half of the war, all because the Japanese felt they deserved an "honourable" surrender?

Also bullcrap on the whole Russian thing, the soviets had no intent on accepting the surrender of the japanese and actively encouraged the allied forces to insist on the unconditional surrender of Japan. 3 years of failed diplomacy.

The irony is incredible because the very zaibutsu who caused the 1930's Japanese invasions, who then were arrested, are the same ones who were released by the Americans who fear the consequences. When the zaibutsu were rounded up, the communists were coming to power in that vacuum. So MacArthur freaked out, and released them. So today, the heads of the kaisha that run Japan are often the very same families who were zaibutsu.

But that's celebrated in your photos. Smooth, Ace, marvelously ironic post.

So you are berating the americans for not being harsher on the Japanese criminals that started the whole mess? mixed messages, huh?

And yeah, ace images. Nowadays Japan and Germany are top economies in the world, leaders in technology and business. But I bet Korea and Poland would be even betterwere it not for the meddling allies.

[RubiconDecision]

Compare with the areas formerly occupied by the Japanese. IIRC there was a global poll done just before the 2002 world cup (jointly held by South Korea and Japan), where pollees were asked who their favourite and least favourite countries were. The US bizarrely topped both counts overall. However, what I found hilarious was that South Korean pollees had Japan as a more unpopular country than North Korea. Non-Japanese recognition of Japanese atrocities during WWII still carries a lot of resentment in the western Pacific rim, and reading RD's posts in this thread, I sympathise with them. I've certainly not encountered this kind of attitude among Germans.

Right! Because to be an American patriot means never apologizing for barbarism that we commit because we're the good guys! What a nutty post.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Zaibatsu

Postwar Dissolution

After Japan’s surrender (1945) in World War II, the breakup of the zaibatsu was announced as a major aim of the Allied occupation. Their controlling families' assets were seized, holding companies (the previous "heads" of the zaibatsu conglomerates) eliminated, and interlocking directorships, essential to the old system of intercompany collaboration, were outlawed. Stock owned by the parent companies was sold, and the individual companies that made up the zaibatsu were made independent entities, although the management within each company remained largely unchanged. Among the zaibatsu that were targeted by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) for dissolution in 1946 were Asano, Furukawa, Nakajima, Nissan, Nomura, and Okura. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., though not a zaibatsu, was originally targeted for breakup, but was saved by a petition signed by 15,000 of its trade union workers and their families.
After the signing of the peace treaty in 1951, individual companies began associating in “enterprise groups” (kigyo shudan), organized around leading companies or major banks. They differed from the previous centralized zaibatsu in that their collaboration was more informal, and the financial interdependency among the member companies was limited. The cooperative nature of these groups became a major factor in the rapid economic growth of postwar Japan, as they pooled their resources to invest in developing industries.
Complete dissolution of the zaibatsu was never achieved by Allied reformers or SCAP, mostly because, in an effort to reindustrialize Japan as a bulwark against Communism in Asia, the U.S. government rescinded the SCAP orders to deconcentrate Japan's large companies^[2] Zaibatsu as a whole were widely considered to be beneficial to the Japanese economy and government. The Japanese public, zaibatsu workers and management, and the entrenched bureaucracy were unenthusiastic and disapproving of plans to dissolve the zaibatsu. The change in the political focus of the Occupation during the reverse course crippled efforts to eliminate the zaibatsu.
Modern Influence

Today, the influence of the zaibatsu can still be seen in the financial groups, institutions, and larger companies whose origins reach back to the original zaibatsu, often sharing the same original family names (for example, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation). However, some argue that the "old mechanisms of financial and administrative control" that zaibatsu once enjoyed have been destroyed. Though large industrial conglomerates continue to exist in Japan, the vertically-integrated chain of command of the zaibatsu, culminating in control by a single family, has now widely been displaced by the horizontal relationships of association and coordination characteristic of keiretsu (系列, meaning "series" or "subsidiary").

So the real story is that in spite of the wretched excess of barbarism by Japanese soldiers in the Pacific in WW2, the Americans not only embraced the Zaibatsu, but they empowered them too. Then used 731's germwarfare research because never let a good heinous weapon go to waste. Then hire Nazi scientists to boot to kickstart rocket research. Or even put more Nazis working on bioweapons again. Yeehaw!

[Sphere]

The US facilitated the rapid rebuilding of the Japanese economy? It put the well being of the Japanese people above political revenge?

I thought you were trying to make the apologist argument.

[saxdude]

I'm still failing to see how anything the americans did in WW2, warcrime or not, equals in scope or brutality to that which the Japanese commited, from the very top, in 8 years of war. Only argument I see made was "we did it quickly, thats why it's worse!" and "we should have accepted surrender on their terms!", which are pretty weak.

Also stop with the we, most of those that had the capability to do anything in that war are dead or near death. Also I am not american, nor do I carry any special sympathy for americans and american causes.

[RubiconDecision]

The US facilitated the rapid rebuilding of the Japanese economy? It put the well being of the Japanese people above political revenge?

I thought you were trying to make the apologist argument.

Hardly, the Zaibatsu should have suffered the same fate as the Nazis at Nuremberg. The Emperor should have been executed as well as other royalty. If I would have been in charge, my katana would be wet with blood. Why not?

The Americans of the time period allowed a union atmosphere that was full of Communist sympathizers, and they freaked and release the very people who caused WW2 to happen. Worse, they punished the Japanese people with aerial bombardment and created a literal lack of infrastructure such that it was entirely necessary to rebuild Japan and Germany.

Why? Two reasons. First, rebuilding helped prevent them falling like dominoes to Communism. Second, the sales of materials caused a post-WW2 boom the likes of which America had seen before. It frankly created the middle class in America, and has sustained growth up until NAFTA and GATT, and much of the wealth was in armaments. We created a war machine and didn't stop pumping it out, but exported it everywhere.

Much of the instability of the Cold War period was the direct result from the seeds of these policies in WW2 and beyond. Immediately we proved we couldn't use them again, but every nation had to have them. Look at all of the mess created by that nonsense in Eastern Europe and Asia.

And who freaked out about it? Ike. He loathed it. He initially embraced it, saw the economic power of it, but ultimately feared what had been created and what he'd enabled with the military-industrial complex.

So keep on believing WW2 propaganda that most scholars simply dismiss as nonsense and have your yearly birthday party of Nanking. It would be smarter though since this is the History section to study history and see that American involvement is very checkered from that moment, which propelled us as a lesser power into being a Superpower, and made much of European diplomacy irrelevant. We ran roughshod because of our military might, and just like this topic, refused to accept any responsibility for creating the MESS.

[Cyclops]

The amnesty on our side was disgusting, and it's a disgrace to humanity that Ishii and co weren't prosecuted for their crimes, and I'm glad Britain was no longer powerful enough to even consider such politics. However, what they did was so far beyond our societal norms that it's missing the point to make some kind of blanket condemnation of all sides. Other than the Soviets, and we know how distinct they were behaviourally from the western Allies, nothing the Allies did even approaches the repulsiveness of Unit 731 and their like.

Oh I agree. I was reflecting on the barbarity of Nazi and Japanese Imperial ambitions, and I don't want to start a poo-storm over whether raping and killing Chinese is worse than raping and killing Ukrainians. Col Tarleton, no smilies mate, this is personal.

I would observe that Japan was subject to extreme racism in internation affairs from my own country and from the US. The IJA definitely took it to the next level in China.

The 19th century saw a flowering of race theories and new prejudices. Japan definitely took a lot of Eurpopean race theories on board, although I'm sure they had their own home-grown intolerances too.

The brutal economic warfare in the 1920's bruised a lot of political systems and dog-eat-dog was the order of the day. The US definitely contributed to Japanese extremism: we could blame FDR for Pearl perhaps, but not for Bataan.

Its similar to the potay-to/potah-to argument over Hitler. French and British punishment of the Kaiser arguably helped bring Hitler to power but it didn't make him genocidal, that was his own work.

I regret the Japanese choices that led to Hiroshima. I have a relative who was there. She also saw schoolfriends burned ast the far end of her air-raid shelter in a firebomb raid.

We know its not black and white, I guess it was black and white for the Japanese extremists that sent them into WW2. I do regret my country and our allies roles in helping push Japan to that extreme where these sickos take over.

[s.rwitt]

So keep on believing WW2 propaganda that most scholars simply dismiss as nonsense and have your yearly birthday party of Nanking.

Which propaganda are you referring to? Which scholars?

Btw I'd love to hear the excuses or justifications you have for the massive scale of rape and murder the Jap soldiers inflicted on the civilians of Nanking. Was that the Americans' fault as well? Or did it just never happen? Maybe it was like the Holocaust deniers say about that event: it happened but it was only 10% as brutal and barbaric as pretty much every scholar worth a damn believes it was?

[Ishan]

My history knowledge about most WW2 things is quite poor as thus i wasn't aware of this but this has got to be one of the most ed up things i have read in a while. WTF was wrong with them?

Killing your enemies in the line of combat or in rage by enduring their brutalities is one thing but ing experimentation, systematic torture & genocide of the Chinese? Completely crazy & inhumane. This just goes to show that they didn't even consider them humans but only lab rats. Disgusting. Every modern day Japanese should be ashamed of what Imperial Japan did.

Where's the honour in this? Where's Bushido code?