The Japanese During World War 2
Posted: 2003-12-09 01:23am
(I don't know if this could be considered a rant or not, but it is something that I believe should be said, so here we go:)
A subject that isn't touched on very highly in most history classes are the atrocities and outright racism committed by the Japanese government and military during World War 2. Before thinking about this, we must first consider the psyche of some Japanese soldiers (some, not all) at the time. A warped version of the code of Bushido was ingrained into the Japanese soldiers from training, a code that included that the Japanese were superiour to all other, especially the Chinese and westerners. It also taught that surrender was intolerable and without honor, that you were to die in combat.
While watching a show on American POWs taken by the Japanese during the war on Dec. 7, the interviews were very, shall we say, eye opening, and something that shouldn't be forgotten.
Many have heard of the Bataan Death March, the forced march of POWs, mostly British, Australians, and Americans, to the horrendous Camp O'Donnell. But how much were we taught?
The Japanese held their prisoners to this same code of Bushido, which meant that the prisoners had no honor because they allowed themselves to be captured. We were never told how the Japanese would use the prisoners for sword practice, decapitating men who stumbled or weren't keeping up, or for no reason at all. One POW said he counted at least 2 bodies killed by sword every mile. After arrival at the camps, the prisoners were malnourished as bad if not worse as the prisoners in the German Concentration Camps. An entire camp of 10,000 was forced to use a single spigot of water.
That's not nearly the worst of the story, though.
Another thing most of us have heard of is the Rape of Nanking (or Nanjing). Japanese soldiers ran loose through the city, killing, stealing, and raping civilians, just because they could. Between December 1937 and March 1938 at least 369,000 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were slaughtered by the invading troops in Manchuria. The Japanese performed biological warfare on the Chinese, dropping Plague, Anthrax, and other horrible diseases on the Chinese civilians.
But what we aren't always taught about is the infamous Unit 713 and the Japanese 'experiments' on POWs and other prisoners, things that would the Nazi 'doctors' look nearly humane. Prisoners were taken into their 'hospitals' and injected with every kind of disease and virus imaginable.
Prisoners were dissected alive, so young doctors could watch and see what the living human body looked like. Prisoners were tied to stakes and explosives were set off near them and then shot, so field medics could practice on the victims.
Prisoners were put in cages in the cold Asian winter to develop hypothermia and frost bite, so that the Japanese scientists could see the effects of each and test new treatments on them. POWs were regularly used as slave labor, sent into coal mines that had been previously closed because it hadn't been worth the risk to mine the small amounts of remaining coal.
The death rates among Japanese POWs was startling. A full 38% of Japan's POWs died, as compared to 1% of Germany's POWs.
Every prison camp was complete squalor, not dissimilar from the German concentration camps. Yet why do we never hear of the Japanese atrocities, yet every high school student is taught of the Holocaust. This is a subject that must be touched on more than it is. This is something that affected the US directly, but why aren't we told of why it happened?
I don't hold this against the entire Japanese people, but it's a different story with the Japanese government. They have yet to issue any sort of an apology, they ignore that it ever happened. I am possibly mistaken, but to my knowledge, WW2 barely gets a footnote, yet the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima is heavily touched on.
Some will accuse the US of committing atrocities against the AmerIndians, what with the forced migration of them to the western half of the continent. The difference lies in that we admit it, we devote national historic sites to the Trail of Tears, have returned a large reservation to the Cherokee in the Appalacians, and teach it heavily in school, as it should be done. I'm only calling for the Japanese government to do the same thing as the German government has done, acknowledge the atrocities and issue apologies to the rest of the world.
I only have one last thing to say, recently, the US offered indemnities to Japanese-Americans interred in American camps during the war, yet have the Japanese offered any sort of reparation or even acknowledgement to the survivors of their death camps and heinous experiments? No.
As I said, I don't hold this against the entire Japanese people, only against those who committed the crimes and the government that refuses to accept and acknowledge that it happened. They are a proud people with a rich history, but that doesn't exempt their leadership from acknowleding the sadistic crimes made in the recent past.
Just some food for thought.
A subject that isn't touched on very highly in most history classes are the atrocities and outright racism committed by the Japanese government and military during World War 2. Before thinking about this, we must first consider the psyche of some Japanese soldiers (some, not all) at the time. A warped version of the code of Bushido was ingrained into the Japanese soldiers from training, a code that included that the Japanese were superiour to all other, especially the Chinese and westerners. It also taught that surrender was intolerable and without honor, that you were to die in combat.
While watching a show on American POWs taken by the Japanese during the war on Dec. 7, the interviews were very, shall we say, eye opening, and something that shouldn't be forgotten.
Many have heard of the Bataan Death March, the forced march of POWs, mostly British, Australians, and Americans, to the horrendous Camp O'Donnell. But how much were we taught?
The Japanese held their prisoners to this same code of Bushido, which meant that the prisoners had no honor because they allowed themselves to be captured. We were never told how the Japanese would use the prisoners for sword practice, decapitating men who stumbled or weren't keeping up, or for no reason at all. One POW said he counted at least 2 bodies killed by sword every mile. After arrival at the camps, the prisoners were malnourished as bad if not worse as the prisoners in the German Concentration Camps. An entire camp of 10,000 was forced to use a single spigot of water.
That's not nearly the worst of the story, though.
Another thing most of us have heard of is the Rape of Nanking (or Nanjing). Japanese soldiers ran loose through the city, killing, stealing, and raping civilians, just because they could. Between December 1937 and March 1938 at least 369,000 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were slaughtered by the invading troops in Manchuria. The Japanese performed biological warfare on the Chinese, dropping Plague, Anthrax, and other horrible diseases on the Chinese civilians.
But what we aren't always taught about is the infamous Unit 713 and the Japanese 'experiments' on POWs and other prisoners, things that would the Nazi 'doctors' look nearly humane. Prisoners were taken into their 'hospitals' and injected with every kind of disease and virus imaginable.
Prisoners were dissected alive, so young doctors could watch and see what the living human body looked like. Prisoners were tied to stakes and explosives were set off near them and then shot, so field medics could practice on the victims.
Prisoners were put in cages in the cold Asian winter to develop hypothermia and frost bite, so that the Japanese scientists could see the effects of each and test new treatments on them. POWs were regularly used as slave labor, sent into coal mines that had been previously closed because it hadn't been worth the risk to mine the small amounts of remaining coal.
The death rates among Japanese POWs was startling. A full 38% of Japan's POWs died, as compared to 1% of Germany's POWs.
Every prison camp was complete squalor, not dissimilar from the German concentration camps. Yet why do we never hear of the Japanese atrocities, yet every high school student is taught of the Holocaust. This is a subject that must be touched on more than it is. This is something that affected the US directly, but why aren't we told of why it happened?
I don't hold this against the entire Japanese people, but it's a different story with the Japanese government. They have yet to issue any sort of an apology, they ignore that it ever happened. I am possibly mistaken, but to my knowledge, WW2 barely gets a footnote, yet the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima is heavily touched on.
Some will accuse the US of committing atrocities against the AmerIndians, what with the forced migration of them to the western half of the continent. The difference lies in that we admit it, we devote national historic sites to the Trail of Tears, have returned a large reservation to the Cherokee in the Appalacians, and teach it heavily in school, as it should be done. I'm only calling for the Japanese government to do the same thing as the German government has done, acknowledge the atrocities and issue apologies to the rest of the world.
I only have one last thing to say, recently, the US offered indemnities to Japanese-Americans interred in American camps during the war, yet have the Japanese offered any sort of reparation or even acknowledgement to the survivors of their death camps and heinous experiments? No.
As I said, I don't hold this against the entire Japanese people, only against those who committed the crimes and the government that refuses to accept and acknowledge that it happened. They are a proud people with a rich history, but that doesn't exempt their leadership from acknowleding the sadistic crimes made in the recent past.
Just some food for thought.