Part 2:

Also like ISIS, the Japanese occupiers were fond of taking triumphant photos of their atrocities, which is the only reason we know about many of them. They didn’t have Twitter or YouTube, of course, but Chinese working in photo shops smuggled out copies of photographs the Japanese government later attempted to destroy.

International visitors to Nanking tried to establish a safe zone for Chinese civilians, but it didn’t hold the Japanese at bay for long. One important chronicle of the occupation was the diary of an American woman named Minnie Vautrin, who wrote of girls as young as 12 being dragged away for rape, and piles of corpses burned to erase evidence of Japan’s crimes. Vautrin was one of the last victims of the Rape of Nanking. She killed herself in 1941.

Also horrified by what he saw was the man who wound up leading the unsuccessful effort to maintain an international safe zone in Nanking, John Rabe. He was the head of the local Nazi Party.

Unsurprisingly, China’s state-run media is very upset that Barack Obama didn’t mention Nanking, or other Japanese offenses against China, during his Hiroshima speech. “The death of Japanese civilians in the Hiroshima atomic bomb attack deserves global sympathy, but the tragedy was of Japan’s own making. Its then militarist government turned the city into the site of military headquarters, arsenals and camps and a vital part of its war machine that killed tens of millions in other countries,” writes Xinhua in a fiery editorial.

The Empire’s war on women was not limited to Nanking. For decades afterward, Japan has dealt with the legacy of the “comfort women,” girls forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Army. Only last year, Japan and South Korea reached an agreement for roughly $8 million dollars in reparations to South Korean victims.

Murdering Doctors and Nurses

Working in a hospital afforded no protection from Imperial Japanese forces. When 65 Australian Army nurses tried to escape from Singapore ahead of Japanese occupation, Japanese planes blew their overloaded boat out of the water, then strafed the survivors. Many of those who made it ashore to Bangka Island were shot or bayoneted by Japanese troops, despite the nurses showing their Red Cross armbands when they surrendered.

The nurses had an opportunity to escape, but matron Irene Drummond would have none of it, because they had injured men to take care of. “Girls, we have run away from the wounded once,” she declared. “We are not going to do it again.”

Drummond’s last words, as she and 21 of her nurses were marched into the surf on Bangka Island for a machine-gun massacre by Japanese soldiers, were: “Chin up, girls! I’m proud of you all, and I love you all.”

We know this because one of the nurses, the Vivian “Bully” Bullwinkel, survived her gunshot wound and testified against the murderers at their war-crimes trial. She was captured by the Japanese again after she walked off the beach, and realized they might slaughter all of their prisoners if they knew she was eyewitness to such a war crime, so she hid her bullet wound from her captors and quietly treated it herself… even though she had been shot in the back.

At St. Stephen’s College in Hong Kong, which was serving as a relief hospital, Japanese troops murdered doctors, slaughtered their injured patients, and raped the nurses. The massacre at St. Stephen’s began on Christmas Day.

Imperial Japan deliberately attacked hospital ships on several documented occasions, including the Manunda and Centaur of Australia. Japan did not formally admit to sinking the Centaur until 1979.

Cannibalism and Medical Experiments

Imperial Japan was infamous for torturing and killing its prisoners, in defiance of all international laws. Sometimes execution was the best-case scenario for its prisoners.

In the 1990s, documents were uncovered that described widespread cannibalism by Japanese troops. The Japanese academic who collected these papers, Toshiyuki Tanaka, said the cannibalism was not primarily due to a shortage of food, but “to consolidate the group feeling of the troops.”

Tanaka documented at least 100 cases of cannibalism against Australian and Indian soldiers, and forced laborers in New Guinea, plus evidence of more such atrocities in the Philippines.

“A Pakistani, who was captured when Japan overran Singapore and taken to New Guinea, testified that in his area Japanese soldiers killed and ate one prisoner a day for ‘about 100’ days. The corporal said he saw flesh being cut from prisoners who were still alive,” reported the UK Telegraph in 1992.

A later Telegraph article cites research that suggests that four of the eight American airmen captured after bombing raids on Chichi Jima island, south of Tokyo, were cannibalized after all eight were tortured and executed with swords, bayonets, and bamboo stakes. A ninth pilot who had to bail out of his plane during the raids managed to evade capture by the Japanese. His name was Lt. George Bush.

Imperial Japan also conducted horrifying medical experiments on its prisoners, including the removal of their organs while they were still alive, without anesthesia. Some of these crimes were concealed with false claims by the Japanese government that American test subjects had been transferred to Hiroshima as POWs and vaporized in the atomic bomb blast.

The now-infamous Imperial Army Unit 731 conducted medical experiments on thousands of POWs and civilians, including chemical and biological warfare research. These weren’t just laboratory experiments – they field-tested “plague bombs” on Chinese towns. Plans were made to deploy these biological weapons against American cities with balloons and kamikaze attacks. Imperial Japan was very interested in developing and using weapons of mass destruction.

A veteran of Unit 731 recounted the story of vivisecting a live Chinese prisoner in 1995, as recounted by the New York Times:

The fellow knew that it was over for him, and so he didn’t struggle when they led him into the room and tied him down. But when I picked up the scalpel, that’s when he began screaming.

I cut him open from the chest to the stomach, and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped. This was all in a day’s work for the surgeons, but it really left an impression on me because it was my first time.

Unit 731’s headquarters was straight out of a horror movie, with pieces of POW displayed in jars labeled by their nationality.

Conclusion

This list could be ten times as long as it is. Apologies to all those who lost family to Imperial Japanese atrocities that were not listed individually.

The purpose of this list is not to keep score on the horrors of war. It is the business of madmen to debate whether dying from radiation exposure is “better” than dying in a firebomb attack, or live burial alongside a few dozen friends and family members.

This is also not an assault on Japanese citizens of today. Japan is a good friend of the United States now, and that is the happiest ending one could ask from a story this horrible. The Empire of Japan is gone. It had to go. People who think like Barack Obama have no idea how to fight a war like that. God help us all if they are in power when the next such war is forced upon us.

This is, rather, an effort to help understand what was destroyed by the right, proper, and absolutely necessary bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is the horror that would have claimed countless more victims if Japan had not been forced to surrender. It is very easy for callow politicians in 2016 to say that more Americans, and more Japanese, should have died in battle during a conventional invasion of Japan, to spare it the fury of the atomic bomb. Not many people felt that way at the time, especially if they were aware of the atrocities chronicled here.

Barack Obama treats the bombing of Hiroshima as a unique “evil.” No, sir. It was the endof an evil.

Some brave men – tragically, some good men – died fighting for Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Memorial Day is about showing our gratitude and respect to the heroes who had no choice but to kill them, including the crew of the Enola Gay. They saved a hell of a lot of lives, and souls, on that terrible day.

It's amazing how quickly the facts are being both forgotten and changed.

more than 20 years ago, I read that

more than half of Japanese high school students believed that Pearl Harbor was a Japanese

naval base, that the Americans attacked on December 7yh, 1941.

 

This is still not being taught in the schools here in Japan and, furthermore, the Rape of Nanking is vehemently denied. So much denial here.

I noticed at the museum in Hiroshima there was no mention of Pearl Harbor.

Lawyerlady wrote:

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They started the war. We finished it.

The end.

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 And lots of innocent people died on both sides.

flan

Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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Yes, they did. That is the cost of war. We were minding our business. They bombed us.

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 Yes, they did.

Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

And then we declared war on Japan, as we should have.

flan

 

Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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Who cares why they did it? They struck first. They engaged the war.

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 I was doing some research. Is that okay?

flan

flan327 wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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They started the war. We finished it.

The end.

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 And lots of innocent people died on both sides.

flan

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 When you are the aggressor, you don't get to claim "innocents". 

The Japanese population was fervently behind the war effort, as much or more so than any other population involved in that conflict.  

You had to do research? This was 6th grade history class.

flan327 wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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flan327 wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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They started the war. We finished it.

The end.

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 And lots of innocent people died on both sides.

flan

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 When you are the aggressor, you don't get to claim "innocents". 

The Japanese population was fervently behind the war effort, as much or more so than any other population involved in that conflict.  

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 Why? Because YOU say so?

What percentage of the population? Does that include CHILDREN?

flan

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 It's sad that children suffered, but that's the chance you take when you choose to start a war. The suffering those children went through is all on the shoulders of the Japanese leaders.

 

flan327 wrote:

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lilyofcourse wrote:

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You had to do research? This was 6th grade history class.

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 Did you have a point? Except to insult me?

THIS is what I didn't know:

Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

flan

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 More surprised. 

Anyone our age should know this.

 

lilyofcourse wrote:

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flan327 wrote:

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lilyofcourse wrote:

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You had to do research? This was 6th grade history class.

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 Did you have a point? Except to insult me?

THIS is what I didn't know:

Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

flan

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 More surprised. 

Anyone our age should know this.

 

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 I don't believe you.

flan

Ilumine wrote:

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flan327 wrote:

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lilyofcourse wrote:

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flan327 wrote:

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lilyofcourse wrote:

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You had to do research? This was 6th grade history class.

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 Did you have a point? Except to insult me?

THIS is what I didn't know:

Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

flan

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 More surprised. 

Anyone our age should know this.

 

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 I don't believe you.

flan

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this is one of my many issues with the state of our current educational system.  There is SOOOOO much history, ome needs to pick and choose what is taught, but there are some basic information that should always make the cut, one being the who, what, why where when and how one of the largest wars in the world occurred. 

I most certainly was taught that there was a coordinated attack throughout the Pcific when I did American history 27 years ago. I was also taught about FDR interning Japaneese Americans, which was not mentioned once 27 years later, when my SS took American history. 

 

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 You're right. I don't remember if this was taught to us, or I found out later.

flan

If they cared about their OWN children then why were they bombing us?

DH says that Pearl Harbor was retaliation for the US sinking a Japanese submarine. No, I don't have a source. He reads a lot of stuff that isn't part of the mainstream media. I just thought I'd share his thoughts.

chef wrote:

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DH says that Pearl Harbor was retaliation for the US sinking a Japanese submarine. No, I don't have a source. He reads a lot of stuff that isn't part of the mainstream media. I just thought I'd share his thoughts.

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 Impossible.  There was a Japanese sub sank before the aerial attack started--but it was sank on the very morning of Dec. 7th, 1941 while the planes were already en route.  There is NO WAY possible that the sinking of the sub was even known by Yamamoto, and, in any case, the attack was already planned and launched BEFORE the sub was sunk making it impossible for it to have played any role in the decision to launch the attack.  

Pearl Harbor was the Jap intent to destroy and take over America. Plain and simple.  The Jap government wanted to be the superpower.  They underestimated us.

-- Edited by FNW on Tuesday 31st of May 2016 03:31:36 PM

Ilumine wrote:

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chef wrote:

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DH says that Pearl Harbor was retaliation for the US sinking a Japanese submarine. No, I don't have a source. He reads a lot of stuff that isn't part of the mainstream media. I just thought I'd share his thoughts.

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 Bull ****. The Rape of Nanking was done years before. They invaded French Indochina in 1940. They signed the Teipartitie Act in 1940.  Granted, theY were extremely pissEd when the U.S. And a number of other countries imposed trade embargos after the invasions of China and IndoChina. But that was becuase it stopped them from taking over the entire South Pacific all the way to Australia. 

This is was a long time coming and a long time planned And was not done over one ship. 

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 Thank you for the information.

There were some warnings beforehand--although the time and even the location were not truly known. Most "experts" at the time guessed that the Japanese were likely to attack American forces in the Phillippines (which they did do).

Naval strategists in general also severely underestimated the capability of a carrier force to inflict that much damage on a main naval battle fleet. Pearl Harbor changed naval warfare in ways that most did not foresee on December 6th of 1941.

There were some radar readings that indicated aircraft in the area just before the attack--but they were misread as a flight of B-17 bombers. This, of course, was a severe miscalculation, likely caused in part by the fact that many senior officers and even the more experienced enlisted military personnel were enjoying a quiet Sunday morning and not even on the base, or they were in barracks and not on duty.

I don't buy the conspiracy nuts who think Roosevelt deliberately withheld specific information so as to allow the Japanese to carry out the attack and thus thrust the U.S. into the war which he had been angling for since 1939. There is no way a sitting president would want to ever start out a war by crippling the very forces that he would rely on to carry out said war. Had the American carriers been in port and many of them been damaged or sunk, it would have exposed Hawaii, itself, to enemy takeover, and from there, it would have been possible to launch direct attacks on the West Coast of the mainland. No commander would take such a grave risk to potentially lose the very war he wanted to enter before he even had a chance to bring forces to bear.

apple wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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There were some warnings beforehand--although the time and even the location were not truly known. Most "experts" at the time guessed that the Japanese were likely to attack American forces in the Phillippines (which they did do).

Naval strategists in general also severely underestimated the capability of a carrier force to inflict that much damage on a main naval battle fleet. Pearl Harbor changed naval warfare in ways that most did not foresee on December 6th of 1941.

There were some radar readings that indicated aircraft in the area just before the attack--but they were misread as a flight of B-17 bombers. This, of course, was a severe miscalculation, likely caused in part by the fact that many senior officers and even the more experienced enlisted military personnel were enjoying a quiet Sunday morning and not even on the base, or they were in barracks and not on duty.

I don't buy the conspiracy nuts who think Roosevelt deliberately withheld specific information so as to allow the Japanese to carry out the attack and thus thrust the U.S. into the war which he had been angling for since 1939. There is no way a sitting president would want to ever start out a war by crippling the very forces that he would rely on to carry out said war. Had the American carriers been in port and many of them been damaged or sunk, it would have exposed Hawaii, itself, to enemy takeover, and from there, it would have been possible to launch direct attacks on the West Coast of the mainland. No commander would take such a grave risk to potentially lose the very war he wanted to enter before he even had a chance to bring forces to bear.

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 That is what I always believed, they simply didn't think it possible for the carrier force to make it to Hawaii.

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 I don't know about not "making" it there--they just didn't think that such a force would be capable in and of itself of inflicting that much damage.  They were still "old school" strategists who felt that naval battles were won and lost with battleships, and to get a large battle fleet close enough to do what the planes did would not have been possible to do undetected.