"Japan Wants to Re-Write History" (Strat Page)

[Guest]

Nothing new here, just unbelievable ignorance in the West about Japan.

Japan Wants To Rewrite World War II

August 12, 2010: August 15th is 65th the anniversary of the end of World War II, the day when Japan finally surrendered. This year, the anniversary is notable because, for the first time, the U.S. sent its ambassador to attend the commemoration of the Hiroshima atomic bomb attack on August 6th. It was that event, plus the second atomic bomb three days later, the Soviet Union invasion of Manchuria on the same day, plus the complete isolation of Japan via the use of submarines, and naval mines (delivered by submarine and aircraft) that convinced Japan they needed to surrender, and not fight to the death. Otherwise, Japan faced the possibility of mass starvation. Japan needed to import food from Korea and Manchuria to sustain its population. With the Soviets overrunning Manchuria and Korea, and the U.S. blocking any shipping from anywhere, the Japanese were faced with extinction (according to the pessimists in the Japanese government). So Japan finally acceded to Allied demands for unconditional surrender.

World War II, which killed over a hundred million people, had a profound effect on the nations where it was fought. Japan (which began invading in 1937) and Germany (1939) were the two main aggressors, and after the war, the Germans and Japanese had a different reaction to their bad behavior during the war. The Germans (most of them) were remorseful and guilt ridden.

The Japanese immediately tried to rewrite history, and are still at it. Within days of Japans surrender on August 15, 1945, coded messages went out from Tokyo to Japanese diplomats around the world, ordering them to start a campaign portraying Japan as a victim in the war, and to play down Japanese atrocities and play up Japanese civilian losses in the recent atomic bomb attacks. These particular messages were not decrypted by the United States until years after the war. That's because the war was over, there were other priorities (like cracking Russian codes) and the Japanese the messages were recorded and filed away. By the time the Japanese messages were deciphered, the Cold War had begun, and Japan was needed as an ally against the communist menace. Those decrypted messages were kept secret for decades, along with most of the details of how Allied code breakers had read most of the enemies (and some friends) secret messages throughout the war.

What was not so secret were Japanese efforts to ignore the war and portray themselves as victims. Many Japanese opposed rewriting history, which was often quite blatant. This meddling with historical facts regularly caused problems with neighbors, especially China. But the Japanese were insistent on evading responsibility. They still are, and many Japanese really believe it.

Meanwhile, the horrific actions of Japan during World War II were largely forgotten in the West, although not in the Asian nations where the Japanese committed most of these atrocities badly. It all began in July, 1937 when Japan openly made war on China. This came after years of incursions, raids, skirmishes, and occasional battles. The Japanese had occupied much of the Chinese countryside in the late 1930s and committed enough atrocities for American journalists to get a steady supply of gruesome stories, what with their troops' penchant for conducting bayonet practice on Chinese prisoners and similar horrors. The situation in China was thus always quite an issue in America, although less so in Europe (where they had Hitler and his Nazis to make them nervous.) It was Japanese aggression in China that caused the United States to impose a raw materials embargo on Japan, and "forced Japan" (as the Japanese like to describe it) to attack the United States in December, 1941. Japan had to have those raw materials, especially oil from Dutch colonies in Indonesia, in order to keep its war in China going.

Let us not forget that the Japanese did not conduct war the way Western armies did. For example, the Japanese were in the habit of keeping their army surgeons in practice by allowing them to use prisoners to test new surgical procedures or simply to improve their skills. The "patients" usually didn't survive the procedures. If they did, the "patients" were killed anyway as the Japanese did not see any reason to practice post-operative skills. The slicing and cutting was usually done without anesthesia, as medicines were always in short supply and were saved for Japanese patients. This macabre form of medical training was common in China, but American and Allied prisoners were subjected to it on Guadalcanal and other battlefields. Given their attitude towards prisoners ("better suicide than capture") the Japanese thought nothing of this sort of thing. After all, the more skillful their doctors were, the better they could treat Japanese wounded. Japan also used prisoners for testing chemical and biological weapons (which were later used against the Chinese).

Japanese treatment of prisoners of war was deplorable, and the death rate among American and Commonwealth prisoners ran about 30 percent, more than three times higher than that suffered by such in German hands. This was, however, still better than the treatment generally accorded Asian troops captured by the Japanese. As word spread of the Japanese attitude towards prisoners of war, it became rather difficult for Japanese troops to surrender, in the unlikely event that they were so inclined. As a result, only a relative handful of Japanese troops became prisoners of war, although their numbers increased as their morale weakened towards the end of the war.

And many of the atrocities Japanese troops committed were seen by Japanese officers simply as a way to improve morale by letting the troops take out their frustrations on the locals. After all, the women raped and men murdered were not Japanese. So what did it matter? This racist attitude influenced everything the Japanese soldier did. When fighting the formidable American soldiers and marines, the Japanese were particularly enraged. How could these non-Japanese dare to actually defeat us? A combination of frustration and contempt caused Japanese soldiers to be even more vicious. Prisoners often received particularly harsh treatment. Not just because they were non-Japanese, but mainly because the Japanese did not consider surrender an option. So if foreigners surrendered, they were not real men, not real soldiers. They had disgraced themselves and deserved whatever bad treatment the Japanese could come up with. This led to things like using prisoners for bayonet practice, or live subjects for Japanese army doctors to practice surgery on.

At the end of the war, before the atomic bombs were dropped, the Japanese high command sent orders to all commanders of prisoner of war camps to be prepared to kill all their prisoners on short notice, especially if enemy forces were nearby. The Allies became aware of this order, and when the Japanese finally agreed to surrender, the Japanese were told to rescind the "kill all prisoners" order, or else.

Nearly a million Allied troops were preparing to invade Japan when the surrender was announced. These troops were overjoyed. And here's why. Despite their unbroken string of victories, Allied troops did not look forward to an invasion of Japan with any enthusiasm. They were pretty sure what would happen, mainly because two Japanese populated islands (Saipan and Okinawa) had recently been invaded and the reactions of Japanese civilians were now known. The Japanese civilians on these islands actively assisted the Japanese troops. Moreover, many of the civilians committed suicide when it was clear that the battle was lost. On Saipan, two thirds of the civilian population died and, as usual, nearly all the troops fought to the death. On Saipan, 30,000 Japanese troops caused 14,000 American casualties. On Okinawa, 107,000 Japanese troops died (and at least 75,000 civilians), but there were over 60,000 U.S. combat casualties and over 40,000 non-combat injuries. On Iwo Jima the ratio had been even worse, approximately one American killed or injured for every Japanese soldier killed.

Thus it was believed that the Kyushu invasion (Operation Olympic) would be more like the Philippines fighting, which had cost the U.S. 60,000 casualties, including 13,000 dead. Kyushu was a much larger island than Guam or Okinawa, and it was believed that sinking morale among Japanese civilians might cause more of them to avoid the combat. Taking into account the differences between the two campaigns, U.S. Army planners estimated that the Kyushu fighting would incur 125,000 American casualties, including 31,000 dead. The Honshu invasion (Operation Coronet) in early 1946 would involve about twice as many troops, and was expected to incur about twice as many casualties. Thus, if Japan were to be conquered by invasion, the American casualties, based on recent experience, would be about 370,000, including about 80,000 dead. This would amount to a 27 percent increase in US casualties for the war.

If the Allies agreed to simply blockade Japan, and starve them out, millions of Japanese would die from disease and starvation over the Winter of 1945-46, and tens of millions more if the blockade were continued. The "kill prisoners" order would probably lead to the death of thousands of Allied prisoners of war, including many civilians who were also being held. The invasion was ordered (in case the atomic bombs did not work, or did not persuade the Japanese to give up) because the American public was very much in favor of ending the war quickly, by any means possible. But over the last 65 years, the Japanese have created a fantasy version of World War II in which they were victims, their many atrocities never happened and the atomic bombs were war crimes, not key factors in halting the Japanese created horrors.
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Now tell me again how the Atomic bombing of Japan was unjustified. Go ahead, I'm waiting.

mh
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"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[BillyVance 34]

I believe the atomic bombing of Japan was justified. They just would not fight fair or follow the Geneva Convention (don't know when it was written and signed), or simply show human decency.

The Japs even recruited kamikaze pilots with little experience to perform suicide attacks. How the fuck do you deal with that? It's almost as bad as the suicide bombers in the middle east who walk up and detonate a vest loaded with explosives, or drive an explosive-laden vehicle up to a target and go BOOM.

We should have dropped a Daisy Cutter on Tora Bora when we were hot on Bin Laden's trail, would have gotten the son of a bitch then.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[champu 1]

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the Geneva Convention (don't know when it was written and signed)

Cheat sheet:

1864 - First GC - Addresses Sick and Wounded - Coincides with establishment of the Red Cross
1906 - Second GC - Oops, we forgot about sailors
1929 - Third GC - Treatment of POWs (Japan was one of the countries that signed but never ratified the treaty)
1949 - Fourth GC - Treatment of Civilians
1977 - Article I/II - Prohibits attacks on population centers and certain infrastructure (makes use of CBRN weapons illegal)
2005 - Article III - Guide to labeling humanitarian personnel

[Andy9o8 0]

Whether the two atomic bombings were justified, and whether they were militarily necessary, are really two different questions with two different answers. From a standpoint of military necessity, they were probably no more nor no less necessary than the mass "conventional" firebombings of many Japanese cities, some of which (Tokyo, for example) killed more people than were killed in Hiroshima.

History is written by the victors, and the standard post-war line on the Allied side was that by ending the war quickly with nukes, we avoided upwards of a million casualties had the Allies invaded the Japanese homeland via conventional means. But by the Summer of 1945, there was really no need to invade the Japanese homeland: Japan was essentially sealed off, it was already on the verge of total collapse due to the sustained air bombardment, and Japan was making constant overtures to the US to try to sue for peace as long as they could keep their Emperor (which wound up happening anyway). Neither MacArthur nor Eisenhower nor many other top Allied brass felt that an invasion of Japan was needed; just isolation and continuing the aerial bombardment, and Japan would capitulate anyway within a matter of months, and possibly weeks.

So since a full-scale invasion of Japan wasn't necessary, there really was no military necessity to use nukes to end the war quickly. The need to end the war quickly was geo-political: to counter a perceived threat from the Soviet Union. The Russians and the Japanese were non-belligerents throughout the war. But the Russians had already shown their stripes in essentially annexing Eastern Europe, and by the Summer of 1945 were on the verge of declaring war on Japan. The Truman Administration knew that if the Russians actually began serious land combat with Japan, then the Russians would try to lay claim to the northern half of Japan; and that was intolerable. And unknown to The US, Stalin's spies had learned of and informed him about the Manhattan project, so it's true that he wanted to get into it with Japan so as to try to claim Japanese territory for the Soviets.

So it's true that Truman decided to drop the atomic bombs to end the war quickly, but it was not for the ostensible reason of saving Allied lives, or even for punishing Japan for its atrocities; the real reason was to saber-rattle to the Russians by demonstrating the power of US atomic weapons, and to end the war quickly before the Russians had the chance to mount a land invasion of Japan from the north.

[billvon 2,400]

>The Japs even recruited kamikaze pilots with little experience to
>perform suicide attacks. How the fuck do you deal with that?

Same way other countries deal with our UAV's and cruise missiles. (Although it's easier to deal with kamikazes; since they were untrained they weren't very good at what they were doing.)

> It's almost as bad as the suicide bombers in the middle east who
> walk up and detonate a vest loaded with explosives . . .

Of course, if a US soldier did that, they'd get a medal. We used the USS Intrepid as a suicide ship; the men on board were given posthumous medals. WWII movies were full of selfless US heroes who blew themselves up to stop the evil Japanese and Germans.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Of course, if a US soldier did that, they'd get a medal. We used the USS Intrepid as a suicide ship; the men on board were given posthumous medals. WWII movies were full of selfless US heroes who blew themselves up to stop the evil Japanese and Germans.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-i/cv11.htm

What suicide attack are you referring to?

[turtlespeed 212]

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Of course, if a US soldier did that, they'd get a medal. We used the USS Intrepid as a suicide ship; the men on board were given posthumous medals. WWII movies were full of selfless US heroes who blew themselves up to stop the evil Japanese and Germans.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-i/cv11.htm

What suicide attack are you referring to?

He doesn't have to justify his answer to you.
It is as he says, because it is said by him.

Move along.

Move On,

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[Andy9o8 0]

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Of course, if a US soldier did that, they'd get a medal. We used the USS Intrepid as a suicide ship; the men on board were given posthumous medals. WWII movies were full of selfless US heroes who blew themselves up to stop the evil Japanese and Germans.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-i/cv11.htm

What suicide attack are you referring to?

He doesn't have to justify his answer to you.
It is as he says, because it is said by him.

Move along.

Move On,

Did you bother to look it up for yourself before you typed that?
I'm pretty sure this is what he's referring to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Intrepid_(1798)

[champu 1]

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Of course, if a US soldier did that, they'd get a medal. We used the USS Intrepid as a suicide ship; the men on board were given posthumous medals. WWII movies were full of selfless US heroes who blew themselves up to stop the evil Japanese and Germans.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-i/cv11.htm

What suicide attack are you referring to?

I don't think he's talking about the aircraft carrier...

[christelsabine 1]

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Of course, if a US soldier did that, they'd get a medal. We used the USS Intrepid as a suicide ship; the men on board were given posthumous medals. WWII movies were full of selfless US heroes who blew themselves up to stop the evil Japanese and Germans.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-i/cv11.htm

What suicide attack are you referring to?

Who's talking about a suicide attack?

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[billvon 2,400]

>What suicide attack are you referring to?

======================
It was September 4, 1804. The United States was at war with the Barbary pirates along the North African coast. The US Navy was desperate to penetrate the enemy defenses. Commodore Edward Preble, who headed up the Third Mediterranean Squadron, chose an unusual stratagem: sending a booby-trapped USS Intrepid into the bay at Tripoli, one of the Barbary states of the Ottoman empire, to blow up as many of the enemy's ships as possible. US sailors packed 10,000 pounds of gunpowder into the boat along with 150 shells.

When Lieutenant Richard Sommers, who commanded the vessel, addressed his crew on the eve of the mission, a midshipman recorded his words:

"No man need accompany him, who had not come to the resolution to blow himself up, rather than be captured; and that such was fully his own determination!" Three cheers was the only reply. The gallant crew rose, as a single man, with the resolution yielding up their lives, sooner than surrender to their enemies: while each stepped forth, and begged as a favor, that he might be permitted to apply the match!

The crew of the boat then guided the Intrepid into the bay at night. So as not to be captured and lose so much valuable gunpowder to the enemy, they chose to blow themselves up with the boat. The explosion didn't do much damage - at most, one Tripolitan ship went down - but the crew was killed just as surely as the two men who plowed a ship piled high with explosives into the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden nearly 200 years later.
=======================

[dks13827 2]

the bomb(s) ended a terrible war, the Allies won, thank God, and it stopped the bloodshed.

[billvon 2,400]

>the bomb(s) ended a terrible war, the Allies won, thank God, and it stopped
>the bloodshed.

Agreed. Unfortunately, that justification can be used by anyone (say, by North Korea) with just as much righteousness.

[BillyVance 34]

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The explosion didn't do much damage - at most, one Tripolitan ship went down - but the crew was killed just as surely as the two men who plowed a ship piled high with explosives into the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden nearly 200 years later.
=======================

IIRC it was more like a dinky little boat. Sneaky bastards too, they looked harmless.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[BillyVance 34]

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>the bomb(s) ended a terrible war, the Allies won, thank God, and it stopped
>the bloodshed.

Agreed. Unfortunately, that justification can be used by anyone (say, by North Korea) with just as much righteousness.

Plus the fact that some 20 nations give or take, are now nuclear-armed. It's a powerful deterrence...

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[kelpdiver 2]

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Of course, if a US soldier did that, they'd get a medal. We used the USS Intrepid as a suicide ship; the men on board were given posthumous medals. WWII movies were full of selfless US heroes who blew themselves up to stop the evil Japanese and Germans.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-i/cv11.htm

What suicide attack are you referring to?

I don't think he's talking about the aircraft carrier...

apparently. It was a 140 year jump in time from the discussion. Love the Naval tradition of recycling names.

[SkyDekker 1,122]

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He doesn't have to justify his answer to you.
It is as he says, because it is said by him.

Move along.

Move On,

Funny, turns out he was right. After all the accusations that fly around here, lets see if you do the right thing now.....

[turtlespeed 212]

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He doesn't have to justify his answer to you.
It is as he says, because it is said by him.

Move along.

Move On,

Funny, turns out he was right. After all the accusations that fly around here, lets see if you do the right thing now.....

What is it that you disagree with?

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[SkyDekker 1,122]

and the answer is clearly no.....not surprising really.

[turtlespeed 212]

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and the answer is clearly no.....not surprising really.

You disagree with "No"

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[champu 1]

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I don't think he's talking about the aircraft carrier...

apparently. It was a 140 year jump in time from the discussion. Love the Naval tradition of recycling names.

Yeah, it was a somewhat unfortunate reference because CV-11 was in service during WWII (which is what we were talking about) and was the victim of kamikaze attacks on more than one occasion. (see attached)

Something that's interesting to me, that comes up quite often, are all the references to things the United States and her people have done in the past as they relate to current events. I'm going to be honest and say I've lost track of what the point is that people are trying to make with these references. Usually they're presented as either "everything is just a matter of perspective" or "you're a fucking hypocrite if you live in the US and condemn actions x, y, or z."

But aren't we learning anything from our actions? Do we continue to use fireships, nuclear weapons, or insurgents as proxies? I think given that we're in the information age and given the current global economy, we (humans) owe it to ourselves to learn from each others' pasts, and not just from our own. I don't think the world will survive each and every country going through the growing pains the United States has, so dismissing current actions by people/nations on those grounds is probably something we should get away from.

[nerdgirl 0]

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apparently. It was a 140 year jump in time from the discussion. Love the Naval tradition of recycling names.

Still happens: this summer I’ve been reading about Task Force Tarawa at the start of OIF.
This morning CNN had a story, on its “Top Stories” bar, about ongoing efforts at an earlier Tarawa.

Somewhat in the vein of [champu’s] post – a lot was learned from the first Tarawa.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[nerdgirl 0]

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Plus the fact that some 20 nations give or take, are now nuclear-armed.

20?

Altho' I'd bet that would be on the low end of what the average American would estimate.

(US, USSR/Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, DPRK, and Israel)

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It's a powerful deterrence...

From other nuclear states. It’s been a much less effective deterrent to domestic/homegrown or international terrorists or insurgents, here or in other states.

Again, in picking up on [champu’s] post – we learned a lot from mutually assured destruction of the Cold War with a bipolar balance of power and another superpower as adversary. What lessons did we learn from that and which ones are meaningful in thinking about deterrence for the 21st Century?

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[Binkus 0]

I do think it was justified and I alos agree with another poster that it was not just about ending the war with Japan but also as a deterence to the Soviet Union. I do find the article disturbing though, yes the Japanese were very brutal during and prior to WW2 but from what I have seen they do not seem to try to protray themselves as the victems, in fact from what I have experenced many apear to be some what ashamed of the past, or at least do not want to go back to the same dominate mindset that they had durning the early 20th century. My wife was born and raised in Japan (her family is originally from Hiroshima) and of the several times I have visited Japan and peace park (location of the Atomic bombing) I never noticed any vibe or person trying to play the victem card.