never forget WW2

[9mm]

PZR said:

9mm said:

The reason you won't hear about Allied atrocities against the Japanese is that they pale into insignificance in comparison. Mainland Japan was not subjected to invasion whereas just about everywhere the Japanese went they committed vile atrocities against civilians and military.

Mainland Japan was however subjected to occupation. In one prefecture alone (Kanagawa) 1300 rapes were reported between August 30 and September 10, 1945. And that's just rapes reported. A bit further up this thread you'll see a post that effectively explains such things away as some kind of collateral damage. My opinion is that it's just as bad if 'we' did it as if 'they' did it.

9mm said:

The best anyone will come up with in terms of Allied crimes is against Japanese combatants and they won't begin to compare with what the Japanese did.

See above, and if your interest runs that far you could look into it further. I'm not interested in getting into some kind of 'league tables of atrocity' type argument, but would be happier if more people understood that it wasn't all white-hatted good guys vs black-hatted baddies, and that it became a perfect storm of cyclical revenge and hatred from both sides. No point in being the victor if you can't reflect on what you did to win, and what becoming the victor made you.

9mm said:

We could start with survival rates of Japanese in Allied pow camps compared to those of Allied soldiers in Japanese camps...

It's worth reflecting that - for more than one reason - far fewer Japanese combatants arrived in Allied POW camps to begin with...

But as far as survival rates are concerned, think of the sheer logistics of coping with so many POWs - most of them not brought up in the region and climate they were POWs in, and therefore less resistant - at the far end of a chain of supply that was already stretched without taking into account the allied efforts to break it. With around 130,000 allied troops surrendering in the fall of Singapore and Malaya alone, I think anyone can see that it was going to be a problem.

WW2 is as close as you will ever get to good vs evil.

Of course crimes were committed by both sides but the idea that there was any kind of equality of criminality between Allied and Japanese forces is risible and cannot be hidden under the cliché that victors write the history.

Things are only superficially more complicated in the European and Eastern theatres.

[9mm]

PZR said:

Eric Mc said:

A problem which they decided was best dealt with by not really making even a half hearted attempt.

When I first read that I thought you were referring to the allied efforts to defend Singapore. Then the penny dropped.

At least most of them actually ended up in POW 'camps'. I'd say that was at least half hearted. It could have been worse.

Eric Mc said:

By 1941, the Japanese Empire had been on an aggressive militaristic expansion in Asia and their soldiers were experienced and battle hardened. They had little sympathy for "soft and decadent" white races and harboured much resentment against European colonialism in Asia. For many Japanese, the defeats and occupations of Burmah, Singapore, Malaya etc amounted to "payback time" against European oppression (as they saw it).

The Imperial Japanese forces had little sympathy for anybody, Eric. Including their own. That's what a couple of decades of effective brainwashing can do for any nation. It'll happen again if we don't recognise that we are all capable of it, and that as soon as you start pointing the finger at a particular race and/or nation and calling them 'savages' or Untermensch (my Burma Star-wearing uncle was convinced that Japanese people are born with some special kind of cruelty gene, and told me they were no better than monkeys) you're sowing the seeds for another cruel harvest.

Your uncle may yet be proved to have been on to something. About the 'cruelty gene' not the monkey bit. The traditional idea that we are purely blank sheets and simply the product of our environment is now widely dismissed and the effect of genes on personality and behavioural traits is recognised if not yet fully understood.

[PZR]

9mm said:

PZR said:

Eric Mc said:

A problem which they decided was best dealt with by not really making even a half hearted attempt.

When I first read that I thought you were referring to the allied efforts to defend Singapore. Then the penny dropped.

At least most of them actually ended up in POW 'camps'. I'd say that was at least half hearted. It could have been worse.

Eric Mc said:

By 1941, the Japanese Empire had been on an aggressive militaristic expansion in Asia and their soldiers were experienced and battle hardened. They had little sympathy for "soft and decadent" white races and harboured much resentment against European colonialism in Asia. For many Japanese, the defeats and occupations of Burmah, Singapore, Malaya etc amounted to "payback time" against European oppression (as they saw it).

The Imperial Japanese forces had little sympathy for anybody, Eric. Including their own. That's what a couple of decades of effective brainwashing can do for any nation. It'll happen again if we don't recognise that we are all capable of it, and that as soon as you start pointing the finger at a particular race and/or nation and calling them 'savages' or Untermensch (my Burma Star-wearing uncle was convinced that Japanese people are born with some special kind of cruelty gene, and told me they were no better than monkeys) you're sowing the seeds for another cruel harvest.

Your uncle may yet be proved to have been on to something. About the 'cruelty gene' not the monkey bit. The traditional idea that we are purely blank sheets and simply the product of our environment is now widely dismissed and the effect of genes on personality and behavioural traits is recognised if not yet fully understood.

You think so? He was a nice man, but I wouldn't call him any sort of anthropologist or genetics expert. His theory was based on flawed understanding. Most of the people he blamed for being cruel to him in WW2 were actually Koreans and (Manchurian) Chinese rather than "Japs"...

Pointing the finger at a race and/or nationality and claiming that there's something fundamentally flawed about them - on a genetic level - has a certain ring of familiarity about it, don't you think? Now where have I heard of that before?

[Lawbags]

My Grandad couldnt be in a house where bacon was being cooked as it reminded him of burning flesh on the beaches on D Day. He couldnt use a car as the door shutting reminded him of bombs going off. He couldnt watch any form of TV that had shots being fired/bombs going off as it reminded him of his best mate getting his guts blown out over my Grandads face.

I think he was justified hating anything German.

[9mm]

PZR said:

9mm said:

PZR said:

Eric Mc said:

A problem which they decided was best dealt with by not really making even a half hearted attempt.

When I first read that I thought you were referring to the allied efforts to defend Singapore. Then the penny dropped.

At least most of them actually ended up in POW 'camps'. I'd say that was at least half hearted. It could have been worse.

Eric Mc said:

By 1941, the Japanese Empire had been on an aggressive militaristic expansion in Asia and their soldiers were experienced and battle hardened. They had little sympathy for "soft and decadent" white races and harboured much resentment against European colonialism in Asia. For many Japanese, the defeats and occupations of Burmah, Singapore, Malaya etc amounted to "payback time" against European oppression (as they saw it).

The Imperial Japanese forces had little sympathy for anybody, Eric. Including their own. That's what a couple of decades of effective brainwashing can do for any nation. It'll happen again if we don't recognise that we are all capable of it, and that as soon as you start pointing the finger at a particular race and/or nation and calling them 'savages' or Untermensch (my Burma Star-wearing uncle was convinced that Japanese people are born with some special kind of cruelty gene, and told me they were no better than monkeys) you're sowing the seeds for another cruel harvest.

Your uncle may yet be proved to have been on to something. About the 'cruelty gene' not the monkey bit. The traditional idea that we are purely blank sheets and simply the product of our environment is now widely dismissed and the effect of genes on personality and behavioural traits is recognised if not yet fully understood.

You think so? He was a nice man, but I wouldn't call him any sort of anthropologist or genetics expert. His theory was based on flawed understanding. Most of the people he blamed for being cruel to him in WW2 were actually Koreans and (Manchurian) Chinese rather than "Japs"...

Pointing the finger at a race and/or nationality and claiming that there's something fundamentally flawed about them - on a genetic level - has a certain ring of familiarity about it, don't you think? Now where have I heard of that before?

What I mean is that he may have chanced on what scientists are learning about the association. I don't think ideas like 'fundamentally flawed' even enter the discussion.

If it's a fact that doesn't mean it's prejudice or bigotry. I don't know if Japanese/Asiatics/Newfoundlers or anyone else have predispositions towards cruelty or tap dancing, just that there's increasing evidence that genetics can play a part in behaviour.