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My impression is a lot of soldiers and contemporaneous sources said Japanese fought to the death, engaged in suicidal 'banzai charges', killed themselves rather

My impression is a lot of soldiers and contemporaneous sources said Japanese fought to the death, engaged in suicidal 'banzai charges', killed themselves rather than surrender, and that those few who did surrender thought it was shameful, and had been taught to expect mistreatment from Americans similar to what Japan dished out on e.g. the Bataan Death March. Now it's quite possible that some of that was exaggerated and history as written by the victors. (authors like Leckie, Sledge, Jones ... have their books but didn't get too far) But if your opponent is willing to surrender, it's generally a better tactic to let them surrender, than to have a no-prisoners policy that means their only hope for survival is to defeat you. Not saying there was no racism, no brutality, no war crimes from the American side, but would need to see more evidence that the relative lack of prisoners was 100% due to American war criminality vs. how Japanese fought. https://www.quora.com/Are-educated-Americans-no-longer-taught-that-Japanese-soldiers-in-World-War-II-were-trained-to-fight-to-the-death https://www.quora.com/Are-educated-Americans-no-longer-taugh...

mcguire 10y ago
Further, you get more intelligence from prisoners than from bodies.
- coldtea 10y ago
  At the point that you're winning the war by a landslide, you don't care much about intelligence.
  - mcguire 10y ago
    "...winning the war by a landslide..." When, exactly, would that be?
- iwontreddit 10y ago
  Sure, but you are talking about racist hatred trumping rationality and civility. There weren't a more racist and savage group in ww2 than the allied soldier in the pacific. Hundreds of thousands of japanese soldiers were tortured, mutilated/decapitated and turned into war trophies. It's a good thing we won ww2, otherwise, so many people would have been executed for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
  - mcguire 10y ago
    "There weren't a more racist and savage group in ww2 than the allied soldier in the pacific." Not even the German government, engaged in attempting to exterminate the undesirable population of Europe? Or the German treatment of Soviet prisoners? Or Soviets of German prisoners? Certainly, there was a lot of hatred and racism on the Allied side. (And then there the allegation of Patton's famous disinclination to accept the surrender of German soldiers who had just fired single-use anti-tank weapons at American forces.) But I think you're getting hyperbolic there. Do you have a source for the hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers being tortured, mutilated, decapitated, and turned into war trophies?
    - iwontreddit 10y ago
      > Not even the German government, engaged in attempting to exterminate the undesirable population of Europe? They weren't more racist than the US/British. You could argue they were as racist since they modeled their racial ideology from the US/Britain. > Or the German treatment of Soviet prisoners? The german treatment of soviets and the soviet treatment of the germans were horrific. But nowhere close to the level of depravity that the allies in the pacific sunk to. The allies didn't just kill japanese POWs. The allies tortured and mutilated and decapitated hundreds of thousands of japanese soldiers. There are countless japanese skulls and all kinds of mutilated japanese body parts in the US because the GIs did so much mutilating in the pacific. No fighting force in ww2 engaged in such disgusting behavior. > Do you have a source for the hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers being tortured, mutilated, decapitated, and turned into war trophies? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanese_war_dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanes... It was so prevalent that LIFE magazine ran a cover story on it... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b5/LIFE_May_1944_Jap_Skull.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b5/LIFE_May_1944... It was so prevalent that FDR, the leader of the free world, was fiddling with the bones of a tortured japanese soldier in the oval office. "On June 13, 1944, the press reported that President Roosevelt had been presented with a letter-opener made out of a Japanese soldier's arm bone by Francis E. Walter, a Democratic congressman.[4] Supposedly, the president commented, "This is the sort of gift I like to get", and "There'll be plenty more such gifts" "In 1984, Japanese soldiers' remains were repatriated from the Mariana Islands. Roughly 60 percent were missing their skulls" More than 70,000 japanese were killed in marina. If 60% were missing their skulls, that means more than 42,000 skulls sent to the US. That's just one island campaign... You don't learn about this in school. As I said, evil won ww2 and evil lost ww2. There was no good guy in ww2.
feklar 10y ago
The Wikipedia article on Japanese WW2 holdouts is interesting, some held out surrender to the 90s either living in remote regions or joining other fighting groups.
iwontreddit 10y ago
> My impression is a lot of soldiers and contemporaneous sources said Japanese fought to the death, engaged in suicidal 'banzai charges', killed themselves rather than surrender, and that those few who did surrender thought it was shameful That is the propaganda/"history" that I am talking about. If you look at previous battles/wars, the japanese soldiers did surrender. The japanese soldiers did surrender in the beginning of the pacific war to the allies and they were brutally slaughtered, tortured and mutilated. It was part of the racist "no prisoner" policy by the extremely racist allied soldiers. That's why the japanese stopped surrendering. The myth of the "unsurrendering" japanese was created after ww2 by "historians" to justify the absolutely absurd casualty rates that the japanese endured. Many of these battles in the pacific had deaths rates of 100%. That's unheard of in wars, unless one side was completely genocidal. Meaning there were 0 wounded 0 japanese POWs. What this means is that the allied soldiers simply massacred the japanese soldiers and went around killing wounded japanese soldiers. We know this happened because we have video footage of allied soldiers killing wounded japanese soldiers. > and had been taught to expect mistreatment from Americans similar to what Japan dished out on e.g. the Bataan Death March. The Bataan March was "myth". Hundreds of thousands of japanese POWs were tortured and mutilated and massacred by american soldiers. Maybe 100 americans soldiers were killed in the bataan march. Maybe. The propagandist myth of the bataan march certainly influenced the savage behavior of allied soldiers, but the allied soldiers in the pacific were from some of the most savage and racist societies on earth. We pretend that nazi germany and imperial japan were "racist", but we were just as racist as they were and much of axis racial ideology was copied from US/British racial ideology. > But if your opponent is willing to surrender, it's generally a better tactic to let them surrender, than to have a no-prisoners policy that means their only hope for survival is to defeat you. Right. Unfortunately, racist hatred wouldn't allow the allied soldiers to let the japanese surrender. That's why the japanese soldiers fought so hard. That's why the kamikazes only came into existence against the allied soldiers. The japanese never exhibited that behavior against the russians, chinese, etc. > Not saying there was no racism, no brutality, no war crimes from the American side, but would need to see more evidence that the relative lack of prisoners was 100% due to American war criminality vs. how Japanese fought. "American soldiers in the Pacific often deliberately killed Japanese soldiers who had surrendered." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World... "But the Japanese wasn't dead. He had been wounded severely in the back and couldn't move his arms; otherwise he would have resisted to his last breath... " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanese_war_dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanes... "In 1984, Japanese soldiers' remains were repatriated from the Mariana Islands. Roughly 60 percent were missing their skulls." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_and_Palau_Islands_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_and_Palau_Islands_camp... If you do the math, pretty much all of the japanese on these islands were killed ( 70K+ ) and tens of thousands of these soldiers were tortured, decapitated and had their heads boiled for war trophies. In ww2, you can objectively say that pure evil won and that pure evil lost. We love to pretend that the nazis were evil or the japanese were evil, but the most evil societies on earth was britain and the US and had been the most evil for nearly 150 years before ww2. We love to ignore the historical fact that Nazi Germany modeled their ideology after the racist ideology pioneered by britain and the US.

mcguire 10y ago

Further, you get more intelligence from prisoners than from bodies.

coldtea 10y ago
At the point that you're winning the war by a landslide, you don't care much about intelligence.
- mcguire 10y ago
  "...winning the war by a landslide..." When, exactly, would that be?
iwontreddit 10y ago
Sure, but you are talking about racist hatred trumping rationality and civility. There weren't a more racist and savage group in ww2 than the allied soldier in the pacific. Hundreds of thousands of japanese soldiers were tortured, mutilated/decapitated and turned into war trophies. It's a good thing we won ww2, otherwise, so many people would have been executed for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
- mcguire 10y ago
  "There weren't a more racist and savage group in ww2 than the allied soldier in the pacific." Not even the German government, engaged in attempting to exterminate the undesirable population of Europe? Or the German treatment of Soviet prisoners? Or Soviets of German prisoners? Certainly, there was a lot of hatred and racism on the Allied side. (And then there the allegation of Patton's famous disinclination to accept the surrender of German soldiers who had just fired single-use anti-tank weapons at American forces.) But I think you're getting hyperbolic there. Do you have a source for the hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers being tortured, mutilated, decapitated, and turned into war trophies?
  - iwontreddit 10y ago
    > Not even the German government, engaged in attempting to exterminate the undesirable population of Europe? They weren't more racist than the US/British. You could argue they were as racist since they modeled their racial ideology from the US/Britain. > Or the German treatment of Soviet prisoners? The german treatment of soviets and the soviet treatment of the germans were horrific. But nowhere close to the level of depravity that the allies in the pacific sunk to. The allies didn't just kill japanese POWs. The allies tortured and mutilated and decapitated hundreds of thousands of japanese soldiers. There are countless japanese skulls and all kinds of mutilated japanese body parts in the US because the GIs did so much mutilating in the pacific. No fighting force in ww2 engaged in such disgusting behavior. > Do you have a source for the hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers being tortured, mutilated, decapitated, and turned into war trophies? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanese_war_dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanes... It was so prevalent that LIFE magazine ran a cover story on it... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b5/LIFE_May_1944_Jap_Skull.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b5/LIFE_May_1944... It was so prevalent that FDR, the leader of the free world, was fiddling with the bones of a tortured japanese soldier in the oval office. "On June 13, 1944, the press reported that President Roosevelt had been presented with a letter-opener made out of a Japanese soldier's arm bone by Francis E. Walter, a Democratic congressman.[4] Supposedly, the president commented, "This is the sort of gift I like to get", and "There'll be plenty more such gifts" "In 1984, Japanese soldiers' remains were repatriated from the Mariana Islands. Roughly 60 percent were missing their skulls" More than 70,000 japanese were killed in marina. If 60% were missing their skulls, that means more than 42,000 skulls sent to the US. That's just one island campaign... You don't learn about this in school. As I said, evil won ww2 and evil lost ww2. There was no good guy in ww2.

feklar 10y ago

The Wikipedia article on Japanese WW2 holdouts is interesting, some held out surrender to the 90s either living in remote regions or joining other fighting groups.

iwontreddit 10y ago

> My impression is a lot of soldiers and contemporaneous sources said Japanese fought to the death, engaged in suicidal 'banzai charges', killed themselves rather than surrender, and that those few who did surrender thought it was shameful That is the propaganda/"history" that I am talking about. If you look at previous battles/wars, the japanese soldiers did surrender. The japanese soldiers did surrender in the beginning of the pacific war to the allies and they were brutally slaughtered, tortured and mutilated. It was part of the racist "no prisoner" policy by the extremely racist allied soldiers. That's why the japanese stopped surrendering. The myth of the "unsurrendering" japanese was created after ww2 by "historians" to justify the absolutely absurd casualty rates that the japanese endured. Many of these battles in the pacific had deaths rates of 100%. That's unheard of in wars, unless one side was completely genocidal. Meaning there were 0 wounded 0 japanese POWs. What this means is that the allied soldiers simply massacred the japanese soldiers and went around killing wounded japanese soldiers. We know this happened because we have video footage of allied soldiers killing wounded japanese soldiers. > and had been taught to expect mistreatment from Americans similar to what Japan dished out on e.g. the Bataan Death March. The Bataan March was "myth". Hundreds of thousands of japanese POWs were tortured and mutilated and massacred by american soldiers. Maybe 100 americans soldiers were killed in the bataan march. Maybe. The propagandist myth of the bataan march certainly influenced the savage behavior of allied soldiers, but the allied soldiers in the pacific were from some of the most savage and racist societies on earth. We pretend that nazi germany and imperial japan were "racist", but we were just as racist as they were and much of axis racial ideology was copied from US/British racial ideology. > But if your opponent is willing to surrender, it's generally a better tactic to let them surrender, than to have a no-prisoners policy that means their only hope for survival is to defeat you. Right. Unfortunately, racist hatred wouldn't allow the allied soldiers to let the japanese surrender. That's why the japanese soldiers fought so hard. That's why the kamikazes only came into existence against the allied soldiers. The japanese never exhibited that behavior against the russians, chinese, etc. > Not saying there was no racism, no brutality, no war crimes from the American side, but would need to see more evidence that the relative lack of prisoners was 100% due to American war criminality vs. how Japanese fought. "American soldiers in the Pacific often deliberately killed Japanese soldiers who had surrendered." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World... "But the Japanese wasn't dead. He had been wounded severely in the back and couldn't move his arms; otherwise he would have resisted to his last breath... " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanese_war_dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanes... "In 1984, Japanese soldiers' remains were repatriated from the Mariana Islands. Roughly 60 percent were missing their skulls." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_and_Palau_Islands_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_and_Palau_Islands_camp... If you do the math, pretty much all of the japanese on these islands were killed ( 70K+ ) and tens of thousands of these soldiers were tortured, decapitated and had their heads boiled for war trophies. In ww2, you can objectively say that pure evil won and that pure evil lost. We love to pretend that the nazis were evil or the japanese were evil, but the most evil societies on earth was britain and the US and had been the most evil for nearly 150 years before ww2. We love to ignore the historical fact that Nazi Germany modeled their ideology after the racist ideology pioneered by britain and the US.