I'm Japanese, and I can tell you that there is great emphasis on educating people about the atomic bombing in my country - on how "inhumane and atrocious" it was - but little to no effort at all on the crimes that our own people have committed. And if I were to ever promote videos of this kind to my people, I will be called a "traitor".
I find it wild that people believe that the Atomic Bombings were so horrible compared to the alternative. I dont think a lot of people think of the alternative anyways. Im willing to bet nearly everyone knows or has at least heard of the Battle of Okinawa and how brutal it was. I know everyone knows about how Japan sent untrained pilots to suicide into American ships or the general suicide over surrender stuff. And not one of those people takes a moment to imagine what horrific, mind-shattering bloodshed would have occurred if the US had landed on the Japanese home islands. Upwards of tens of millions of people. Even Japan, apparently. The country that was planning on sending every man, woman and child to fight and die for it.
I’m American who lived in Japan 15 years and sent my American kids to Japanese schools. Here is how I see it. Japan today is operating under a different ideology and worldview than before. Previously people were brainwashed into Shinto nationalism that said that the highest morality was to obey the Emperor and worship him as a god. Basically this is the same problem North Korea has today. I am a Christian and I believe the atomic bombings were evil-but only after I studied it carefully, went to Hiroshima & Nagasaki, met 被爆者 (survivors), and thought about it. Most Americans are taught that it ended the war and saved lives (of Americans). They never even think why not drop it on Mt. Fuji instead to just show its power. But Japanese back then were so brainwashed they would commit suicide “out of duty” or not to “lose honor.” Be careful about the software your mind is operating on! Japanese schools still cover up true history, even though it is not as dishonest as China. Mombusho (Ministry of Education) is controlled by guilty ex-soldiers and they still force teachers to bow to the flag and sing Kimigayo. Critical thinking is not taught. 出る釘は打たれる. Most Japanese are not threatening Asia, but they still don’t know much of their war history. But there is right-wing propaganda you can find in bookstores and on the internet. Prime Minister Abe wrote a book called “Beautiful Japan” and 1/3 of it was like Trump, full of anti-Korean xenophobia. People want to believe they are better than their neighbors. It makes me sick to see him bowing down to demons enshrined at Yasukuni Jinja. Yet today nationalism is being promoted in the USA by Trump, and FOX news is brainwashing Americans to hate “liberals” - those who have a better education, and believe the true history of colonialism and slavery must be taught, slandered as “hating America!” Many of the same arguments Japanese nationalists use are now being said in America. Jesus said “You shall know the truth and the Truth shall make you free!” He also warned “Whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword.” Americans also have amnesia about the Iraq War. Let us all face the truth and turn away from evil.
@@markdouglas8073 I dont think you understand that not only millions of Americans would have not died if not for the Atomic Bomb, but MANY, MANY MILLIONS MORE Japanese would have surly perished if Operation Downfall went into effect. Japan was ready to throw every man, woman, child, and fetus at the invading allies to stop them. They had rounded up every available aircraft in preparation for a massive suicide attack on American ships. To my understanding they even released a propaganda film to the public called "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million" in reference to the fact that they were preparing EVERYBODY in the Japanese home islands to die in combat. Japans population would have been utterly wiped out. Just look at casualty rates/Suicide rates/Surrender rates of Japanese troops at battles like Okinawa and Iwo Jima. As for the Atomic Bombs? They wouldnt have gotten the message if there was no harm done. We can even see that it took Two for them to finally get it. Some American commanders even theorized it would take FIVE OR MORE to get the Japanese to surrender. As for the Anti-Trump stuff... *please stop.*
You wanna to know the difference between German and Japanese wartime atrocities? Germany very much remembers and does everything it can to avoid them in the future while Japan pretends they never even happened
Sad, but absolutely true. I've seen interviews with Japanese soldiers from the baton death march, and they still don't have any grasp of their guilt. They blame the soldiers that died as being lazy or cowards.
We can thank America politics for that. We needed Japan rebuilt and strong because we knew we would have issues and maybe war with a battle hardened and victorious red army. We erased most of the atrocities and screamed about germanies. Most of this I never heard about after studying for years the Pacific theater until flags of our fathers was published and got very detailed how many and common atrocities were
@@dixztube it is true and we knew about their atrocities for a long time. Bataan was just a taste and we knew why we trained our soldiers to kill not take prisoners. We say only a few thousand surrendered but as a human I don't exactly believe that. Even being brainwashed were wired to survive. After the war we needed Japan as a base why we built it up so fast as basically our naval fortress and built up our parts of occupation in Europe to shut the iron curtain knowing we were headed into intense pressure. Patton wanted to attack the red army and as charismatic and Beloved as he was by common soldiers he had to have an accident. He could of took control of European ground forces and maybe all armed forces and became our Caesar so he had to go. We committed many atrocities and covered many up for technology from German scientists also
It's a common European thing thinking they are superior to any other race. They thought the same I'm sure of the tiny Mongols on their ponies almost a thousand years ago. Until they were decimated and if not for royal death and a power struggle Europe may have been much different with Mongolian rulers even for a brief time. I still believe the Mongols had the greatest soldiers and leaders as well as the most dominant army over any period of time. I guess vanity always makes history repeat itself and it's why the allies weren't ready for the Japanese and it took a whole mind change to defeat them
Lmao for real the koreans are gonna have a field day with this one, most of them speak english and roast the japanese online about this stuff constantly.
If you surrendered, they tortured and killed you for being a coward. If you put up a tremendous fight, they tortured and killed you in revenge for the casualties you inflicted on them. Samurai honor my tail. I have seen many documentaries and specials on the Pacific Theater, including interviews with Japanese WWII veterans. Unlike the German and Italian WWII veterans, the Japanese veterans to a man seem to have only one regret - that they lost.
There was no Honour, or Warrior status. Just cowards who had no morals. Weak people that finally could inflict death on superior warriors. The essence of a coward.
I read Sledge's book "With the old breed" and also have seen many interviews with him. He carried a lot of bitterness towards the Japanese for most of his post war life..possibly all of his life due to the atrocities he witnessed. Although I can't substantiate his feelings after the early to mid 90's when I saw his last interview.
@@RogueCylonno you’re wrong. the cowards dropped the nuke to avoid more fighting while the superior warriors were still fighting in china and Manchuria despite their european allies losing the war
I had two Japanese roommates in college (in the US). One day I was watching a documentary on the Bataan death march with one of them (the nicest person you will ever find), who watched it with his mouth open - He had never heard a thing in his life about Japanese atrocities in WWII. It is wrong to blame people for the sins of their ancestors - none of us would be spared - but the whitewashing of WWII history in Japan is nothing short of shameful.
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
@@emeraldbreeze5204 -- My father was in Guadalcanal in 1942. The story's my father told me 40 years ago about the treatment US servicemen received during those battles would make any sane human being throw up. They deserved what they got.
@@emeraldbreeze5204 Can you share your source for this? I have not been able to find anything about it. I also did a search in the Life Magazine Digital Archives and nothing there either.
I had the privilege of knowing one of the American warriors who were caged, couldn't stand, couldn't stretch out resulting in his legs being permanently damaged. He cheerfully said he never had a bad day after liberation, that he had a reference point of what a bad day was.
I have so many personal problems, but there are just so many people who have it worse... I wouldn't last one week in these situations. Count your blessings!
@@mjames7674 Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.
There is saying in Indonesia "350 years under European occupation was nothing compared to 5 years of Japanese occupation." And European occupation was cruel ..
Excuse me? if indonesia was anything like the Americas, India, or the Congo you had millions killed or starved which may be better than brutal military occupation but it isn’t so black and white
As indian we still carry the scars of British rule which was as barbaric as Japan or Germany. We Indians can't forget man made famine in Bengal perpetuated by mr churchill which resulted in millions of starvation deaths.
When I was a kid, I was told by someone who fought in the war. "Anything they tell you about the Germans, the Japanese did and did worse." (Something along those lines anyway).
And Im a proud descendant of a Filipino fighter, who defended our country against these Japanese invaders. My grandpa ( brother of grand ma) died in the Bataan death march, with other Filipino and American soldiers) Philippines was an american colony when Japan invaded us. We herr in Philippines will never forget!
My grandmother was from the Philippines. Some of the stories she would tell about what the Japanese did to her and her family was unfathomable. To this day she has 3 portraits of MacArthur in her house. To many Filipino’s of that time he was and still is a hero.
My mother-in-law is Filipina. She was curious about my tears when watching the news about the tsunami in Japan in 2011. I told her I had lived in Nagoya as a boy in 1977 and I had great affection for the people and culture. She put her hand on my knee and leaned towards me and told me a horrifying story about her hometown in the Philippines and how local teachers and officials were executed in front of her town by the Japanese and their bodies thrown down a well. Her eyes became like fire as she told this story. She still had hatred in her heart after all these years. I am careful to avoid talking about Japan or World War II to elderly fililinos.
The Australian soldiers didn't care for him much cause he once called our soldiers lazy and he was actually booed and heckled away when he came to address the Australian troops
@@plzburnme3809 Dugout Dug was, in general, quite inept. But I understand why he is so respected in the PI, he was the face of the allied forces in the Philippines.
@Wesley Sandel There were many of his race, class, and gender who were far more competent and did not have as successful careers. His position was largely on account of his father, whose reputation was the product of a long and successful career in the senior ranks of the army during a time when the army was quite small. The lesson is that the successes of the father are visited upon his children, just as the sins of the father. If this were not the case I doubt anybody would put much effort into anything. I never really gave a damn whether I succeed or fail in life, but I do care about my children and everything I have done in life I have done for them and them alone. So I understand completely.
When I was an undergraduate in the early 80s there were a few Japanese students. One of the techs simply vanished when any of them entered the room. I found out that he had been a PoW, captured in Singapore and he actually had to go and vomit when he saw them. I'll never forget that. He was a sweet gentle man.
as a 12year old school boy, i had a teacher who had been a POW of the japanese, they had slit his cheek flesh on both sides of his lips, and forced sand into the two wounds, destroying the nerves which had allowed him to smile, i'll never forget that man
The depths of dravity that human heart can decend is beyond belief. I guess thats why the bible labels our carnal hearts as the Satan, the adversary. Wicked indeed!
My aunt told me about how she missed being killed in a massacre of Filipino civilians in Banga, Aklan. She said that during the early part of the war the Japanese entered the town where she lived which was Banga in the province of Aklan in the Philippines. The Japanese ordered the population to gather at the town square. She ignored the order saying she had no interest in seeing the Japanese. The hundreds who showed up were then gunned down and beheaded by the Japanese. Today you can see a memorial set up in memory of the victims of that massacre in the middle of the town square.
My mother in law is Filipina and downstairs as we speak. Back during the war she lived in a house that was across from a Japanese airfield. She said she remembers all the Japanese planes leaving the air base in a rush. The base stayed there but not a single Japanese plane returned. It was later she found out the reason they did not return, they flew off to the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Oct 1944.
Americans killed 300,000 people with the atomic bomb. They deliberately dropped it on Hiroshima City, where there are many civilians, rather than Kure City, which is a military facility.
It’s surprising that Japan allowed the Filipinos to even set up a memorial. When Korea tried to build a memorial acknowledging the women who were forced into prostitution by the Japanese, Japan cut off diplomatic relations in protest
I went to a private school in Japan and my teacher was the grandchild of survivors from Nanking. We learned stuff the japanese public school curriculum wouldn't dare teach. God forbid we really learn about our history.
I think the main reason is the early occupation of Korea and China, the subhuman attitude toward those people, and unconstrained brutal murder being policy as I suspect they though was a method of control. They treated those people like you might treat of wild dogs, it doesn't take much irritation to kill those dogs without a thought or regret. All this was done by the army and became a pattern of behavior in their military. These civilian deaths, easily over a million if the war can was kicked down the road another year, is the first and last argument for dropping as many atomic bombs as you have to end the was ASAP. Anyone not dropping the bomb on moral grounds would not only have to apologies to the troops that dies defeating Japan, but also the million or more civilians in occupied countries, unless that person also does not consider them humans and are only number in a column in a book, and not something to soil my moral sole worrying about.
@@IamMysterium Not once does he excuse it, he is pointing out the causation and we are here to examine it. Take your brutish desire to affirm a personalized narrative elsewhere, this is a place for knowledge to be shared and disputed if necessary. This work of Dr. Felton's is near perfect by what I can tell
"The Japanese soldier stands as a warning to future generations on what could happen if morality, humanity, and compassion are beaten out of the warrior." This is a warning to everyone but the Japanese as the Japanese establishment refused to acknowledge their wartime atrocities. Those that do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.
The chief of staff of the Japanese national education is being intervened by the United States government since the end of WW2, which means that it is only serve the interest of NATO for the sake of technology development. Any historical information that can cause social unrest is heavily suppressed.
Well actually the brutal of soldiers against normal people at war time is just everywhere in history. It is just wars in modern time got reported more and therefore feel closer to you. Same go as US, Russia, China, Britain, France and every countries for their history When war time or hard time come, everyone are salvagers. Don't be blind by the peace you enjoy today when most people kinda have what they want.
@@khan-cricket yeah.. no way in hell this excuse covers Japan. The Wehrmacht in the most hardened and bleak state imaginable were disgusted by rape. Evil ideology is one thing but everyone being completely devoid of empathy is unheard of in the west. I sincerely hope I'm missing something but as of right now I can't find a out for myself. You can't change my mind unfortunately, I'm a pretty open minded fella too. I'd love to scrub R****st off my forehead.
@@Pekskeh They gave a half ass apology while maintaining monuments and museums to honor their war dead which includes Class A war criminals. Their history books don't even teach their people about WW2 and the atrocities against Allied POW's and civilians. That's hardly an acknowledgement.
Nor can the baton death march, the rape of Nacan, etc. Japanese Emperor did a war crime on his people by not surrendering before the island hopping. The war was over by then. He sacrificed his people for nothing. It sickens me.
@user-vr6gl2lc8n the one that was easily preventable but the stubborn japanese government refused to surrender even *after* one atomic bomb was dropped
@user-vr6gl2lc8n says the one who committed, Nanking massacre. Comfort Women. Torture to POW. Human Experiments on the Chinese Civilians., etc. Atom Bombs were just a mercy to your country compared to what your country did to the other Asian countries. Let's call it Karma
My grandad was bayoneted in the stomach after he was captured, he told me that the Japanese would have competitions to see which man could behead the most people in the fastest time,this story resonates in my heart personally, thanks professor Felton for highlighting a hugely personal subject , did not know that so many people would like this comment! Obviously you all respect my grandads story so thank you so much! It means a lot to me and would to him (he would never admit that though!)
@ Stop justifying Japanese war crimes by using "Red herrings"" And No American Forces did not say stupid shite like that. And The UN has done wonders in the Congo and Rwanda huh? Get real mate.
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@@PeterNgola I was in Vietnam and I said it myself. I'm not proud of it and I'm not even sure I meant it but I said it. Yes the UN tries but all too often they're barred from helping.
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@@PeterNgola And how am I justifying Japanese war crimes? I'm saying everyone commits them...it's part of war.
Dad was USN Pacific. Later in life told a few stories. After island hopping, Said only thing that kept him from absolute hatred of all Japanese was meeting one Japanese POW after war formally ended. His group of sailors were doing island patrols. Day after day of losing buddies to attacks after war was "over" , guarding the few POWs was not a favored task. But he talked to one soldier who eventually told him he had attended UCLA. Dad, son of Georgia sharecropper said, "He spoke better English than I did!" This captive explained a simplified version of the Bushido code. Also said he had to enter the army, but knew once US got in there was no hope of winning. Dad was glad he met one person whom he could sort of understand. And actually was glad it kept him from a life of total bitterness. Always said, " they looked at life different than we did." Had no use for most goings Asian all his life, but at least saw there were still some with whom we could relate. Long entry - sorry. My way of showing appreciation for my first hero. I am sure we never knew the worst he saw.
My stepdad was married to my mom for 35 years before she found out he was a POW in Japan. We knew he was in the Navy in WW2 and wouldn't buy any Japanese vehicle. But he never talked about it we thought he was petty. We owe him apologies. RIP Floyd.
35 years with that secret. For what, he could have easily said "I was there" and end of story, no details needed, no remembering often. Just being honest. One can easily think if he omitted that, what else could he had omitted. It must had been difficult for all involved. Sorry, I dont want to judge, but its strange. One can only imagine that some horrible torture(maybe sexual!?) really happened. If not that case, I dont see why he omitted that as many of us have been in contact with gruesome and evil stuff and can discuss that. He didnt deserved what he got thru thats for sure. Those things destroy lives. Im sorry. May he rest in peace.
My dad's friend was a Japanese prisoner of war and he was tortured by them. He said there was not one single guard who had sympathy for any prisoners. They were universally brutal, sadistic and inhuman. He would never buy anything made in Japan and would never forgive them for what they did to him and his fellow camp mates.
My grandfather was captured in Philippines, survived the death march, went to Japan as a PoW. He knew Japanese as he worked as a Translator in a Japanese Newspaper in LA. He described the brutality of Japanese officers and soldiers and bailed out many PoWs from his camp from execution by convincing the Japanese by speaking Japanese with them...
@@BluuZombie I think he died in 2000... Marines may have a record of him. Name Philip.K. Hamburger from Sacramento I was born after he died, so have information only from Mother...
Likewise, my Grandad fought with the Long Range Penetration Group in Burma against the Japanese. He would never buy anything made in Japan. I can't say that i blame him.
My boss's father served on a destroyer in the Pacific. He was indeed a heavy drinker and died early because of this. It's too bad because from what I've been told, he was a real stand-up guy. Member of the Legion and VFW, served a career in the Postal Service and put 5 kids through Catholic school.
My now deceased grandfather fought as part of the Australian Imperial Forces on the island of Borneo and by the grace of god he wasn’t captured or killed despite being in the midst of heavy battle at times. So many men never made it home nor did so many nurses. I feel so fortunate to have inherited his service medals. Worth more to me than any money in the world as he was my hero for as long as I can remember. This audiobook has given me more context of the Japanese war machine than I’ve heard or seen before and as the descendant of a WW2 vet I truly thank you.
My grandad and his 2 brothers fought in WWII. My grandad Tom the eldest and the youngest of the brothers Alf were in the navy the middle brother Jack was army. Jack was captured in Burma by the Japanese and spent the rest of the war as a POW. Grandad said for all the time jack was a pow they never knew if he was dead or alive. When they were told that jack was alive and would soon be home the family were ecstatic. My great-grandmother who was very religious said 'God had answered her prayers and saw her boys safely through the war. When jack finally got home, about 3 months after the letter saying he would soon be home, no-one at first recognised him, my grandad said there was just this bag of skin and bones in a suit that looked 3 sizes to big for him. My great-grandmother was all over him like a rash saying 'we'll soon have you back to rights son, dont you worry yourself you're back with your mam and family now. Grandad said for the first week jack never went out, just walked round the house touching things then touching his lips before going back to his bed. He never slept in his bed for some reason he preferred the floor and was always hiding bits of food around the place, he would never utter a word about what he went through but a month after being home he committed suicide by hanging himself. He left a note for my grandmother saying 'Everything's fine now mam, will see you all on the other side, all my love Jack. I'm 65 now and my grandad told me these things when I was a teenager, the reason he told me was because I once asked him why he hated Japanese TVs and radios and why he wouldn't have them in the house.
That is so sad, your poor grandad and great grandad and grandma. God love them all. I had a neighbour who was from Scotland, he was captured in Burma also, he was a mechanic with the RAF on the Hurricane's. He said they were thrown off their bunks when the first A bomb went off, they thought it was just an earthquake, they were miles from Hiroshima, so nowhere near the blast, but it was strong enough to throw them onto the floor. He never ate rice from the day he was liberated to the day he died in November 2004. He gave me a gift which I treasure of a small samurai statue he bought in 1945 before he came home. Those poor men who were captured by the Japanese suffered horribly, especially the Air crews. The Japanese were evil people during the war, and that's putting it mildly from my war studied, even the nazi's had some mercy, the Japanese had none, to the most part. Now its the Chinese we have to watch, very closely in my opinion. So sorry about your great Uncle. :'(
That's heartbreaking and sadly not unique. The psychological damage caused was in many ways much worse than the physical trauma and particularly when you consider the fact that this was a time when people just didn't talk about things the way we do today. I have the utmost respect and pity for those that went through such unimaginable horrors.
My Singaporean wife's grandmother had to do the same thing. Also she had to wrap her breasts up beneath her shirt in the hopes that she would look more like a man.
I could never do this without hating their descendants. I've no idea how people can describe obvious criminality without breaking down into sadness or out into violence. I'm just not a calm person.
My grandmother told me that when she was young, during the time the Japanese occupied Vietnam in WW2, 3 times that a group of Japanese soldiers used the people of her village as "animals for hunting". Her village was less than a kilometer from the forest, so every time words the Japanese soldiers were coming, anyone that could run went to the forest as fast as they could, they had some men and young teens act as scout forces and good runners in every team to make it back to the village fast (It was a hilly area with lots of vegetation, their village was covered up good). If young women did not run they will likely get taken by the soldiers or worse killed, the soldiers knew this and often went into the forest to hunt them with swords or bayonets. My Grandmother was a small kid at the time so she often used mud to cover her body and hide underneath them, she said that she hadn't got a close encounter with one of the soldiers but many of the children around her age (most below 12) and villagers had never made it back to the village. I asked how did the Japanese soldiers react when they arrived at a village that was almost empty and only occupied by old people that was too old to run? She said that the only reason why they were probably alive was that the soldiers used their village for fun. If they killed too many they can't go back the next day to have fun again. Also, they probably did not use bullets because it was wasteful on "rats". I also asked did anyone tried to fight back or killed any soldiers in the forest, because they were also men who ran with them to protect their families. She said that the village chief heard a tale of a village that fought back and injured a Japanese soldier quite heavily and a few days later, most of the villagers got gunned down and burned during the near evening. What made it worst was the randomness of the 3 times, the First one was bad, and the second was terrible because they arrived in the morning instead of the afternoon (She is eternally grateful for the men that stood guard for almost 24 hours every day). You could imagine the pressure and dread after the second time because you won't know for sure when they gonna come. They came at night for the third time, luckily they managed to spot the bastards and ran before they arrived at the village. 1/3 of the elders got killed and the rest did not know how they managed to survive. After that group of soldiers left, many groups operated near their village but none had bothered her village much, probably thanks to the fact the village was pretty far from other population centers. After the day of Independence (2/9/1945), their family moved to a bigger town in the southern areas. I still love her and remember her stories even years after her death. She never told me what she thinks about Japanese soldiers or people, but my mom said that she thinks them as a bunch of crazy sadists.
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
At the end of World War II, the Allies, including the United States and Great Britain, indiscriminately massacred approximately 500,000 Japanese citizens through air raids and atomic bombings. You see? The Anglo-American Allies are vicious perpetrators pretending to be victims. ★★★ The Japanese people have not forgotten the heinous atrocities committed by the Allied Powers ❢❢❢
@@emeraldbreeze5204 I see so many Japanese army apologists linking examples of war crimes committed against them, as if it justifies their own actions. we are all human and have horrible parts of our history, be a man and accept that
I remember reading a story about an old man run over by a Japanese tour bus in London . Turns out he was a POW surviver of the Japanese prison camps. His widow could only say, "well they got him in the end".
Has anyone ever read Emperor Hirohito's radio address? He stated that continuing the war would mean the end of the human race, and he only meant the Japanese people.
@@BigHenFor That view has been challenged by recent historians, who think the "powerless figurehead" image was formed after the war to deflect responsibility; I have read that not only was Hirohito in charge, he also actively participated in military planning.
I believe it was in Ghost Soldiers that I read about Japanese soldiers during the Nanking Massacre who were alleged to have gambled on the sex of unborn children before slicing the fetuses out of pregnant women-sometimes with the mothers still alive. Whatever their reasons, the barbarity of the Japanese army in WWII is both frightful and sickening.
I have a friend who married a Japanese woman. So he learned to speak fluent Japanese. But being a white man of very tall stature, he didn’t look like someone who could speak Japanese. He told me that although the Japanese people today act like they are pacifists, they still are very aggressive if they don’t think that anyone can understand what they are saying. According to my friend, who heard and understood what they were saying, “If you put a dozen Japanese in a group and throw in a rifle, they think they can take over the world!”
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
@@chrisgould101 I saw that hate first hand. My father, until the day he died, held this very deep rooted hatred. After fighting the Japanese in the war, he maintained they were the most brutal and barbaric, and used to say, " If you weren't there, you cannot have any idea of the depth of their depravity." His face would harden like stone when discussing the brutality.
@@janupczak1643 I just started one of the most hardcore Japanese martial art styles, I don't doubt the barbaric and extreme just from the training I'm doing 😅😅 I like Japanese usually. I guess they were Americanized after they were atomically bombed or something
Sean m, I’d rather listen to Mark Felton for an hour long than listen to a simpleton like yourself for even a minute. Why are you even bothering being here if you know it all? Funken troll pos!
In the 70's and early 80's there was a push for US Marines and Soldiers who fought the Japanese to forgive them. At that time not knowing to much thought the war is long over, get over it. The more I learn the the more I understand that forgiveness was a big request. Many did forgive and I now realize how big of a step that actually was.
Yet none of those directly responsible repented, instead the entire country believes in its own martyrdom, when we know full well that not only would they fight any invasion tooth and nail.
one thought: the Bible says forgiveness is the main part of knowing Jesus. People who can forgive live a profoundly different life with out deep resentment. I do go to the parking lot of a topless bar and handout Gospel tracts to single men walking in. Most will talk with me for at least a min and take a tract. any thoughts?
Around that time, I remember being with my Father-in-Law (RIP) when a show was on TV about some Iwo Marines meeting/forgiving the Japanese. He was a mid-west farmer, man of few words. But he had fought at Iwo and other places in the Pacific and said he couldn't understand how anyone who had seen what he had seen could forgive.
Hard to forgive such cruelty when it was not necessary to be cruel but done out of one's own desire. Sometimes I think their is an unusual cruel streak in the Japanese. It's unfortunate because the Japanese excel in other areas and is a safe and productive country.
My Great Uncle was captured by the Japanese and was kept captive until wars end. He couldn't eat or travel anywhere because his stomach was so damaged. Sometimes he could manage a really thin soup that my Grandma made for him, but that was only once a week. But mainly he couldn't eat at all.
@@teafortwo3158If you read the article it says that they started doing that so as to get back at the Japanese soldiers who were doing the same thing. Nonetheless, your comment is a classic case of whataboutism. The crimes of the American military against the Japanese soldiers doesn’t change the reality that the Japanese military committed atrocities against innocent civilians.
History like this shows how the films like "The Last Samurai" are attempts at historical revisionism and an attempt to whitewash and romanticize the barbarity of the Samurai tyranny. "War Without Mercy" is a good read on Japanese WW2 brutality.
He and that Simon guy on Whatculture are neck to neck for hardest working man on UA-cam, though I find Mark Felton a lot more pleasant to listen to and far more conscientious in his research.
my late grandmother was a teenager when Japanese occupied Indonesia. She used to tell stories that every night the japanese forces would send shots all over the neighbourhoods to the houses. so every night, my grandma and her family would stay low in case there were any shots coming to the house. it was a whole different evil than the dutch
My dad was 16 in Djakarta when they invaded and being an Indo orphan, he was thrown out of the country after the war. But before that, he was taken prisoner by the kampeitai and tortured for being half Dutch. Until his passing in 2018, he despised the Japanese and had mixed feelings about the country of his birth.
@@Merlinsbigbeard that’s bs the dutch where nowhere near as sadistic or cruel as the Japanse soldiers. The dutch soldiers who Where send to Indonesia Where told they would free Indonesia from the Japanese and where lied to by the government. They where traumatized by everything seen in Indonesia at the hands of the Japanse and they where looked down upon on return by the Dutch people bc of the reason they where actually there
@@Legend-ib9ik yeah the Dutch *at the time* because it was a civilian administration. The Dutch military occupation (which was 300 years ago) was just as bad if not worse, it’s never talked about tho cuz it was 350 years ago
Several of my father's relatives served in the British Indian Army and universally despised the Japanese for their extremely cruel treatment of defeated enemy soldiers and non-combatant enemies. My father worked in the Philippines when I was a kid and tales of Japanese cruelty are part of the history and lore of that place and many others. The rest of Asia will never forget what Japan did. Better kawaii and otaku than murderous bushi. Modern Japan's refusal to take responsibility for WW2 is infuriating and terrifying in equal measure.
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
Americans killed 300,000 people with the atomic bomb. They deliberately dropped it on Hiroshima City, where there are many。Americans are not taking responsibility for this. civilians, rather than Kure City, which is a military facility.
Philippines will remember Japanese crimes but rewrite and forget American ones. Just a standalone comment of mine - an observation, which I feel is absolutely accurate
Im addicted to Mark's channels. They are the singular most informative and absorbing history channels on the internet, and make an utter mockery of so-called 'History Channel' mockumentaries.
@Bob Lawblawblaw well not so, the people were subjected to mass propaganda from the right wing. Moderate politicians and Prime minster's were assassinated before the war for speaking out.
The largest protest I’ve ever seen with my own eyes was an anti-Japanese protest in downtown Seoul, a few years ago. Tens of thousands of people, near Gyeongbokgung palace, mainly young people/students, came together to demand a Japanese apology for the use of comfort women. I believe that this protest is held every week, with only a hardcore of a few hundred showing up every week, but the numbers swell greatly if the Japanese do something to agitate Koreans. (I believe Abe visited this WW2 veterans shrine in Japan, which sparked the larger protest that I saw). If you land at Incheon Airport and take the train to the city center of Seoul, they’re playing a video on a loop where they talk about how the Dokdo islands are Korean and that Japan is acting as an aggressor again. In my experience, Koreans have no qualms with ordinary Japanese people and I have witnessed 0 racism or ‘behind-their-back’ remarks. However, nearly every Korean has shared their hatred of Abe, the Japanese government, and Japanese Zaibatsu/Keiretsu. You will struggle to find a Toyota, Honda or (god forbid) Mitsubishi car on Korean streets. If you find one, it is likely that it isn’t a Korean who is driving it. It is fascinating to see how deep the hatred still exists in the minds of many people. You’d say it would be very beneficial for Japan, geopolitically, to simply apologize for what they did and befriend the other East Asian countries. I guess it shows how hard it is to change cultural stubbornness.
Ironic, that Nissan was one of the main contributors to build Samsung into a car company into the 90s, even a couple of older Hyundais were originally Mitsubishis, like the Galloper and Equus. However, I saw more Ferraris and Lamborghinis in Korea than Japanese branded cars.
@@aidanpysher2764 Well, from the Japanese perspective this makes sense. Japanese economists absolutely love the ‘flying geese model’ that implies that the Japanese economy is the ‘goose’ at the peak of the flock of ‘Asian geese’ that follow Japan’s guidance. As Japan completes the full adoption of an economical state, it will move on to the next and start exporting its expertise to other Asian countries. It is seen as a necessary step to keep evolving Japan’s economy and to not fall into a middle income trap. It did this with textiles, shipbuilding (largest shipbuilding companies used to be in Japan, now Hyundai is a major player), etc. For the Koreans… well they see it as a necessary evil. The hatred for companies like Nissan and Mitsubishi runs deep, because they were the ones supplying the Japanese army, navy and air force. They were the ones forming the military industrial complex that drove Japan into its craze of imperialism. Kind of like how Thyssen AG, Volkswagen, and Porsche will instrumental to the nazi war machine - except these companies all distanced themselves openly and many times from nazi ideology, whereas the old Japanese zaibatsu never did. The Koreans only approve of this because it benefits them and there is no bad blood with the ordinary Japanese person working for Nissan. But they did not do this because they have forgiven the likes of Nissan for what they did.
Should war eventually break out in the Far East between the US, Japan, S Korea, Australia and China I believe the Chinese will extract revenge upon Japan for crimes committed during WWII. Crimes that China feels (rightly so, I would add) were never adequately identified, litigated, admitted to, and punishment extracted. Such animosities last a long, long time.
I’m a Japanese high school student but the education system in Japan never teaches us, or even speak about the heinous war crimes that the Japanese imperial army committed during the two wars. Especially the infamous Nanking massacre.
As an American I can tell you that there will always be people who try to make you out to be unpatriotic if you acknowledge your country's dark history. But you have to do it to keep it from happening again.
Young man/woman, God bless you. Keep your courage and speak out. You are the future of your country. Your curiosity for truth is patriotism, and don't let anyone tell you differently.
Met a young Japanese university student in London. We became boyfriend and girlfriend. She was a very bright girl - but as I got to know her it became clear she had no knowledge at all of Japanese war crimes - none. She had never heard of Nanking. And she simply refused to believe the Japanese could do such things. Her general concept of WW2 was, Japan was forced into the war - quickly had to defend themselves against the "bully" America - and were generally the victims of the war - the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, to her the epitome of her country's ill-treatment and suffering !
@@Slade951 DEATH to whales and dolphin, and dolphin need to be clubbed to death while their are alive specifically. cause............................... i dont know tradition?
My great grandfather was a Marine in the Pacific. I’m not exactly sure what his job was but he hated the Japanese with a passion to the day he died, and even got talked to for refusing to let Japanese people into the national park he worked at later on.
After spending 2 years fighting them in the islands, my Marine (he actually signed up at 15) father in law refused to be assigned to Japanese Occupation duty. He wouldn’t ride in a Japanese vehicle.. ever!
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
No problem listing the atrocities, but it goes a little deeper to understand why 'normal' people could do such terrible things. Solzhenitsyn explains, "To do evil, a human being must first of all believe what he is doing is good, Ideology is what gives the evil-doer his long sought justification" Ideology gave these people justification for these crimes, and we still face the same dangers today
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
Thank you so much for this video essay. I am South Korean. But I had no idea that Koreans were implicated in the cruelties of the POW camps. All I was taught when growing up was that it was all Japan's fault. Korean history books sometimes make it seem like Korea never did anything wrong. Yes, Korea was a victim of Japan and many suffered immensily, especially those "comfort women". But this video made me realise that anyone, regardless of nationality or culture, can be corrupted and turned into a monster.
Atleast your country learn how to be humble and honesty... I know China did is worst... Is remind This word "We human are evolution through war, aggression and violence"
The 3-way contest between which is most invested in racial supremacy between Han China , 'modern' North Korea and Imperial Japan..... might as well be a toss-up.
There were collaborators and partisans in all nations occupied by the Axis. Many of those victim nations want to gloss over the collaborator part of their history. Just look at Poland. You're very mature in the fact you're willing to look at your people's history clear-eyed. Most people are incapable of that.
@@UberMenschNowFilms Excuse me, who in Poland actually collaborated, except of individual scumbags who were being sentenced to death by our underground, plus part of the pre-war police, who the Germans forced to keep order among the population under threat, and of whom something like a third cooperated more with the underground than with the Germans? Maybe you watched a certain German war TV show too much, where Polish resistance is shown to be more agressively antisemitic than the Germans?
My old secondary school (High School) wood work teacher in the UK was a Japanese POW. He was on tough SOB teacher, but I had and still do have a lot of respect for him. He told us many stories of what the Japanese soldiers did to POWs and general POW life under the Japanese. Bear in mind we were 15-16 year old in a typical UK school. One story really stands out even after 35+ years after being told it. When the Japanese knew a POW was going to die they would order that soldier to be placed in an open coffin. He would be fed in there as well for the remaining days he was alive. The other POWs were forbidden from taking him out or even sitting him up. Once the soldier died the Japanese soldiers came in, nailed the coffin shut and took it away for burial. When Mr Starmer told us this story you could feel the anger in his voice for his fallen comrades. I read somewhere that Japanese school kids today are still taught that Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was justified and necessary. Sixty plus years later and they are still in denial. God help the future generations.
I'm old enough to have had teachers who were part of the WW2 generation. There seems to be a sense of loss in that younger generations will never have that honor.
Well they are right about the fact that the attack on Pearl Harbor was necessary. Maybe they shouldn't have started the entire war in the first place, but at that time an attack on Pearl Harbor was necessary. Justified is debatable but who cares about what's justified when you're trying to win a war? Not a whole lot of what happens in war is justified.
I read an account from a Japanese soldier in New Guinea. He was an engineer and was instrumental in hacking the path, and building bridges to ensure the Japanese troops in the vicinity of Lae managed to escape over the ranges from the pursuing Australian and US forces. It was common practice for sick, or exhausted troops to be left to die on the side of the track. If it had not been for this man and his ingenuity and hard work their column would have been devastated by raids from Australian commando patrols and the column would have been cut off and starved in the jungle. About halfway across the range he succumbed to starvation and sickness and went into a coma and only survived as an Australian commando patrol happened by him before he died and took him as a POW. Just needed a bit of clean water and some decent food.
I was a trainee Gas fitter in 1970. One of our lecturers was a British soldier in Asia during the 2 world war. A group of Japanese visitors was visiting our college and he refused to meet any Japanese visitors. He hated them
How about the Irish? How did he feel about the Irish? How about Americans who go around calling themselves Irish although they were born in the USA and their families have lived in the USA for several generations.?
When Hirohito came to England on a State visit he was in a carriage with the Queen, as the proceded along the Mall on their way to Buck house, all the veterans ( several thousand) turned their backs .
@@sc9881 His family were the generals that commanded the atrocities. He personally ordered the deaths of all prisoners if the country was to be invaded.
@Luke E My father's generation was made to believe he was a helpless figurehead and the Japanese Generals (army leadership) ran everything. He was quite young during WWII. That is why he was spared war crimes trial.
My uncle was a pow in Changi. He was in the same convoy as Montevideo Maru, that was torpedoed, losing about 1000 POWs. For a time he became a slave labourer in a Japanese coal mine, but spent his last year in a Manchurian POW camp (Hoten). After the war he became a successful car dealer. In the late 1950s he was invited to Tokyo to sign a Nissan dealership contract and enjoyed the discomfort of the Japanese execs when relating his past experiences in their 'beautiful country'. Despite all the horrors he said when working in the coal mine some Japanese were as kind to his group as circumstances permitted. At Hoten he said local Chinese at enormous risk to themselves, left little food packages near the fence where the prisoners could reach them.
Admirable. My father was one of those prisoners on the Death Railway. He survived because of his wits, as in only drinking boiled water including droplets from the passing trains, fitness - he was a cup winning cyclist before becoming a soldier - skills in carpentry which were useful to the Japanese, and friends captured at the same time. He knew the cartoonist Ronald Searle, who was hiding his drawings of events under the hut floor in hollow bamboo. Later at the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb, the cloud of which he witnessed, and its ruins, all but one of his friends were dead having been beaten to death, dug their own graves and shot or died of malaria or other untended conditions. After the surrender, he was standing on the beach with his one surviving friend, both like skeletons, while American canisters of supplies were being dropped. The parachute of one canister didn’t open, and when it hit the beach the lid sprang off and decapitated his friend. This, in the literal moment of delivery, was the lowest for him. He was an old school Socialist and remarkably tolerant, but he could not forgive the Japanese. And remained unconvinced about American know- how….
My uncle Harold was a British prisoner of war. He never spoke about his experiences but had scars on his face and struggled to walk in his old age as the Japanese smashed his kneecaps with rifle butts. He did tell my Grandad a few stories, as there were very close - I understand they managed to make a radio in the camp and when they heard the war was over on BBC world service they beat one of the less humane guards to death. There's a book out there somewhere written by one of his fellow inmates and I know that he has a mention in there - Harold Smalley. I have a photo taken in the 80's and you can tell by his eyes that his experience as a POW never really left him. I've got no idea what he went through as I was too young.
My dad is Pakistani and many of his older relatives served in the army of the British Raj. We must never let the world forget what our elders and their contemporaries endured at the hands of the cruel Japanese. A nation that refuses either to acknowledge or to apologize can only intend to repeat their crimes again given the chance.
When I was a child (service brat) My family knew many veterans of the British army in WWII, and I talked with many of them about their experiences. Men who had fought the Germans and Italians all had respect for them, to a greater or lesser extent; those who had fought the Japanese held a visceral hate for them. There was one outlier, a Royal Marine, who had lost an Eye and several comrades fighting in Madagascar, he hated the French with a lifelong fury.
@@huntergray3985 British were fleeing Dunkirk abandoning all their allies there, they were defeated and didn t have anything to face a german landing if arrived and wouldn t have resisted long, so I would shut up read some history before complaining about french surrender
Feyser1970, I think you should be a little less rude and aggressive. Perhaps you should "shut up" and read what I have written above. I challenge you to find where *I* complain about the French surrender. You will find that I report the view of a brave veteran who fought and suffered for his country. Can one blame the man for his opinion? When I say that the Vichy French forces on Madagascar held out longer on the island than their forces did in France, this is simply a fact and no matter how much more I read it will still be a fact.
There is a recorded interview somewhere on youtube that I heard of a guy who was in that hospital when the Japanese took it over. He said he only survived because he was so bloody from his wounds on the hospital bed that the Japanese thought they had already bayoneted him so no one did. Eventually he made it out of the hospital but was captured and held as a POW through the war
@@ENoob Looks like all our grand uncles had similar stories, mine had his unit slaughtered and played dead and was bayonnetted when the Japanese had been checking the bodies, he then walked back to the nearest field hospital
I’ll never forget one lesson in my 9th grade class when my teacher asked us who thought the atomic bombs were warranted and one kid shot up his hand. We were shocked because his parents were born in Japan. He explained that Japan would’ve never surrendered and how common people were still fighting the Allies in villages that weren’t aware of the war’s end. I’ve spent many years learning about WWII and I’ve never been able to shake what he said.
Actually quite a few surrenderd towards the end and I think they would have fought but would’ve been annihilated so some would have. They were overrated really. They had water protection.
2 of my great great uncles served in the British army in Burma In WW2, one was taken prisoner and later died in a POW camp the other was beaten and later burnt alive after refusing to give up information. They were both in their mid 20s.
4 роки тому+5
Mid 20s? Not even full grown men. That is beyond belief.
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
Disgusting how the Japanese refuse to acknowledge this. And yet, they have the audacity to scold the U.S for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Far be it from me to justify atrocities with atrocities, but it seems rather hypocritical.
@Magne M Hard to justify? The atom bombs probably (most likely) saved more civilian lifes than they took. If not for the bombs and the Russians liberating Manchuria, the main island would have been invaded and even the civil population forcefully called to arms. They even had crude civil defense weapons with the Arisaka and Nambu cartridges issued in every village. Fuck them anyway. The bombs were nothing compared to what they did to the countries they invaded.
@Magne M You are right the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was horrible but Japan unfortunately reaped what they sowed. Over 50 million killed all over Asia one example the Nanking Massacre there war crimes made Nazi Germany look kind
@Magne M it actually does the Japanese army committed the same atrocities and worse to both Chinese pows and civilian population I encourage to read a little
I talked to a foreign exchange student from Japan in the 1990’s here in the US about WWII. He was clueless about Japanese involvement in the war. He said the US started the war and Japan had to defend itself from the aggression. I was floored by his answer. He really had no interest in the subject and that was about all he really knew about WWII.
He was not entirely wrong. We really did push Japan into a corner with an inflexible negotiating position in our end which really helped nudge them towards attacking the US.
@@kles44 you realize japan left the league of nations and invaded manchuria unchecked historians credit to giving germany the que to start taking land in europe also unchecked. How in the world it's the U.S. fault after being allies and never attacking... also japan was going ape shit on asia way before pearl harbor for years.
@@vitas5333 if you research the Marco polo Bridge incident nobody knows forsure who started it The second part to the issue is Manchuria was never part of China until the Qing invaded China. China had no more right to Manchuria than Japan. Second it wasn't the business of the United States to stop japan. In that time western powers overwhelmed much of Asia and wanted to keep their grip on China. Now to be clear I don't think japan was right right what it did and how it conducted the war. It's simply a reality that cutting off Japan's oil created an inevitable clash that by no means makes japan right. I'm just being a realist here. Of course they were going to secure other sources of oil and then there's the double standard here. Why was it OK for western powers to pounce on China but japan could not do the same? Remember the United States position was that japanese forces leave all of China before negotiations could begin on reversing the embargo. Thats an inflexible position to take and would of course meant the japanese would refuse.
As I recall, the Japanese were praised internationally for their conduct in the Russo-Japanese War and were the same as everyone else in WW1. It was the interwar years that really created the downward cycle, for reasons mentioned in the video. It isn't ignored, but it feels a bit like everything Japan did, in terms of warfare, between the Meiji Restoration and WW2 is a bit glossed over.
In Russo-Japanese War they were still massacring Chinese civilians though, the soldiers were only restrained by their western-educated officers to demonstrate to European powers they were not barbarians and could coexist with white men. Then after Taisho era they no longer cared.
It's better to free oneself from the past and move to the future. Those who still hate to their last days are still stuck in the past and hell bent on destruction.
@Richard Horrocks Very well said. The bombing campaign made a huge contribution to victory in Europe but ever since has been demonised by one word - Dresden. When you are fighting for your life you must use every resource available. Interestingly I have yet to see any criticism of the American fire raids on Japan, which killed more people than the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
My Filipino neighbor in California told me of being tortured when he was a scout. He could only allude to it before his throat closed up and eyes misted over.
I was in the Philippines in the late 1980s. A middle aged local man told me he witnessed, as a boy during the Japanese occupation, a local man being forced to drink a large amount of water by Japanese soldiers. He would be then laid on the ground, and a soldier would jump on his abdomen with his boots, until water erupted from his nose and mouth, killing him. At the time, I thought perhaps he was exaggerating. This video confirms what he saw. Japanese today need to know just how cruel and inhuman their military was in WWII. It is not taught in the schools. Their history has been whitewashed.
It's not like Japan is unrepentant. Japanese now are extremely anti-war and any measures to revive the Japanese military is very opposed by people. If China Invades Japan, most Japanese would probably surrender than fight nowadays. That is how much Japanese hate the militaristic era
@@烏梨師斂 Why can't you have a military WITHOUT the JAPAN MASTERRACE STRONG, ALL OTHERS INHERENTLY INFERIOR TO US AND DESERVE DEATH OR OUR OVERLORDSHIP(at best) type of Imperial Japanese propaganda that went hand in hand with the Imperial japanese military? You SHOULD resist China because if you don't you will be turned into a Communist hellhole. And while its true that US forces will defend Japan in such an event; you do need your own forces and I'm afraid the JDF isn't quite up the task of fully fending off a Chinese invasion force. Dont throw the baby out with the bathwater, as we say. As long as its controlled, as long as the military is FULLY under the control of the civilian government, and the abide by the laws of war, I see no problem with Japan having a military. South Korea has a POWERFUL military for example. The situations are quite different but still.
@@烏梨師斂 yeah their action speak Something different. Throughout the years the nationalist side of japan gets more and more popular and their action to rename the conditions of how their army can exist just re-writen.
My grandfather was a p.o.w. He worked in the railroad death camps. He only survived because a Japanese officer basically kept him as a pet , they had boxing/fighting matches between starving prisoners. My grandfather was a boxer and he was this particular officer’s champion. He said the Japanese were not only cruel, but they made everything sport. Each trying to out do the other guys cruelty. Every time they lost a battle the prisoners would get beat or starved. How he had the physical strength to endure in those conditions is mind blowing.he volunteered with a group of family and friends, he was the only one to return.mexican Americans from sinton Texas.
Very few Japanese ( in relation to number of the crimes committed) faced consequences for their actions during and after the war. Russia prosecuted 11 and they went off to Siberia.
@@kostam.1113 That is certainly the case..But far more numbers of Germans have been relentlessly hunted, prosecuted and faced trial for their actions than known complicite Japanese war criminals.
Here’s a link to a Chinese propaganda film made during the Korean War that alleges that the US used the knowledge gained from Japanese biological atrocities against the ppl in what’s now North Korea & bordering areas of China: ua-cam.com/video/eZNHRjrSzfs/v-deo.html Anyone ever wonder if the allies prosecuted so few Japanese war criminals because they didn’t value the lives of Asian civilians as high as those of European ancestry?
Japan commited those things only about 90 years after being "rediscovered" still clinging to feudalism, swords and spears. They also had a religion like that of the ancient pagan empires, where the ruler is actually divine. Makes more sense now? In Europe Christianity mostly did away with treating rulers like gods, hence we can treat 3rd Reich as a pagan rebellion against christianity, liberalism and socialism. Prussian absolutism was quite pagan too, with all the Hegelian philosophy.
@@blahblahblahblah2837 Seriously? This puny counterattack against a many century old onslaught is supposed to be the biggest example of European brutality? There were bigger ones, but that's beside the point, as I was talking about influence of Christianity onto pagan Europe. That influence was never full. Europe is a result of mixing Christianity with paganism. A knight was literally that - a pagan warrior modified to fit Christian ideals.
@@blahblahblahblah2837 Same thing, but with a twist: being victims of pagan tribunals for almost 300 years and then coming under persecution of Arian emperors and then under siege by the crescent moon religion, the Catholics were eager to ensure religious stability of their societies. Kind of like US did to Japanese Americans, but more bloody, because it was medieval ages.
It's hard to scratch the surface in one hour for the magnitude of the atrocities of the Imperial Japanese Forces but if anyone can do it you can. Thanks Mark.
My great uncle was captured by the Japanese and escaped. He was put in a hole in the ground and Japanese soldiers would relieve themselves on him several times a day. He held a lot of hatred for japanese people and would go out of his way to avoid them at all costs in the states until the day he passed.
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
@@azurecliff8709That's pretty tame compared to for example raping little Chinese girls with bayonets. The Japanese didn't invent war crimes but they sure weren't shy about perpetuating the practice.
My great-grandmother’s first husband was an American volunteer pilot for the Kuomintang in China, flying the P-40 Tomahawk. He was shot down in mainland China, captured by the Japanese as an POW, and beheaded by a Japanese officer.
I recall my undergraduate professor in British Imperial History who was veteran of D-Day, said that he was absolutely terrified at the prospect of having to fight the Japanese.
@@DakotaofRaptors The shores of Japan would have been piled with Allied corpses, essentially. Especially because the Emperor had a policy ready to go mobilize every man, woman and child that could hold a gun, as well as factories producing little scrap and wood rifles.
Here in the Philippines (Davao City), the elderly still remembers that the Japanese Soldiers dare to kill a child by throwing the child in the air and stab it using a bayonet.
My grandfather was a young 10-14yo during the WWII years. He became a peaceful missionary and methodist minister, learned to speak multiple languages, and dedicated his life to others of different races and cultures to his own In the last weeks of his life 60 years later he was ill and starting to lose his sharp mind a bit on his death bed. He would routinely curse and deride his Asian American nurse in his confused state, mistakenly believing her to be Japanese and fearing for his safety around her. It was that ingrained in his psyche from his childhood in Minnesota hearing the horror stories about the Imperialist Japanese. A life of multicultural pacifism wasn't even enough to undo it, justifiably so.
One thing you forgot to mention Mark is that Japanese logistics were basic and the rampaging troops lived off the land with very little supplies from the military. This turned the army into an army of medieval Europe which was described as a grub that ate its way through a country. The Japanese army stealing food from local villagers brutality encouraged by officers soon led to brutality spiraling out of control
Everyone likes to shit on Germany for it's logistical weakness during the war, but honestly Japan was way worse, considering how common starvation was among it's front line troops
Your post rings true. I remember a nice old Japanese lady, a survivor of the Hiroshima A-bomb telling me, her voice trembling with outrage at our whingeing over the Japanese army's hideous treatment of POWS, how the Japanese soldiers only ever got to eat as much as the POWs did.
I'm from Indonesia, the island of Java. My mother would recount of how her mother (my grandma) would express extreme hatred towards the Japanese in her later years. She lived through the Romusha in Java and would "prefer" being under the Dutch colonization if both times were to be compared.
@@nielsgroothedde8038 and some people in Sarawak wish it was under Britain than the Malaysia. We're only given less than 10 percent of oil royalty while our jungles become palm oil plantations every year and top level corruption. By law a minister or elected elected official can't do business while still in office. Now we have Wolf of Wall Street.
@@Joshua_N-A I visited Sabah in Borneo. We stayed in a village with lovely long houses. The long house we stayed in was on the edge of the village and was only used if visitors came. The locals would not use it as it was built by visiting Japanese students. I was told that the village inhabitants never went near it because of what the Japanese did to the inhabitants of the village 50yrs previous in the war. I didn’t ask what happened and they didn’t want to tell. God only knows.
Thank you Dr. Felton for shedding light on the sacrifices made by British, Commonwealth, Chinese, and American soldiers and civilians. I don't think we'll fully understood just how much they suffered.
Canadian. We’re not just “part of the Commonwealth.” We are our own country and we sent more men to help Britain basically singlehandedly take on Germany and Italy for years before America and Russia got involved. And then there’s all our sacrifices and victories in The Great War too.
@@JesusFriedChrist Too bad the infantry did not go beyond Denmark, all the way to Finland. We had to liberate ourselves a bit like in a German prison where prisoners are given keys.
Several relatives served in the Asian theater of war. When talking to my uncles they all told me the same story. German POWs were treated poorly but the Germans never ate their prisoners!
@@ContendCreatorsThey didn't even do that Not even the Soveits ate Germans Not even the Russians are eating Ukrainians as far as we know That's how bad the Japanese were
Wait cannibalism? I mean seriously did they do that? I'm pretty versed in what IJM did during wartime but that's a whole level if true. They really were just animals huh?
Tu l'as dit Bouffi ! il suffit de montrer une fiole vide avec un sourire idiot et dire qu'il vient d'un pays terroriste et que c'est du gaz sarin ..... et badaboum c'est partit le massacre commence !
My uncle Kenneth Yong of the Singapore Volunteer Corp was executed with many more of his unit (The Kings Chinese) on Changi beach in early Feb 1942. It was after the surrender so all these volunteer reservists just went back to their homes as they had no specific orders from command. One nigh they were rounded up by the Japanese army. None of them were seen again.
Not all Japanese Soldiers obeyed orders without question. One of my Enlisted Bosses in the Air Force had been stationed in Japan back in the later 50's. He was telling us a story about the landlord of the apartment he rented off base. He took the time to learn Japanese and got friendly with the gentleman and after a couple of years they go into the habit sitting down and talking over the local beer or a bottle of Jack Daniels (hard to get in Japan at the time except at an American Base). The older man told him about his service in the Japanese Army in 1942-45 when he turned 17 and got drafted. He told him that there had been lots of political indoctrination about obedience to the Emperor and his Officers. But when he got into the Army he couldn't believe how brutal they were treated. Every day everyone was given orders, constant and changing orders to obey. If you didn't rush to obey in a heartbeat you were hit with sticks by the NCO's or Officers, beaten by your peers, or put on punishment details (which he refused to talk about as it still gave him nightmares.) Everything was about Duty, Obedience, and Death. The first time he got into combat was during an attack on a Chinese position. A couple hundred of the Chinese Soldiers surrendered after several days of fighting and his group was ordered to bayonet them for surrendering as his Officers said they weren't really honorable soldiers. Many of his fellow soldiers had emotional problems after that event and several were executed in his unit for refusing further orders to execute prisoners. He learned to bottle up his emotions and survive. He eventually ended up on Okinawa in 1945, but was able to survive after his Officers and Senior Enlisted killed themselves as they were losing the fight. He hid out with other soldiers and surrendered to the Americans several weeks after the end of the war. He said that it was the worst experience of his life and he felt no honor in the stuff he was forced to do. Many Japanese are ashamed about the War and though Nationalists will push their BS War Propaganda just like the Confederate "Lost Cause" (The US started the war on the poor downtrodden Japanese People.) most Japanese really don't believe it and just don't t want to talk about it.
Nice story mate, if only such stories were told widely and shared by the actual people, it would go a long way to lessening the hatred towards the Japanese.
That’s the first time I’ve heard of one of them having a conscience. But, I guess you could compare that to what’s going on in Eastern Europe right now.
mid 1970s Australia ,my maths teacher Mr Austin HATED the Japanese so much he refused to drive a Japanese made vehicle ,it wasnt till a friends father explained what happened in Papua New Quinea to Mr Austin that we understood ,i could never make eye contact with him after that conversation ,i felt deep pity for him having to deal with that experience
I had two great uncles stationed in the Philippines, they both survived the Death March. One was killed on a Japanese transport back to the mainland by American aircraft while the other brother was spared. The surviving brother, my great uncle Johnny, had his story published in the Baton Rouge, L.A. Paper. The sad thing was that nobody in my family had read it including my journalist father. It was the most space in a newspaper that I've ever seen allotted to a veteran account of war and was absolutely riveting. I will never forget their sacrifice!
As a child I was at the swimming pool and saw a man whose back was a mesh of scars - an ex-prisoner of the Japanese. Another old boy had moved to Japan in 1916 as the British military attache and stayed there for twenty years. We talked about Japanese war time cruelty and he pointed out that in the 1904 war and the attack on Port Arthur a lot of Russians were taken prisoner after much intense fighting these prisoners were treated humanely. I think that the cruelty was down to intense obedience in the Japanese army combined with the interwar adoption of Japanese political fascism.
Ian Toll in his phenomenal trilogy on the Pacific War goes to lengths to contrast this. That in a generation, how the Japanese military went from - Emperor Meiji's Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors which included "The soldier and the sailor should esteem valor …. To be incited by mere impetuosity to violent action cannot be called true valor. The soldier and the sailor should have sound discrimination of right and wrong, cultivate self-possession, and form their plans with deliberation. Never to despise an inferior enemy or fear a superior, but to do one’s duty as soldier or sailor-this is true valor. Those who thus appreciate true valor should in their daily intercourse set gentleness first and aim to win the love and esteem of others. If you affect valor and act with violence, the world will in the end detest you and look upon you as wild beasts. Of this you should take heed. " - to the awful brutality and disregard for life, civilian or military, is truly astonishing. Toll states it wasn't really the high command in as much as the hotheads among the mid-level officers forcing their superiors to "act" to "save face." However, I cannot believe that Hirohito did NOT know what was going on, when he often approved of the plans put together by the High Command. His excuse that by nature of Constitutional Monarchy, He could not interfere in consensual decisions taken by the cabinet somehow seems hollow to me. But thanks to MacArthur, a little too late now. I suspect it was with the same rationale that the Allies used former Nazi scientists in the missile program.
@@guhalakshmiratan5566 of course Hirohito knew what was going on. When he died Britain and the rest of the commonwealth pointedly didn't lower their flags at the UN to half mast. If there is a hell Hirohito is burning in it
The Japanese were the OPPOSITE of Fascists, the Fascists were a far left Italian Socialist party, Mussolini hated the monarchy, the church and the big capitalists. However he needed the support of the monarchy to remain in power and the church was very popular with the people, so though he controlled the means of production, by absolute power he found the Soviet destruction of their economy counterproductive, so he kept business owners in their positions as long as they did exactly what they were told. The Japanese were the opposite they supported the Monarchy, and the religion.
@Ich Bin Unkonventionell! I disagree, in National Socialist Germany the government had ABSOLUTE control, you did what you were told or your business was nationalized and you went to a camp. The Reich commissar, had an iron control over ALL prices and wages.
@Ich Bin Unkonventionell! Thats part of the story, indeed the national socialists were backed by mostly the SAME capitalists that put the international socialists in power in the soviet union, however the German capitalists were ABSORBED by the state and put under TOTAL control. The removal of the SA gave the national socialists the support of the German general staff, but did not change their socialist policys regarding business AT ALL, they continued to have absolute control over business wages and prices. All political maneuvering was a means unto an end to allow the swift expansion into lebensraum, and then into a full socialist state. The national socialists were, like the Fascists voted into power, they did NOT have a revolution and so their path to their form of socialism was different to that which occurred in the Soviet Union where power was seized by an armed coup.
About 10 years ago after reading the books "Knights of Bushido" and "Rape of Nanking" I ended up on a chat site that discussed Japanese brutality. The majority of Japanese insisted that their soldiers were not any worse than any other nation involved in WW2. I guess it is fair to say that today's Japanese people who have not experienced WW2 will think that because that's why they are told by their media and in school.
Southeast Asians were treated like animals by Europeans and worked as slaves for hundreds of years. The Japanese defeated the Europeans, took them prisoners, and treated them like animals. Are the worst Japanese people?
@@a5cent >And what sort of misguided bloodlust makes you think that? Wanting to defeat the enemies of America is bloodlust now? Guess I've got the lust. >What "good" aim does it achieve? Stopping stuff like 9/11. And, terrorist scum deserve it.
@@natowaveenjoyer9862 Yup. As I suspected. Every US study on this issue, including CIA internal reviews, has shown we received absolutely no actionable intelligence by torturing prople. People just say whatever they think their torturers want to hear to make the pain stop. The entire WMD narrative, which we now know was fabricated, was "extracted" from a man under torture and then used to dupe the UD public into supporting an illegal war. Do you have any idea what the best way to recruit terrorists has been for the last 20 years? Of course you don't, but ask anyone in the middle east and they will tell you that pictures of Americans torturing Arabs, without trial or any form of justice system, has entirely replenished their ranks. There are just as many terrorists today, after 20 years of wasted military effort, as there were 20 years ago. Torture has achieved the exact opposite effect of what you think it has. I am sorry, but your beliefs are extremely juvenile and misguided, not to mention evil and anti christian. If there is a hell, it is people with your views who belong there. For a fraction of the cost we could have shmoozed the middle east out if the belief that Americans are evil bastards who Allah justifiably wants to see dead. Instead we just reinforced that perception. Torture does not stop 9/11 events. It just makes more terrorists. Now all they need is another Bin Laden with money.
Conscripts in the IJA were referred to as “1-yen, 5-ren” which was the cost of the post card to notify their family of their death in the war. Additionally, Japan abandoned many of these soldiers overseas - they were legally declared dead and were in their own to make their way home after the war ended. Japanese soldiers were also used by the French as guards in Indochina and Nationalist Chinese as soldiers since they were left behind. The Japanese movie “The Ants” (lit: Ant Soldiers) is a good snapshot of how Japanese soldiers acted in China during the war as it follows a veteran in his trip back to his wartime duty location.
We get bombarded by films about D-Day and so on and the unbelievable horrors that happened in the east are barely mentioned at all let alone analyzed and explained so meticulously. Amazing work!
What? There's like 2 movies about the D-day and a couple dozens of movies about the war in Pacific - many of them quite new. And they analyze the Japanese cruelty well. Check out "Unbroken", the new "Midway" and miniseries "Pacific".
I think schools leave a lot of the Pacific side out of it other than pear harbor bc that’s the reason we went to war supposedly. I think they focus more on Germany bc of how brutal and graphic the pacific war was. I think it would mess a 5th or 6th grader up a little bit if he heard about pows genitalia being copped off and what not. It’s a pretty bad part of the war even the Japanese try and cover it up
My uncle found the partially eaten body of his dead brother on the Kokoda track in New Guinea, he said from then on surrendering Japanese were just target practice.
I'm Japanese, and I can tell you that there is great emphasis on educating people about the atomic bombing in my country - on how "inhumane and atrocious" it was - but little to no effort at all on the crimes that our own people have committed. And if I were to ever promote videos of this kind to my people, I will be called a "traitor".
Thank you for your courage, Dilettantissimo. This is difficult to absorb, and quite challenging to put aside.
I find it wild that people believe that the Atomic Bombings were so horrible compared to the alternative. I dont think a lot of people think of the alternative anyways.
Im willing to bet nearly everyone knows or has at least heard of the Battle of Okinawa and how brutal it was.
I know everyone knows about how Japan sent untrained pilots to suicide into American ships or the general suicide over surrender stuff.
And not one of those people takes a moment to imagine what horrific, mind-shattering bloodshed would have occurred if the US had landed on the Japanese home islands. Upwards of tens of millions of people.
Even Japan, apparently. The country that was planning on sending every man, woman and child to fight and die for it.
@Bouya also true.
I’m American who lived in Japan 15 years and sent my American kids to Japanese schools. Here is how I see it. Japan today is operating under a different ideology and worldview than before. Previously people were brainwashed into Shinto nationalism that said that the highest morality was to obey the Emperor and worship him as a god. Basically this is the same problem North Korea has today. I am a Christian and I believe the atomic bombings were evil-but only after I studied it carefully, went to Hiroshima & Nagasaki, met 被爆者 (survivors), and thought about it. Most Americans are taught that it ended the war and saved lives (of Americans). They never even think why not drop it on Mt. Fuji instead to just show its power.
But Japanese back then were so brainwashed they would commit suicide “out of duty” or not to “lose honor.” Be careful about the software your mind is operating on! Japanese schools still cover up true history, even though it is not as dishonest as China. Mombusho (Ministry of Education) is controlled by guilty ex-soldiers and they still force teachers to bow to the flag and sing Kimigayo. Critical thinking is not taught. 出る釘は打たれる. Most Japanese are not threatening Asia, but they still don’t know much of their war history. But there is right-wing propaganda you can find in bookstores and on the internet. Prime Minister Abe wrote a book called “Beautiful Japan” and 1/3 of it was like Trump, full of anti-Korean xenophobia. People want to believe they are better than their neighbors. It makes me sick to see him bowing down to demons enshrined at Yasukuni Jinja.
Yet today nationalism is being promoted in the USA by Trump, and FOX news is brainwashing Americans to hate “liberals” - those who have a better education, and believe the true history of colonialism and slavery must be taught, slandered as “hating America!” Many of the same arguments Japanese nationalists use are now being said in America. Jesus said “You shall know the truth and the Truth shall make you free!” He also warned “Whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword.” Americans also have amnesia about the Iraq War. Let us all face the truth and turn away from evil.
@@markdouglas8073 I dont think you understand that not only millions of Americans would have not died if not for the Atomic Bomb, but MANY, MANY MILLIONS MORE Japanese would have surly perished if Operation Downfall went into effect. Japan was ready to throw every man, woman, child, and fetus at the invading allies to stop them. They had rounded up every available aircraft in preparation for a massive suicide attack on American ships. To my understanding they even released a propaganda film to the public called "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million" in reference to the fact that they were preparing EVERYBODY in the Japanese home islands to die in combat. Japans population would have been utterly wiped out. Just look at casualty rates/Suicide rates/Surrender rates of Japanese troops at battles like Okinawa and Iwo Jima. As for the Atomic Bombs? They wouldnt have gotten the message if there was no harm done. We can even see that it took Two for them to finally get it. Some American commanders even theorized it would take FIVE OR MORE to get the Japanese to surrender.
As for the Anti-Trump stuff... *please stop.*
You wanna to know the difference between German and Japanese wartime atrocities? Germany very much remembers and does everything it can to avoid them in the future while Japan pretends they never even happened
Sad, but absolutely true. I've seen interviews with Japanese soldiers from the baton death march, and they still don't have any grasp of their guilt. They blame the soldiers that died as being lazy or cowards.
Richard Richardson And Islam is a religion of peace 👌🏻
Tras de ladrón, bufón.
We can thank America politics for that. We needed Japan rebuilt and strong because we knew we would have issues and maybe war with a battle hardened and victorious red army. We erased most of the atrocities and screamed about germanies. Most of this I never heard about after studying for years the Pacific theater until flags of our fathers was published and got very detailed how many and common atrocities were
@@dixztube it is true and we knew about their atrocities for a long time. Bataan was just a taste and we knew why we trained our soldiers to kill not take prisoners. We say only a few thousand surrendered but as a human I don't exactly believe that. Even being brainwashed were wired to survive. After the war we needed Japan as a base why we built it up so fast as basically our naval fortress and built up our parts of occupation in Europe to shut the iron curtain knowing we were headed into intense pressure. Patton wanted to attack the red army and as charismatic and Beloved as he was by common soldiers he had to have an accident. He could of took control of European ground forces and maybe all armed forces and became our Caesar so he had to go. We committed many atrocities and covered many up for technology from German scientists also
It's a common European thing thinking they are superior to any other race. They thought the same I'm sure of the tiny Mongols on their ponies almost a thousand years ago. Until they were decimated and if not for royal death and a power struggle Europe may have been much different with Mongolian rulers even for a brief time. I still believe the Mongols had the greatest soldiers and leaders as well as the most dominant army over any period of time. I guess vanity always makes history repeat itself and it's why the allies weren't ready for the Japanese and it took a whole mind change to defeat them
>video explaining Japanese war crimes
>it’s over an hour long
Makes sense
Lmao for real the koreans are gonna have a field day with this one, most of them speak english and roast the japanese online about this stuff constantly.
@@TheMuncyWolverine not even surprised
@Klaidi Rubiku honestly, the US does deserve flak for Vietnam. It was easily one of our worst failures
@@Tigershark_3082 you should look up sino vietnamese war. It's not what you think it is, US had no part in it.
@@hard_lighter Wait, wasn't that the one between France and Vietnam, or was it different?
If you surrendered, they tortured and killed you for being a coward. If you put up a tremendous fight, they tortured and killed you in revenge for the casualties you inflicted on them. Samurai honor my tail. I have seen many documentaries and specials on the Pacific Theater, including interviews with Japanese WWII veterans. Unlike the German and Italian WWII veterans, the Japanese veterans to a man seem to have only one regret - that they lost.
There was no Honour, or Warrior status. Just cowards who had no morals. Weak people that finally could inflict death on superior warriors. The essence of a coward.
I read Sledge's book "With the old breed" and also have seen many interviews with him.
He carried a lot of bitterness towards the Japanese for most of his post war life..possibly all of his life due to the atrocities he witnessed. Although I can't substantiate his feelings after the early to mid 90's when I saw his last interview.
Heroes
@@RogueCylon there is no honor for americans. not only they massacred native americans, but the bomb civilians around the globe even until today
@@RogueCylonno you’re wrong. the cowards dropped the nuke to avoid more fighting while the superior warriors were still fighting in china and Manchuria despite their european allies losing the war
I had two Japanese roommates in college (in the US). One day I was watching a documentary on the Bataan death march with one of them (the nicest person you will ever find), who watched it with his mouth open - He had never heard a thing in his life about Japanese atrocities in WWII. It is wrong to blame people for the sins of their ancestors - none of us would be spared - but the whitewashing of WWII history in Japan is nothing short of shameful.
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
@@emeraldbreeze5204 -- My father was in Guadalcanal in 1942. The story's my father told me 40 years ago about the treatment US servicemen received during those battles would make any sane human being throw up. They deserved what they got.
@@emeraldbreeze5204 Can you share your source for this? I have not been able to find anything about it. I also did a search in the Life Magazine Digital Archives and nothing there either.
I think this is largely an Asian thing. Truth takes a backseat to social cohesion.
@@guyintenn -- It is probably BS. I never heard of it either.
I had the privilege of knowing one of the American warriors who were caged, couldn't stand, couldn't stretch out resulting in his legs being permanently damaged. He cheerfully said he never had a bad day after liberation, that he had a reference point of what a bad day was.
I have so many personal problems, but there are just so many people who have it worse... I wouldn't last one week in these situations. Count your blessings!
Can you say a little more about what position he was in, for how long, and what it did to his legs?
I'm just curious I guess.
Thanks!
he doesn't know a bad day, I can tell you about a bad day
@@nah-y4e Please, do
@@mjames7674 Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.
There is saying in Indonesia "350 years under European occupation was nothing compared to 5 years of Japanese occupation." And European occupation was cruel ..
British occupation wasn't cruel.
Same goes with Philippines. 300year rule from Spain is nothing versus the 3 year rule from Imperial Japan..
Excuse me? if indonesia was anything like the Americas, India, or the Congo you had millions killed or starved which may be better than brutal military occupation but it isn’t so black and white
As indian we still carry the scars of British rule which was as barbaric as Japan or Germany. We Indians can't forget man made famine in Bengal perpetuated by mr churchill which resulted in millions of starvation deaths.
indonesia was the dutch east indies at that time. yeah we where racist but we didnt go out of our way to make there lives hell.
When I was a kid, I was told by someone who fought in the war. "Anything they tell you about the Germans, the Japanese did and did worse." (Something along those lines anyway).
Absolutely. The Germans considered genocide a chore. For the Japanese, genocide was R & R. I don't feel bad for them, at all.
And Im a proud descendant of a Filipino fighter, who defended our country against these Japanese invaders.
My grandpa ( brother of grand ma) died in the Bataan death march, with other Filipino and American soldiers)
Philippines was an american colony when Japan invaded us.
We herr in Philippines will never forget!
My grandmother was from the Philippines. Some of the stories she would tell about what the Japanese did to her and her family was unfathomable. To this day she has 3 portraits of MacArthur in her house. To many Filipino’s of that time he was and still is a hero.
MacArthur was the savior of the Philippines, but overall he was arrogant for his part in Korea. I’m Hawaiian Japanese btw ❤️
My mother-in-law is Filipina. She was curious about my tears when watching the news about the tsunami in Japan in 2011. I told her I had lived in Nagoya as a boy in 1977 and I had great affection for the people and culture. She put her hand on my knee and leaned towards me and told me a horrifying story about her hometown in the Philippines and how local teachers and officials were executed in front of her town by the Japanese and their bodies thrown down a well. Her eyes became like fire as she told this story. She still had hatred in her heart after all these years. I am careful to avoid talking about Japan or World War II to elderly fililinos.
The Australian soldiers didn't care for him much cause he once called our soldiers lazy and he was actually booed and heckled away when he came to address the Australian troops
@@plzburnme3809 Dugout Dug was, in general, quite inept. But I understand why he is so respected in the PI, he was the face of the allied forces in the Philippines.
@Wesley Sandel There were many of his race, class, and gender who were far more competent and did not have as successful careers. His position was largely on account of his father, whose reputation was the product of a long and successful career in the senior ranks of the army during a time when the army was quite small. The lesson is that the successes of the father are visited upon his children, just as the sins of the father.
If this were not the case I doubt anybody would put much effort into anything. I never really gave a damn whether I succeed or fail in life, but I do care about my children and everything I have done in life I have done for them and them alone. So I understand completely.
When I was an undergraduate in the early 80s there were a few Japanese students. One of the techs simply vanished when any of them entered the room. I found out that he had been a PoW, captured in Singapore and he actually had to go and vomit when he saw them. I'll never forget that. He was a sweet gentle man.
@石川俊也 I sincerely hope you're only a troll...
Post Traumatic Stress is hell of a thing
@@fructosecornsyrup5759 Chinese troll
@@White_Recluse definitely it is.
@石川俊也 oh I reckon he did better than you, petal.
as a 12year old school boy, i had a teacher who had been a POW of the japanese, they had slit his cheek flesh on both sides of his lips, and forced sand into the two wounds, destroying the nerves which had allowed him to smile, i'll never forget that man
Thanks for that. Some of my NZ school teachers were ex POWs or soldiers.
My God !
@@bonnie_gail
That story actually brought tears to my eyes.
I hope he found peace in his life
The depths of dravity that human heart can decend is beyond belief. I guess thats why the bible labels our carnal hearts as the Satan, the adversary. Wicked indeed!
@@RoseSharon7777 Indeed... God has a lot to answer for.
My aunt told me about how she missed being killed in a massacre of Filipino civilians in Banga, Aklan. She said that during the early part of the war the Japanese entered the town where she lived which was Banga in the province of Aklan in the Philippines. The Japanese ordered the population to gather at the town square. She ignored the order saying she had no interest in seeing the Japanese. The hundreds who showed up were then gunned down and beheaded by the Japanese. Today you can see a memorial set up in memory of the victims of that massacre in the middle of the town square.
My mother in law is Filipina and downstairs as we speak. Back during the war she lived in a house that was across from a Japanese airfield. She said she remembers all the Japanese planes leaving the air base in a rush. The base stayed there but not a single Japanese plane returned. It was later she found out the reason they did not return, they flew off to the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Oct 1944.
Glad she survived thanks for sharing your story from the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 🙏
Americans killed 300,000 people with the atomic bomb. They deliberately dropped it on Hiroshima City, where there are many civilians, rather than Kure City, which is a military facility.
It’s surprising that Japan allowed the Filipinos to even set up a memorial. When Korea tried to build a memorial acknowledging the women who were forced into prostitution by the Japanese, Japan cut off diplomatic relations in protest
So the government that took power from the Americans and Japanese that ended up killing more fillipinos than Japan ever did was a good thing?
I went to a private school in Japan and my teacher was the grandchild of survivors from Nanking. We learned stuff the japanese public school curriculum wouldn't dare teach. God forbid we really learn about our history.
Nice cover photo for your page, I genuinely like it.
Anyway I can contact you? I would be very interested in hearing about what they said.
It would be great to hear these please contact.
Tomoko
Higashikata
tomoko kuroki
In just one hour, Mark lays out the foundation for Japanese brutality during WWII, in a way that covers the entire spectrum in an understandable way.
Yea, but he also borders on excusing the brutality.
@@IamMysterium In my view, Mark lays out the facts as they are, for you to make your own verdict.
@@IamMysterium You are deaf if you heard him making excuses for massive murder campaigns, rape, live-dissections of POW’s, etc.
I think the main reason is the early occupation of Korea and China, the subhuman attitude toward those people, and unconstrained brutal murder being policy as I suspect they though was a method of control. They treated those people like you might treat of wild dogs, it doesn't take much irritation to kill those dogs without a thought or regret. All this was done by the army and became a pattern of behavior in their military. These civilian deaths, easily over a million if the war can was kicked down the road another year, is the first and last argument for dropping as many atomic bombs as you have to end the was ASAP. Anyone not dropping the bomb on moral grounds would not only have to apologies to the troops that dies defeating Japan, but also the million or more civilians in occupied countries, unless that person also does not consider them humans and are only number in a column in a book, and not something to soil my moral sole worrying about.
@@IamMysterium Not once does he excuse it, he is pointing out the causation and we are here to examine it. Take your brutish desire to affirm a personalized narrative elsewhere, this is a place for knowledge to be shared and disputed if necessary. This work of Dr. Felton's is near perfect by what I can tell
"The Japanese soldier stands as a warning to future generations on what could happen if morality, humanity, and compassion are beaten out of the warrior."
This is a warning to everyone but the Japanese as the Japanese establishment refused to acknowledge their wartime atrocities. Those that do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.
The chief of staff of the Japanese national education is being intervened by the United States government since the end of WW2, which means that it is only serve the interest of NATO for the sake of technology development. Any historical information that can cause social unrest is heavily suppressed.
Well actually the brutal of soldiers against normal people at war time is just everywhere in history. It is just wars in modern time got reported more and therefore feel closer to you. Same go as US, Russia, China, Britain, France and every countries for their history
When war time or hard time come, everyone are salvagers. Don't be blind by the peace you enjoy today when most people kinda have what they want.
@@khan-cricket yeah.. no way in hell this excuse covers Japan. The Wehrmacht in the most hardened and bleak state imaginable were disgusted by rape. Evil ideology is one thing but everyone being completely devoid of empathy is unheard of in the west. I sincerely hope I'm missing something but as of right now I can't find a out for myself. You can't change my mind unfortunately, I'm a pretty open minded fella too. I'd love to scrub R****st off my forehead.
Japan has literally acknowledged and apologized for their wartime past...
@@Pekskeh They gave a half ass apology while maintaining monuments and museums to honor their war dead which includes Class A war criminals. Their history books don't even teach their people about WW2 and the atrocities against Allied POW's and civilians. That's hardly an acknowledgement.
Japanese military: Surrender is a massive shame.
Japanese emperor: We Surrender.
Japanese military: Fuck!.
Nor can the baton death march, the rape of Nacan, etc. Japanese Emperor did a war crime on his people by not surrendering before the island hopping. The war was over by then. He sacrificed his people for nothing. It sickens me.
@user-vr6gl2lc8n the one that was easily preventable but the stubborn japanese government refused to surrender even *after* one atomic bomb was dropped
@user-vr6gl2lc8n Japan fucked around and found out.
@user-vr6gl2lc8nwhat a bot did the Japanese pay you to keep writing this reply on every comment?
@user-vr6gl2lc8n says the one who committed,
Nanking massacre.
Comfort Women.
Torture to POW.
Human Experiments on the Chinese Civilians., etc.
Atom Bombs were just a mercy to your country compared to what your country did to the other Asian countries.
Let's call it Karma
I think that the Chinese haven’t forgotten a thing.
No, they can't wait to get payback even today
I agree and neither I have American
The Chinese, the Filipinos, the Vietnamese, the Koreans... the list goes on
@@alfredpaquin3563 sadly it looks like the ccp wants to become the replacement for imperial Japan.
@@jasonirwin4631 that's the facts about it.... the people wants revenge, while the CCP just taking an advantage of it
My grandad was bayoneted in the stomach after he was captured, he told me that the Japanese would have competitions to see which man could behead the most people in the fastest time,this story resonates in my heart personally, thanks professor Felton for highlighting a hugely personal subject , did not know that so many people would like this comment! Obviously you all respect my grandads story so thank you so much! It means a lot to me and would to him (he would never admit that though!)
I used to help an old guy to bath.
He was covered in bayonet scars from when the prison camp
@@julianshepherd2038 my grandad got those scars , and you saw how fearsome they were? It defies belief
Magne M - true Samaria would NEVER commit the manifold atrocities that Japanese soldiers enjoyed during WW2.
Weren’t samurai just glorified mercenaries though?
He didnt even thumbs up your post.
Granted, Armies have abused innocents throughout history, but an impossibly cruel and pernicious streak ran throughout the Imperial Japanese army.
Atleast Germany owns up to its war crimes
@ Stop justifying Japanese war crimes by using "Red herrings"" And No American Forces did not say stupid shite like that. And The UN has done wonders in the Congo and Rwanda huh? Get real mate.
@@PeterNgola I was in Vietnam and I said it myself. I'm not proud of it and I'm not even sure I meant it but I said it. Yes the UN tries but all too often they're barred from helping.
@@PeterNgola And how am I justifying Japanese war crimes? I'm saying everyone commits them...it's part of war.
@ but some enjoy it more
Dad was USN Pacific. Later in life told a few stories. After island hopping, Said only thing that kept him from absolute hatred of all Japanese was meeting one Japanese POW after war formally ended. His group of sailors were doing island patrols. Day after day of losing buddies to attacks after war was "over" , guarding the few POWs was not a favored task. But he talked to one soldier who eventually told him he had attended UCLA. Dad, son of Georgia sharecropper said, "He spoke better English than I did!" This captive explained a simplified version of the Bushido code. Also said he had to enter the army, but knew once US got in there was no hope of winning. Dad was glad he met one person whom he could sort of understand. And actually was glad it kept him from a life of total bitterness. Always said, " they looked at life different than we did." Had no use for most goings Asian all his life, but at least saw there were still some with whom we could relate. Long entry - sorry. My way of showing appreciation for my first hero. I am sure we never knew the worst he saw.
@DynamicMoment-dl2xx They had it coming. Don't pray for rain and cry because you're wet.
Your dad was a hero. Don't listen to this guy with his America bad BS.
At least they were not tied up and Torture and Raped first, they had a chance to run.@DynamicMoment-dl2xx
@benjaminlathem2745 thanks for the comment. I know the history. War is terrible but in this case was unavoidable.
@susanedge9392 If it weren't for men like your dad we'd be speaking jap right now.
My stepdad was married to my mom for 35 years before she found out he was a POW in Japan. We knew he was in the Navy in WW2 and wouldn't buy any Japanese vehicle. But he never talked about it we thought he was petty. We owe him apologies. RIP Floyd.
My dad wouldn't buy anything crapeness.
It seems like a common thing for those who fought against japan or suffered under japan to not buy anything or hold any grudges against the Japanese
@@HamiltonStandard there are a lot of pow camps in japan. watch another documentary about the beginning of us occupation on japan.
35 years with that secret. For what, he could have easily said "I was there" and end of story, no details needed, no remembering often. Just being honest.
One can easily think if he omitted that, what else could he had omitted. It must had been difficult for all involved.
Sorry, I dont want to judge, but
its strange. One can only imagine that some horrible torture(maybe sexual!?) really happened.
If not that case, I dont see why he omitted that as many of us have been in contact with gruesome and evil stuff and can discuss that.
He didnt deserved what he got thru thats for sure. Those things destroy lives.
Im sorry. May he rest in peace.
@@pagodebregaeforro2803 When you go through something as traumatic as that man you will understand why he never mentioned it.
My dad's friend was a Japanese prisoner of war and he was tortured by them. He said there was not one single guard who had sympathy for any prisoners. They were universally brutal, sadistic and inhuman. He would never buy anything made in Japan and would never forgive them for what they did to him and his fellow camp mates.
My grandfather was captured in Philippines, survived the death march, went to Japan as a PoW. He knew Japanese as he worked as a Translator in a Japanese Newspaper in LA. He described the brutality of Japanese officers and soldiers and bailed out many PoWs from his camp from execution by convincing the Japanese by speaking Japanese with them...
@@CoolMan-ig1ol sure dude
@@BluuZombie I think he died in 2000...
Marines may have a record of him. Name Philip.K. Hamburger from Sacramento
I was born after he died, so have information only from Mother...
Likewise, my Grandad fought with the Long Range Penetration Group in Burma against the Japanese. He would never buy anything made in Japan. I can't say that i blame him.
@@EdgyDabs47 There are many Koreans who I know who wont buy Japanese company made products like Suzuki.
No wonder many of my uncles, that served in WW2, were drinkers. I can’t begin to imagine what they went thru. May God rest their souls.
AMEN. Yup.!
And their livers.
my great uncle was a pow in Changi prison for 3 years. He never got over it
May they rest in peace.
My boss's father served on a destroyer in the Pacific. He was indeed a heavy drinker and died early because of this. It's too bad because from what I've been told, he was a real stand-up guy. Member of the Legion and VFW, served a career in the Postal Service and put 5 kids through Catholic school.
My now deceased grandfather fought as part of the Australian Imperial Forces on the island of Borneo and by the grace of god he wasn’t captured or killed despite being in the midst of heavy battle at times. So many men never made it home nor did so many nurses.
I feel so fortunate to have inherited his service medals. Worth more to me than any money in the world as he was my hero for as long as I can remember.
This audiobook has given me more context of the Japanese war machine than I’ve heard or seen before and as the descendant of a WW2 vet I truly thank you.
Try to read “American mutilation of Japanese war dead” on Wikipedia !!! 😫😫😫
In reality, it was much worse.
My grandad and his 2 brothers fought in WWII. My grandad Tom the eldest and the youngest of the brothers Alf were in the navy the middle brother Jack was army. Jack was captured in Burma by the Japanese and spent the rest of the war as a POW. Grandad said for all the time jack was a pow they never knew if he was dead or alive. When they were told that jack was alive and would soon be home the family were ecstatic. My great-grandmother who was very religious said 'God had answered her prayers and saw her boys safely through the war. When jack finally got home, about 3 months after the letter saying he would soon be home, no-one at first recognised him, my grandad said there was just this bag of skin and bones in a suit that looked 3 sizes to big for him. My great-grandmother was all over him like a rash saying 'we'll soon have you back to rights son, dont you worry yourself you're back with your mam and family now. Grandad said for the first week jack never went out, just walked round the house touching things then touching his lips before going back to his bed. He never slept in his bed for some reason he preferred the floor and was always hiding bits of food around the place, he would never utter a word about what he went through but a month after being home he committed suicide by hanging himself. He left a note for my grandmother saying 'Everything's fine now mam, will see you all on the other side, all my love Jack. I'm 65 now and my grandad told me these things when I was a teenager, the reason he told me was because I once asked him why he hated Japanese TVs and radios and why he wouldn't have them in the house.
Wow 😥
That is so sad, your poor grandad and great grandad and grandma. God love them all. I had a neighbour who was from Scotland, he was captured in Burma also, he was a mechanic with the RAF on the Hurricane's. He said they were thrown off their bunks when the first A bomb went off, they thought it was just an earthquake, they were miles from Hiroshima, so nowhere near the blast, but it was strong enough to throw them onto the floor. He never ate rice from the day he was liberated to the day he died in November 2004. He gave me a gift which I treasure of a small samurai statue he bought in 1945 before he came home. Those poor men who were captured by the Japanese suffered horribly, especially the Air crews. The Japanese were evil people during the war, and that's putting it mildly from my war studied, even the nazi's had some mercy, the Japanese had none, to the most part. Now its the Chinese we have to watch, very closely in my opinion. So sorry about your great Uncle. :'(
That's heartbreaking and sadly not unique. The psychological damage caused was in many ways much worse than the physical trauma and particularly when you consider the fact that this was a time when people just didn't talk about things the way we do today. I have the utmost respect and pity for those that went through such unimaginable horrors.
My late Uncle Joe had fought in the Pacific Theater, and he held the same attitude towards Japan and the Japanese as your grandad.
God that’s sad. Poor fellow.
My mother told me that she had to dress like a boy with short hair during Japanese occupation in Malaysia.
She wasn't the only one
Common in many if not all Japanese held areas lest they get raped or kidnapped and forced into being "comfort women."
That's true,
Happened in the Philippines too.
My Singaporean wife's grandmother had to do the same thing. Also she had to wrap her breasts up beneath her shirt in the hopes that she would look more like a man.
Over one hour. That Felton dude is kicking it out of the park lately.
@Dessy Duke Lecker Your nitpacking me think.
This man is determined to make sure the youth and elderly alike understand WW2 to the nth degree
@Dessy Duke Lecker English isn't my native language. So I think I was close enough. Thanks for the correction tough.
The result of lockdown research perhaps.
I could never do this without hating their descendants. I've no idea how people can describe obvious criminality without breaking down into sadness or out into violence. I'm just not a calm person.
My grandmother told me that when she was young, during the time the Japanese occupied Vietnam in WW2, 3 times that a group of Japanese soldiers used the people of her village as "animals for hunting". Her village was less than a kilometer from the forest, so every time words the Japanese soldiers were coming, anyone that could run went to the forest as fast as they could, they had some men and young teens act as scout forces and good runners in every team to make it back to the village fast (It was a hilly area with lots of vegetation, their village was covered up good). If young women did not run they will likely get taken by the soldiers or worse killed, the soldiers knew this and often went into the forest to hunt them with swords or bayonets.
My Grandmother was a small kid at the time so she often used mud to cover her body and hide underneath them, she said that she hadn't got a close encounter with one of the soldiers but many of the children around her age (most below 12) and villagers had never made it back to the village.
I asked how did the Japanese soldiers react when they arrived at a village that was almost empty and only occupied by old people that was too old to run? She said that the only reason why they were probably alive was that the soldiers used their village for fun. If they killed too many they can't go back the next day to have fun again. Also, they probably did not use bullets because it was wasteful on "rats".
I also asked did anyone tried to fight back or killed any soldiers in the forest, because they were also men who ran with them to protect their families. She said that the village chief heard a tale of a village that fought back and injured a Japanese soldier quite heavily and a few days later, most of the villagers got gunned down and burned during the near evening.
What made it worst was the randomness of the 3 times, the First one was bad, and the second was terrible because they arrived in the morning instead of the afternoon (She is eternally grateful for the men that stood guard for almost 24 hours every day). You could imagine the pressure and dread after the second time because you won't know for sure when they gonna come. They came at night for the third time, luckily they managed to spot the bastards and ran before they arrived at the village. 1/3 of the elders got killed and the rest did not know how they managed to survive.
After that group of soldiers left, many groups operated near their village but none had bothered her village much, probably thanks to the fact the village was pretty far from other population centers. After the day of Independence (2/9/1945), their family moved to a bigger town in the southern areas. I still love her and remember her stories even years after her death. She never told me what she thinks about Japanese soldiers or people, but my mom said that she thinks them as a bunch of crazy sadists.
😨 Try to read “American mutilation of Japanese war dead” on Wikipedia !!! 😨😨😨
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
At the end of World War II, the Allies, including the United States and Great Britain, indiscriminately massacred approximately 500,000 Japanese citizens through air raids and atomic bombings. You see? The Anglo-American Allies are vicious perpetrators pretending to be victims.
★★★ The Japanese people have not forgotten the heinous atrocities committed by the Allied Powers ❢❢❢
@@emeraldbreeze5204 I see so many Japanese army apologists linking examples of war crimes committed against them, as if it justifies their own actions. we are all human and have horrible parts of our history, be a man and accept that
@@kevinzhu641732:00 where is the proof
I remember reading a story about an old man run over by a Japanese tour bus in London . Turns out he was a POW surviver of the Japanese prison camps. His widow could only say, "well they got him in the end".
the irony isnt lost
Famed British humor
@@TheBuhrewnoShow Wanted to say the same mate~!
😎✌🖖
True but I doubt the bus driver would of been a Japanese national especially in London he would of most likely been British.
Has anyone ever read Emperor Hirohito's radio address? He stated that continuing the war would mean the end of the human race, and he only meant the Japanese people.
What would you have him say? He said what he said because he did as he was told. You think Hirohito had any real control? Get real.
I did this from memory and am guilty of misquoting him, but not misinterpreting him. He predicted the extinction of civilization
@@BigHenFor That view has been challenged by recent historians, who think the "powerless figurehead" image was formed after the war to deflect responsibility; I have read that not only was Hirohito in charge, he also actively participated in military planning.
@@danpatterson8009 Good for him, in that case. That's being an Emperor isn't it?
@@richardverrall534
It sort of raises questions about his culpability.
I believe it was in Ghost Soldiers that I read about Japanese soldiers during the Nanking Massacre who were alleged to have gambled on the sex of unborn children before slicing the fetuses out of pregnant women-sometimes with the mothers still alive.
Whatever their reasons, the barbarity of the Japanese army in WWII is both frightful and sickening.
why the hell my comment is deleted ?
@@emprahsfinest7092 do you ever heard about USS Liberty ? :) Mark Felton should make a video about that
@@user-kx9yt9kv5k
That has happened to me. I rephrased it and it was ok
@@emprahsfinest7092 a good film to watch about the Japanese occupation of China is Flowers of War
Ghost Mountain Boys
I have a friend who married a Japanese woman. So he learned to speak fluent Japanese. But being a white man of very tall stature, he didn’t look like someone who could speak Japanese. He told me that although the Japanese people today act like they are pacifists, they still are very aggressive if they don’t think that anyone can understand what they are saying. According to my friend, who heard and understood what they were saying, “If you put a dozen Japanese in a group and throw in a rifle, they think they can take over the world!”
why are they like this?
@@alexandrosstavrou4224 intense nationalism and patriotism, followed by xenophobia
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
@@azurecliff8709 I see that people repay evil with evil
@@Somespideronline Both were equally guilty.
I can understand why some WWII allied soldiers hated the Japanese for the rest of their lives.
Meh. Destroy your enemy with absolute fury. But do not hate.
@@chrisgould101 meh. Let the hatred flow booooy
@@chrisgould101 I saw that hate first hand. My father, until the day he died, held this very deep rooted hatred. After fighting the Japanese in the war, he maintained they were the most brutal and barbaric, and used to say, " If you weren't there, you cannot have any idea of the depth of their depravity." His face would harden like stone when discussing the brutality.
@@janupczak1643 I just started one of the most hardcore Japanese martial art styles, I don't doubt the barbaric and extreme just from the training I'm doing 😅😅 I like Japanese usually. I guess they were Americanized after they were atomically bombed or something
@@janupczak1643 they shot and bayonted my uncle
An hour long video with Mark Felton on a subject I’ve longed to understand?
My prayers have been answered. Again!
Read Edward Russell Bushido Knights of WW2
@FTW 111 In a word? @GOODREADS
@Sean m Simple? Describes the path you view our own history and nothing more, get a grip of yourself !
Sean m, I’d rather listen to Mark Felton for an hour long than listen to a simpleton like yourself for even a minute. Why are you even bothering being here if you know it all? Funken troll pos!
@Sean m There are rules, even in war...
In the 70's and early 80's there was a push for US Marines and Soldiers who fought the Japanese to forgive them. At that time not knowing to much thought the war is long over, get over it. The more I learn the the more I understand that forgiveness was a big request. Many did forgive and I now realize how big of a step that actually was.
Yet none of those directly responsible repented, instead the entire country believes in its own martyrdom, when we know full well that not only would they fight any invasion tooth and nail.
one thought: the Bible says forgiveness is the main part of knowing Jesus. People who can forgive live a profoundly different life with out deep resentment. I do go to the parking lot of a topless bar and handout Gospel tracts to single men walking in. Most will talk with me for at least a min and take a tract. any thoughts?
Around that time, I remember being with my Father-in-Law (RIP) when a show was on TV about some Iwo Marines meeting/forgiving the Japanese. He was a mid-west farmer, man of few words. But he had fought at Iwo and other places in the Pacific and said he couldn't understand how anyone who had seen what he had seen could forgive.
Hard to forgive such cruelty when it was not necessary to be cruel but done out of one's own desire. Sometimes I think their is an unusual cruel streak in the Japanese. It's unfortunate because the Japanese excel in other areas and is a safe and productive country.
@@archiecoolsdown5854 you can only forgive the repentant sinner.
My Great Uncle was captured by the Japanese and was kept captive until wars end. He couldn't eat or travel anywhere because his stomach was so damaged. Sometimes he could manage a really thin soup that my Grandma made for him, but that was only once a week. But mainly he couldn't eat at all.
Try to read “American mutilation of Japanese war dead” on Wikipedia !!! 😫😫😨
So... how did he not starve?
The war crime of dropping the atomic bomb cannot be erased from history.
So how long he lasted?
@@teafortwo3158If you read the article it says that they started doing that so as to get back at the Japanese soldiers who were doing the same thing. Nonetheless, your comment is a classic case of whataboutism. The crimes of the American military against the Japanese soldiers doesn’t change the reality that the Japanese military committed atrocities against innocent civilians.
Hard to listen to. But necessary.
@Rory 543 *banana BOI
yes, dont watch while trying to sleep
History like this shows how the films like "The Last Samurai" are attempts at historical revisionism and an attempt to whitewash and romanticize the barbarity of the Samurai tyranny. "War Without Mercy" is a good read on Japanese WW2 brutality.
Banana boi knows the horrors of the Japanese
@Rory 543 Banane Mann
I cannot understand how is Mark able to keep up with creating so much content, thank you so much.
Guy like Dr F probably does this stuff while driving or brushing his teeth or waiting in the doctors office :p
this dude probably constantly works.
He and that Simon guy on Whatculture are neck to neck for hardest working man on UA-cam, though I find Mark Felton a lot more pleasant to listen to and far more conscientious in his research.
A team is behind the scene.
I AGREE!… & love it!!!
I am constantly recommending his productions.
my late grandmother was a teenager when Japanese occupied Indonesia. She used to tell stories that every night the japanese forces would send shots all over the neighbourhoods to the houses. so every night, my grandma and her family would stay low in case there were any shots coming to the house. it was a whole different evil than the dutch
My dad was 16 in Djakarta when they invaded and being an Indo orphan, he was thrown out of the country after the war. But before that, he was taken prisoner by the kampeitai and tortured for being half Dutch. Until his passing in 2018, he despised the Japanese and had mixed feelings about the country of his birth.
Maybe at the time, but during the initial Dutch invasion of Indonesia they did the same if not worse
@@Merlinsbigbeard thank you time traveler for the facts from the past
@@Merlinsbigbeard that’s bs the dutch where nowhere near as sadistic or cruel as the Japanse soldiers. The dutch soldiers who Where send to Indonesia Where told they would free Indonesia from the Japanese and where lied to by the government. They where traumatized by everything seen in Indonesia at the hands of the Japanse and they where looked down upon on return by the Dutch people bc of the reason they where actually there
@@Legend-ib9ik yeah the Dutch *at the time* because it was a civilian administration. The Dutch military occupation (which was 300 years ago) was just as bad if not worse, it’s never talked about tho cuz it was 350 years ago
Several of my father's relatives served in the British Indian Army and universally despised the Japanese for their extremely cruel treatment of defeated enemy soldiers and non-combatant enemies. My father worked in the Philippines when I was a kid and tales of Japanese cruelty are part of the history and lore of that place and many others. The rest of Asia will never forget what Japan did. Better kawaii and otaku than murderous bushi. Modern Japan's refusal to take responsibility for WW2 is infuriating and terrifying in equal measure.
Try to read “American mutilation of Japanese war dead” on Wikipedia !!! 😫😫😫
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
So what if Britain apologized to India and China?
Americans killed 300,000 people with the atomic bomb. They deliberately dropped it on Hiroshima City, where there are many。Americans are not taking responsibility for this. civilians, rather than Kure City, which is a military facility.
Philippines will remember Japanese crimes but rewrite and forget American ones. Just a standalone comment of mine - an observation, which I feel is absolutely accurate
Mark Felton, doing what schools and history channel aren't doing
Im addicted to Mark's channels. They are the singular most informative and absorbing history channels on the internet, and make an utter mockery of so-called 'History Channel' mockumentaries.
Did you see the Fall of civilisations channel yet?
It is so disgraceful that the Japanese will still not admit to this atrocity.
@Bob Lawblawblaw well not so, the people were subjected to mass propaganda from the right wing. Moderate politicians and Prime minster's were assassinated before the war for speaking out.
@Half life 3 far right ,right wing still ends up dehuminising opponents and disaster.
@@jamwri671 far left- left wing still ends up with people dehumanozed, starving, and being worked to death in gulags by the tens of millions.
@Half life 3 imagine admitting to being a fascist, amazing.
@@coreythadrumma20 aye far extremes of either side are fucked, a medium is the best option if anything.
The largest protest I’ve ever seen with my own eyes was an anti-Japanese protest in downtown Seoul, a few years ago. Tens of thousands of people, near Gyeongbokgung palace, mainly young people/students, came together to demand a Japanese apology for the use of comfort women. I believe that this protest is held every week, with only a hardcore of a few hundred showing up every week, but the numbers swell greatly if the Japanese do something to agitate Koreans. (I believe Abe visited this WW2 veterans shrine in Japan, which sparked the larger protest that I saw).
If you land at Incheon Airport and take the train to the city center of Seoul, they’re playing a video on a loop where they talk about how the Dokdo islands are Korean and that Japan is acting as an aggressor again.
In my experience, Koreans have no qualms with ordinary Japanese people and I have witnessed 0 racism or ‘behind-their-back’ remarks. However, nearly every Korean has shared their hatred of Abe, the Japanese government, and Japanese Zaibatsu/Keiretsu. You will struggle to find a Toyota, Honda or (god forbid) Mitsubishi car on Korean streets. If you find one, it is likely that it isn’t a Korean who is driving it.
It is fascinating to see how deep the hatred still exists in the minds of many people. You’d say it would be very beneficial for Japan, geopolitically, to simply apologize for what they did and befriend the other East Asian countries. I guess it shows how hard it is to change cultural stubbornness.
Ironic, that Nissan was one of the main contributors to build Samsung into a car company into the 90s, even a couple of older Hyundais were originally Mitsubishis, like the Galloper and Equus. However, I saw more Ferraris and Lamborghinis in Korea than Japanese branded cars.
@@aidanpysher2764 Well, from the Japanese perspective this makes sense. Japanese economists absolutely love the ‘flying geese model’ that implies that the Japanese economy is the ‘goose’ at the peak of the flock of ‘Asian geese’ that follow Japan’s guidance.
As Japan completes the full adoption of an economical state, it will move on to the next and start exporting its expertise to other Asian countries. It is seen as a necessary step to keep evolving Japan’s economy and to not fall into a middle income trap. It did this with textiles, shipbuilding (largest shipbuilding companies used to be in Japan, now Hyundai is a major player), etc.
For the Koreans… well they see it as a necessary evil. The hatred for companies like Nissan and Mitsubishi runs deep, because they were the ones supplying the Japanese army, navy and air force. They were the ones forming the military industrial complex that drove Japan into its craze of imperialism. Kind of like how Thyssen AG, Volkswagen, and Porsche will instrumental to the nazi war machine - except these companies all distanced themselves openly and many times from nazi ideology, whereas the old Japanese zaibatsu never did. The Koreans only approve of this because it benefits them and there is no bad blood with the ordinary Japanese person working for Nissan. But they did not do this because they have forgiven the likes of Nissan for what they did.
I think the lack of trials and punishment to the offenders is part of the problem. They basically got off while the German leadership was punished.
Should war eventually break out in the Far East between the US, Japan, S Korea, Australia and China I believe the Chinese will extract revenge upon Japan for crimes committed during WWII. Crimes that China feels (rightly so, I would add) were never adequately identified, litigated, admitted to, and punishment extracted. Such animosities last a long, long time.
Can you blame them
I’m a Japanese high school student but the education system in Japan never teaches us, or even speak about the heinous war crimes that the Japanese imperial army committed during the two wars. Especially the infamous Nanking massacre.
Cmiiw, It's like political & social suicide to talk about "it" in today's japan
As an American I can tell you that there will always be people who try to make you out to be unpatriotic if you acknowledge your country's dark history. But you have to do it to keep it from happening again.
you're about as japanese as is donald trump
Young man/woman, God bless you. Keep your courage and speak out. You are the future of your country. Your curiosity for truth is patriotism, and don't let anyone tell you differently.
Thank you for sharing your comment. What do you learn about World War 2 in your classes, especially when it comes to Japan?
Met a young Japanese university student in London. We became boyfriend and girlfriend. She was a very bright girl - but as I got to know her it became clear she had no knowledge at all of Japanese war crimes - none. She had never heard of Nanking. And she simply refused to believe the Japanese could do such things. Her general concept of WW2 was, Japan was forced into the war - quickly had to defend themselves against the "bully" America - and were generally the victims of the war - the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, to her the epitome of her country's ill-treatment and suffering !
Did she also say that whale and dolphin dropped those two nukes?
@@Slade951 DEATH to whales and dolphin, and dolphin need to be clubbed to death while their are alive specifically. cause............................... i dont know tradition?
It is an eye opener to learn how our former enemies learn their own histories.
Know that too well my Japanese mom tries to justify some but not nanking
Were Nagasaki and Hiroshima consequences of an unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor or a war crime? I wonder which one it was.
My great grandfather was a Marine in the Pacific. I’m not exactly sure what his job was but he hated the Japanese with a passion to the day he died, and even got talked to for refusing to let Japanese people into the national park he worked at later on.
After spending 2 years fighting them in the islands, my Marine (he actually signed up at 15) father in law refused to be assigned to Japanese Occupation duty. He wouldn’t ride in a Japanese vehicle.. ever!
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
@@emeraldbreeze5204 there is definitely mud on everyone’s boots. Seems to be the nature of war.
@@jdub229rGood for him, probably saved him from taking out his anger on Japanese civilians had he been on occupation duty.
No problem listing the atrocities, but it goes a little deeper to understand why 'normal' people could do such terrible things. Solzhenitsyn explains, "To do evil, a human being must first of all believe what he is doing is good, Ideology is what gives the evil-doer his long sought justification" Ideology gave these people justification for these crimes, and we still face the same dangers today
@Balaclava Bandit Hoax? yer good luck buddy
Some of them are good people
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
Exactly. MAGA 😂
@@LassieFarmNot really an ideology, also doesn't compare to the Japanese or Nazis... Not even close.
Thank you so much for this video essay. I am South Korean. But I had no idea that Koreans were implicated in the cruelties of the POW camps. All I was taught when growing up was that it was all Japan's fault. Korean history books sometimes make it seem like Korea never did anything wrong. Yes, Korea was a victim of Japan and many suffered immensily, especially those "comfort women". But this video made me realise that anyone, regardless of nationality or culture, can be corrupted and turned into a monster.
Atleast your country learn how to be humble and honesty...
I know China did is worst...
Is remind This word
"We human are evolution through war, aggression and violence"
The 3-way contest between which is most invested in racial supremacy between Han China , 'modern' North Korea and Imperial Japan..... might as well be a toss-up.
Well said, Lima.
There were collaborators and partisans in all nations occupied by the Axis. Many of those victim nations want to gloss over the collaborator part of their history. Just look at Poland.
You're very mature in the fact you're willing to look at your people's history clear-eyed. Most people are incapable of that.
@@UberMenschNowFilms Excuse me, who in Poland actually collaborated, except of individual scumbags who were being sentenced to death by our underground, plus part of the pre-war police, who the Germans forced to keep order among the population under threat, and of whom something like a third cooperated more with the underground than with the Germans? Maybe you watched a certain German war TV show too much, where Polish resistance is shown to be more agressively antisemitic than the Germans?
My old secondary school (High School) wood work teacher in the UK was a Japanese POW. He was on tough SOB teacher, but I had and still do have a lot of respect for him. He told us many stories of what the Japanese soldiers did to POWs and general POW life under the Japanese. Bear in mind we were 15-16 year old in a typical UK school. One story really stands out even after 35+ years after being told it.
When the Japanese knew a POW was going to die they would order that soldier to be placed in an open coffin. He would be fed in there as well for the remaining days he was alive. The other POWs were forbidden from taking him out or even sitting him up. Once the soldier died the Japanese soldiers came in, nailed the coffin shut and took it away for burial. When Mr Starmer told us this story you could feel the anger in his voice for his fallen comrades.
I read somewhere that Japanese school kids today are still taught that Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was justified and necessary. Sixty plus years later and they are still in denial. God help the future generations.
I'm old enough to have had teachers who were part of the WW2 generation. There seems to be a sense of loss in that younger generations will never have that honor.
they are just disgusting and shameless to not admit their mistakes
Well they are right about the fact that the attack on Pearl Harbor was necessary. Maybe they shouldn't have started the entire war in the first place, but at that time an attack on Pearl Harbor was necessary. Justified is debatable but who cares about what's justified when you're trying to win a war? Not a whole lot of what happens in war is justified.
@@jornflim78 what absolute BS.
@@RodFleming-World Please tell us what part is bs and why.
Topic: Causes of Japanese brutality in WW2
Everyone else: "It's complicated."
Mark Felton: "If you have about an hour I can explain the basics..."
I read an account from a Japanese soldier in New Guinea. He was an engineer and was instrumental in hacking the path, and building bridges to ensure the Japanese troops in the vicinity of Lae managed to escape over the ranges from the pursuing Australian and US forces. It was common practice for sick, or exhausted troops to be left to die on the side of the track. If it had not been for this man and his ingenuity and hard work their column would have been devastated by raids from Australian commando patrols and the column would have been cut off and starved in the jungle. About halfway across the range he succumbed to starvation and sickness and went into a coma and only survived as an Australian commando patrol happened by him before he died and took him as a POW. Just needed a bit of clean water and some decent food.
👿 Try to read “American mutilation of Japanese war dead” on Wikipedia !!!
I was a trainee Gas fitter in 1970. One of our lecturers was a British soldier in Asia during the 2 world war. A group of Japanese visitors was visiting our college and he refused to meet any Japanese visitors. He hated them
How about the Irish? How did he feel about the Irish? How about Americans who go around calling themselves Irish although they were born in the USA and their families have lived in the USA for several generations.?
@@Venezolano410 No problem with the Irish as they didn’t deliberately starve to death Prisoners of war, beating & torturing them for pleasure
@@peterwalton1502
But they did go around killing a lot of innocent people during that period of time known as "The Troubles".
El Maracaibero Nobody hates the Irish lad (except loyalists) 🇮🇪
God...Hope he's not one of the sailors that once aboard on fleet Z
When Hirohito came to England on a State visit he was in a carriage with the Queen, as the proceded along the Mall on their way to Buck house, all the veterans ( several thousand) turned their backs .
@@sc9881 His family were the generals that commanded the atrocities. He personally ordered the deaths of all prisoners if the country was to be invaded.
@@sc9881 go be a weeb somewhere else.
All criminals charged with war crimes should be put to death
@Luke E My father's generation was made to believe he was a helpless figurehead and the Japanese Generals (army leadership) ran everything. He was quite young during WWII. That is why he was spared war crimes trial.
@@user_name_redacted His own people wanted him gone. not enemy armies.
My uncle was a pow in Changi. He was in the same convoy as Montevideo Maru, that was torpedoed, losing about 1000 POWs. For a time he became a slave labourer in a Japanese coal mine, but spent his last year in a Manchurian POW camp (Hoten).
After the war he became a successful car dealer. In the late 1950s he was invited to Tokyo to sign a Nissan dealership contract and enjoyed the discomfort of the Japanese execs when relating his past experiences in their 'beautiful country'.
Despite all the horrors he said when working in the coal mine some Japanese were as kind to his group as circumstances permitted.
At Hoten he said local Chinese at enormous risk to themselves, left little food packages near the fence where the prisoners could reach them.
Yes and the Chinese who helped Doolittle's airmen escape - they suffered horribly when the Japanese found out.
amazing to hear tales of humanity amidst the horrors of war. those people are truly angels.
Yes, shame them to their faces.
Admirable. My father was one of those prisoners on the Death Railway. He survived because of his wits, as in only drinking boiled water including droplets from the passing trains, fitness - he was a cup winning cyclist before becoming a soldier - skills in carpentry which were useful to the Japanese, and friends captured at the same time. He knew the cartoonist Ronald Searle, who was hiding his drawings of events under the hut floor in hollow bamboo. Later at the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb, the cloud of which he witnessed, and its ruins, all but one of his friends were dead having been beaten to death, dug their own graves and shot or died of malaria or other untended conditions. After the surrender, he was standing on the beach with his one surviving friend, both like skeletons, while American canisters of supplies were being dropped. The parachute of one canister didn’t open, and when it hit the beach the lid sprang off and decapitated his friend. This, in the literal moment of delivery, was the lowest for him. He was an old school Socialist and remarkably tolerant, but he could not forgive the Japanese. And remained unconvinced about American know- how….
Respect to your dad 07
My uncle Harold was a British prisoner of war. He never spoke about his experiences but had scars on his face and struggled to walk in his old age as the Japanese smashed his kneecaps with rifle butts.
He did tell my Grandad a few stories, as there were very close - I understand they managed to make a radio in the camp and when they heard the war was over on BBC world service they beat one of the less humane guards to death. There's a book out there somewhere written by one of his fellow inmates and I know that he has a mention in there - Harold Smalley.
I have a photo taken in the 80's and you can tell by his eyes that his experience as a POW never really left him. I've got no idea what he went through as I was too young.
RIP.
He held up a prime example of what it meant to be a real man, no matter what the cost.
My old neighbor was named Harold. Good ole harold used to tie one on every Saturday night and go to town on the old wife..👊
My dad is Pakistani and many of his older relatives served in the army of the British Raj. We must never let the world forget what our elders and their contemporaries endured at the hands of the cruel Japanese. A nation that refuses either to acknowledge or to apologize can only intend to repeat their crimes again given the chance.
@Yuck Foutube quick tell the world police!! 🤡
What do you mean?
When I was a child (service brat) My family knew many veterans of the British army in WWII, and I talked with many of them about their experiences. Men who had fought the Germans and Italians all had respect for them, to a greater or lesser extent; those who had fought the Japanese held a visceral hate for them. There was one outlier, a Royal Marine, who had lost an Eye and several comrades fighting in Madagascar, he hated the French with a lifelong fury.
But why the French?
@@yipyap6161 Because the French held out longer against the British on Madagascar than they did against the Germans in France.
@@huntergray3985 Well, then I understand xd
@@huntergray3985 British were fleeing Dunkirk abandoning all their allies there, they were defeated and didn t have anything to face a german landing if arrived and wouldn t have resisted long, so I would shut up read some history before complaining about french surrender
Feyser1970, I think you should be a little less rude and aggressive. Perhaps you should "shut up" and read what I have written above. I challenge you to find where *I* complain about the French surrender. You will find that I report the view of a brave veteran who fought and suffered for his country. Can one blame the man for his opinion? When I say that the Vichy French forces on Madagascar held out longer on the island than their forces did in France, this is simply a fact and no matter how much more I read it will still be a fact.
There is a recorded interview somewhere on youtube that I heard of a guy who was in that hospital when the Japanese took it over. He said he only survived because he was so bloody from his wounds on the hospital bed that the Japanese thought they had already bayoneted him so no one did. Eventually he made it out of the hospital but was captured and held as a POW through the war
My grand-uncle escaped murder in a similar fashion in a field hospital. They killed everyone else, but thought he was already dead.
@@ENoob My great uncle got captured by the British in Africa and he had some tales himself of brutality but not anything like what they went through
@@ENoob Looks like all our grand uncles had similar stories, mine had his unit slaughtered and played dead and was bayonnetted when the Japanese had been checking the bodies, he then walked back to the nearest field hospital
I’ll never forget one lesson in my 9th grade class when my teacher asked us who thought the atomic bombs were warranted and one kid shot up his hand. We were shocked because his parents were born in Japan. He explained that Japan would’ve never surrendered and how common people were still fighting the Allies in villages that weren’t aware of the war’s end. I’ve spent many years learning about WWII and I’ve never been able to shake what he said.
Try to read “American mutilation of Japanese war dead” on Wikipedia !!! 😨😨😨
Actually quite a few surrenderd towards the end and I think they would have fought but would’ve been annihilated so some would have. They were overrated really. They had water protection.
2 of my great great uncles served in the British army in Burma In WW2, one was taken prisoner and later died in a POW camp the other was beaten and later burnt alive after refusing to give up information. They were both in their mid 20s.
Mid 20s? Not even full grown men. That is beyond belief.
May they rest in the greatest peace
Should’ve gave them the information lmao
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
@@emeraldbreeze5204 ok bot
Disgusting how the Japanese refuse to acknowledge this. And yet, they have the audacity to scold the U.S for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Far be it from me to justify atrocities with atrocities, but it seems rather hypocritical.
@Magne M Hard to justify? The atom bombs probably (most likely) saved more civilian lifes than they took. If not for the bombs and the Russians liberating Manchuria, the main island would have been invaded and even the civil population forcefully called to arms. They even had crude civil defense weapons with the Arisaka and Nambu cartridges issued in every village.
Fuck them anyway. The bombs were nothing compared to what they did to the countries they invaded.
@Magne M You are right the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was horrible but Japan unfortunately reaped what they sowed. Over 50 million killed all over Asia one example the Nanking Massacre there war crimes made Nazi Germany look kind
@Magne M it actually does the Japanese army committed the same atrocities and worse to both Chinese pows and civilian population I encourage to read a little
@Magne M Japanese murdered hundredes of thousands cicilians. Why do you nor ralk abou that.
@Magne M Did you haer of Unit 731
I talked to a foreign exchange student from Japan in the 1990’s here in the US about WWII. He was clueless about Japanese involvement in the war. He said the US started the war and Japan had to defend itself from the aggression. I was floored by his answer. He really had no interest in the subject and that was about all he really knew about WWII.
He was not entirely wrong.
We really did push Japan into a corner with an inflexible negotiating position in our end which really helped nudge them towards attacking the US.
@@kles44 Did you not watch the video?
@@kles44 you realize japan left the league of nations and invaded manchuria unchecked historians credit to giving germany the que to start taking land in europe also unchecked. How in the world it's the U.S. fault after being allies and never attacking... also japan was going ape shit on asia way before pearl harbor for years.
@@kles44 you sound exactly like Noam Chomsky. He defends the japanese in ww2.
@@vitas5333 if you research the Marco polo Bridge incident nobody knows forsure who started it
The second part to the issue is Manchuria was never part of China until the Qing invaded China. China had no more right to Manchuria than Japan.
Second it wasn't the business of the United States to stop japan. In that time western powers overwhelmed much of Asia and wanted to keep their grip on China.
Now to be clear I don't think japan was right right what it did and how it conducted the war. It's simply a reality that cutting off Japan's oil created an inevitable clash that by no means makes japan right. I'm just being a realist here. Of course they were going to secure other sources of oil and then there's the double standard here. Why was it OK for western powers to pounce on China but japan could not do the same?
Remember the United States position was that japanese forces leave all of China before negotiations could begin on reversing the embargo. Thats an inflexible position to take and would of course meant the japanese would refuse.
As I recall, the Japanese were praised internationally for their conduct in the Russo-Japanese War and were the same as everyone else in WW1. It was the interwar years that really created the downward cycle, for reasons mentioned in the video. It isn't ignored, but it feels a bit like everything Japan did, in terms of warfare, between the Meiji Restoration and WW2 is a bit glossed over.
In Russo-Japanese War they were still massacring Chinese civilians though, the soldiers were only restrained by their western-educated officers to demonstrate to European powers they were not barbarians and could coexist with white men. Then after Taisho era they no longer cared.
As Lord Russell of Liverpool, historian of Japanese war crimes, said - Some may find it possible to forgive, but no one should ever forget.
Same should apply to British war crimes.
Yes the wounds heal but the scars remain.
It's better to free oneself from the past and move to the future. Those who still hate to their last days are still stuck in the past and hell bent on destruction.
@@Joshua_N-A Too true.
@Richard Horrocks Very well said. The bombing campaign made a huge contribution to victory in Europe but ever since has been demonised by one word - Dresden. When you are fighting for your life you must use every resource available. Interestingly I have yet to see any criticism of the American fire raids on Japan, which killed more people than the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
My Filipino neighbor in California told me of being tortured when he was a scout. He could only allude to it before his throat closed up and eyes misted over.
I was in the Philippines in the late 1980s. A middle aged local man told me he witnessed, as a boy during the Japanese occupation, a local man being forced to drink a large amount of water by Japanese soldiers. He would be then laid on the ground, and a soldier would jump on his abdomen with his boots, until water erupted from his nose and mouth, killing him.
At the time, I thought perhaps he was exaggerating. This video confirms what he saw.
Japanese today need to know just how cruel and inhuman their military was in WWII. It is not taught in the schools. Their history has been whitewashed.
It's not like Japan is unrepentant. Japanese now are extremely anti-war and any measures to revive the Japanese military is very opposed by people. If China Invades Japan, most Japanese would probably surrender than fight nowadays. That is how much Japanese hate the militaristic era
Remember tall tales r tales
@@烏梨師斂 that is indeed a shameful display
@@烏梨師斂 Why can't you have a military WITHOUT the JAPAN MASTERRACE STRONG, ALL OTHERS INHERENTLY INFERIOR TO US AND DESERVE DEATH OR OUR OVERLORDSHIP(at best) type of Imperial Japanese propaganda that went hand in hand with the Imperial japanese military?
You SHOULD resist China because if you don't you will be turned into a Communist hellhole. And while its true that US forces will defend Japan in such an event; you do need your own forces and I'm afraid the JDF isn't quite up the task of fully fending off a Chinese invasion force. Dont throw the baby out with the bathwater, as we say. As long as its controlled, as long as the military is FULLY under the control of the civilian government, and the abide by the laws of war, I see no problem with Japan having a military. South Korea has a POWERFUL military for example. The situations are quite different but still.
@@烏梨師斂 yeah their action speak Something different. Throughout the years the nationalist side of japan gets more and more popular and their action to rename the conditions of how their army can exist just re-writen.
My grandfather was a p.o.w. He worked in the railroad death camps. He only survived because a Japanese officer basically kept him as a pet , they had boxing/fighting matches between starving prisoners. My grandfather was a boxer and he was this particular officer’s champion. He said the Japanese were not only cruel, but they made everything sport. Each trying to out do the other guys cruelty. Every time they lost a battle the prisoners would get beat or starved. How he had the physical strength to endure in those conditions is mind blowing.he volunteered with a group of family and friends, he was the only one to return.mexican Americans from sinton Texas.
Very few Japanese ( in relation to number of the crimes committed) faced consequences for their actions during and after the war. Russia prosecuted 11 and they went off to Siberia.
US saved horrifying number of war criminals from both Japan and Germany
@@kostam.1113 That is certainly the case..But far more numbers of Germans have been relentlessly hunted, prosecuted and faced trial for their actions than known complicite Japanese war criminals.
Here’s a link to a Chinese propaganda film made during the Korean War that alleges that the US used the knowledge gained from Japanese biological atrocities against the ppl in what’s now North Korea & bordering areas of China: ua-cam.com/video/eZNHRjrSzfs/v-deo.html
Anyone ever wonder if the allies prosecuted so few Japanese war criminals because they didn’t value the lives of Asian civilians as high as those of European ancestry?
@@kostam.1113 It was either that, or the things they learned would be for nothing and the deaths of those people would have meant nothing
@Seawolf Thanks for the reply...very accurate info!
It's weird to think how a modern, democratic country like Japan could have commited crimes like this less than 100 years ago.
Japan commited those things only about 90 years after being "rediscovered" still clinging to feudalism, swords and spears. They also had a religion like that of the ancient pagan empires, where the ruler is actually divine. Makes more sense now? In Europe Christianity mostly did away with treating rulers like gods, hence we can treat 3rd Reich as a pagan rebellion against christianity, liberalism and socialism. Prussian absolutism was quite pagan too, with all the Hegelian philosophy.
@@jancyraniak Christianity didn't wipe Europe of brutality. How about the crusades?
@@blahblahblahblah2837 Seriously? This puny counterattack against a many century old onslaught is supposed to be the biggest example of European brutality? There were bigger ones, but that's beside the point, as I was talking about influence of Christianity onto pagan Europe. That influence was never full. Europe is a result of mixing Christianity with paganism. A knight was literally that - a pagan warrior modified to fit Christian ideals.
@@jancyraniak Alright, how about the Catholic Inquisitions?
@@blahblahblahblah2837 Same thing, but with a twist: being victims of pagan tribunals for almost 300 years and then coming under persecution of Arian emperors and then under siege by the crescent moon religion, the Catholics were eager to ensure religious stability of their societies. Kind of like US did to Japanese Americans, but more bloody, because it was medieval ages.
It's hard to scratch the surface in one hour for the magnitude of the atrocities of the Imperial Japanese Forces but if anyone can do it you can.
Thanks Mark.
This fascinating and disturbing hour long video has more vital information than an entire non fiction book does.
Someone help this man get a Netflix series
Yup
@Jimmy Shaker sadly true nowadays...
He doesn't need a Netflix series he's doing just fine here.
Oh great point don’t think Netflix would go for it they like the Obamas to much and little girls
Jimmy Shaker 😂😂🤣🤣
Up for the next hour, definitely ....
My great uncle was captured by the Japanese and escaped. He was put in a hole in the ground and Japanese soldiers would relieve themselves on him several times a day. He held a lot of hatred for japanese people and would go out of his way to avoid them at all costs in the states until the day he passed.
During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the U.S. military ran over Japanese prisoners of war with caterpillars. After the war, it was published in the American magazine Life.
@@azurecliff8709
LIAR And War Revisionist.
@@azurecliff8709That's pretty tame compared to for example raping little Chinese girls with bayonets. The Japanese didn't invent war crimes but they sure weren't shy about perpetuating the practice.
@@conmereththe American soldiers in the Pacific beheaded Japanese prisoners and took their heads back to the states
@@azurecliff8709good
My great-grandmother’s first husband was an American volunteer pilot for the Kuomintang in China, flying the P-40 Tomahawk. He was shot down in mainland China, captured by the Japanese as an POW, and beheaded by a Japanese officer.
RIP
I recall my undergraduate professor in British Imperial History who was veteran of D-Day, said that he was absolutely terrified at the prospect of having to fight the Japanese.
He fought against the Nazi's, yet he was still terrified? Goes to show just how brutal an hypothetical invasion of Japan would have been...
@@DakotaofRaptors The Nazis were more discriminatory.Assuming that prof was of some Germanic stock he'd be given the Geneva Convention treatment.
@@DakotaofRaptors The shores of Japan would have been piled with Allied corpses, essentially. Especially because the Emperor had a policy ready to go mobilize every man, woman and child that could hold a gun, as well as factories producing little scrap and wood rifles.
"There's no shame away from home," goes an old Japanese saying.
Is that actually a saying?
@@Ditka-89 Yes.
Kind of like our saying, “what mama doesn’t know, can’t hurt her.”
Something America practised in Vietnam
@@jacobjorgenson9285 Fact check: false, but thanks for the whataboutism.
My cousin survived the Bataan March. My grandfather told me he was never the same
Your cousin? Do you mean your grandfather's cousin?
@@DaSpineLessFish my gf cousin.. or my cousin
of course they did. That march nobody had enough resources for themselves you idiot, even the japanese soldiers suffered
@@DaSpineLessFish
it was santa! these guys make up all sorts of bullshit
Here in the Philippines (Davao City), the elderly still remembers that the Japanese Soldiers dare to kill a child by throwing the child in the air and stab it using a bayonet.
My grandfather was a young 10-14yo during the WWII years. He became a peaceful missionary and methodist minister, learned to speak multiple languages, and dedicated his life to others of different races and cultures to his own
In the last weeks of his life 60 years later he was ill and starting to lose his sharp mind a bit on his death bed. He would routinely curse and deride his Asian American nurse in his confused state, mistakenly believing her to be Japanese and fearing for his safety around her. It was that ingrained in his psyche from his childhood in Minnesota hearing the horror stories about the Imperialist Japanese. A life of multicultural pacifism wasn't even enough to undo it, justifiably so.
Try to read “American mutilation of Japanese war dead” on Wikipedia !!! 😫😫😫
@@maxdula6400
MORE Revisionist BS 💩
@@maxdula640035:00 was this an accident
@@maxdula6400It all pales in comparison to what the Japanese did. Japan's whitewashed version of its history is nothing short of shameful.
One thing you forgot to mention Mark is that Japanese logistics were basic and the rampaging troops lived off the land with very little supplies from the military. This turned the army into an army of medieval Europe which was described as a grub that ate its way through a country. The Japanese army stealing food from local villagers brutality encouraged by officers soon led to brutality spiraling out of control
They were so good at it that Japanese holdouts survived for decades afterwards.
Everyone likes to shit on Germany for it's logistical weakness during the war, but honestly Japan was way worse, considering how common starvation was among it's front line troops
@@hannibalbarca9832 true it also shows how amazing America was at maintaining a two theater supply chain that was thousands of mile long.
Your post rings true. I remember a nice old Japanese lady, a survivor of the Hiroshima A-bomb telling me, her voice trembling with outrage at our whingeing over the Japanese army's hideous treatment of POWS, how the Japanese soldiers only ever got to eat as much as the POWs did.
I'm from Indonesia, the island of Java. My mother would recount of how her mother (my grandma) would express extreme hatred towards the Japanese in her later years. She lived through the Romusha in Java and would "prefer" being under the Dutch colonization if both times were to be compared.
And that says a lot because the dutch were awful too. Im still disgusted about my own country history in asia.
@@nielsgroothedde8038 and some people in Sarawak wish it was under Britain than the Malaysia. We're only given less than 10 percent of oil royalty while our jungles become palm oil plantations every year and top level corruption. By law a minister or elected elected official can't do business while still in office. Now we have Wolf of Wall Street.
...and then a Japanese collaborator became the first President of Indonesia.
@@Joshua_N-A I visited Sabah in Borneo. We stayed in a village with lovely long houses. The long house we stayed in was on the edge of the village and was only used if visitors came. The locals would not use it as it was built by visiting Japanese students. I was told that the village inhabitants never went near it because of what the Japanese did to the inhabitants of the village 50yrs previous in the war. I didn’t ask what happened and they didn’t want to tell. God only knows.
and now Indonesia is totally f*cked, under the rule of Islam.
Thank you Dr. Felton for shedding light on the sacrifices made by British, Commonwealth, Chinese, and American soldiers and civilians. I don't think we'll fully understood just how much they suffered.
And Dutch. why do people always leave us out ?
@@010Jordi To be honest, Dutch was more German than German. Today, the most conscientious objectors in all of Europe.
Don’t forget Brazil
Canadian. We’re not just “part of the Commonwealth.” We are our own country and we sent more men to help Britain basically singlehandedly take on Germany and Italy for years before America and Russia got involved.
And then there’s all our sacrifices and victories in The Great War too.
@@JesusFriedChrist Too bad the infantry did not go beyond Denmark, all the way to Finland. We had to liberate ourselves a bit like in a German prison where prisoners are given keys.
Several relatives served in the Asian theater of war. When talking to my uncles they all told me the same story. German POWs were treated poorly but the Germans never ate their prisoners!
They probably ate soviets though
@@ContendCreatorsThey didn't even do that
Not even the Soveits ate Germans
Not even the Russians are eating Ukrainians as far as we know
That's how bad the Japanese were
Wait cannibalism? I mean seriously did they do that? I'm pretty versed in what IJM did during wartime but that's a whole level if true. They really were just animals huh?
The boundary between civilisation and barbarism is so fragile.
@Dessy Duke Lecker
The universe is barbaric. You have to work to stay alive. Welcome to reality.
Taufik hidayat.
Tu l'as dit Bouffi ! il suffit de montrer une fiole vide avec un sourire idiot et dire qu'il vient d'un pays terroriste et que c'est du gaz sarin ..... et badaboum c'est partit le massacre commence !
wargent99
I would not be surprised if Shaw was paraphrasing someone else’s attitude rather than expressing his own views; but I’m no expert on Shaw.
Dessy Duke Lecker
That makes no sense whatsoever.
My uncle Kenneth Yong of the Singapore Volunteer Corp was executed with many more of his unit (The Kings Chinese) on Changi beach in early Feb 1942. It was after the surrender so all these volunteer reservists just went back to their homes as they had no specific orders from command. One nigh they were rounded up by the Japanese army. None of them were seen again.
Kenneth Yong, thank you for your sacrifice.
Not all Japanese Soldiers obeyed orders without question. One of my Enlisted Bosses in the Air Force had been stationed in Japan back in the later 50's. He was telling us a story about the landlord of the apartment he rented off base. He took the time to learn Japanese and got friendly with the gentleman and after a couple of years they go into the habit sitting down and talking over the local beer or a bottle of Jack Daniels (hard to get in Japan at the time except at an American Base). The older man told him about his service in the Japanese Army in 1942-45 when he turned 17 and got drafted. He told him that there had been lots of political indoctrination about obedience to the Emperor and his Officers. But when he got into the Army he couldn't believe how brutal they were treated. Every day everyone was given orders, constant and changing orders to obey. If you didn't rush to obey in a heartbeat you were hit with sticks by the NCO's or Officers, beaten by your peers, or put on punishment details (which he refused to talk about as it still gave him nightmares.) Everything was about Duty, Obedience, and Death. The first time he got into combat was during an attack on a Chinese position. A couple hundred of the Chinese Soldiers surrendered after several days of fighting and his group was ordered to bayonet them for surrendering as his Officers said they weren't really honorable soldiers. Many of his fellow soldiers had emotional problems after that event and several were executed in his unit for refusing further orders to execute prisoners. He learned to bottle up his emotions and survive. He eventually ended up on Okinawa in 1945, but was able to survive after his Officers and Senior Enlisted killed themselves as they were losing the fight. He hid out with other soldiers and surrendered to the Americans several weeks after the end of the war. He said that it was the worst experience of his life and he felt no honor in the stuff he was forced to do. Many Japanese are ashamed about the War and though Nationalists will push their BS War Propaganda just like the Confederate "Lost Cause" (The US started the war on the poor downtrodden Japanese People.) most Japanese really don't believe it and just don't t want to talk about it.
goddamn... thank you for sharing this.
Nice story mate, if only such stories were told widely and shared by the actual people, it would go a long way to lessening the hatred towards the Japanese.
I don't believe that,
@@iainlindsay5687 take it with a grain of salt, if you will, but there probably stories out there far more brutal than this one.
That’s the first time I’ve heard of one of them having a conscience.
But, I guess you could compare that to what’s going on in Eastern Europe right now.
mid 1970s Australia ,my maths teacher Mr Austin HATED the Japanese so much he refused to drive a Japanese made vehicle ,it wasnt till a friends father explained what happened in Papua New Quinea to Mr Austin that we understood ,i could never make eye contact with him after that conversation ,i felt deep pity for him having to deal with that experience
Every nation that has ever existed has done things that are despicable. Don’t pull any punches mark. Keep telling it how it happened
Exactly, even tiny nations like Bhutan, Nepal, Wales, Ireland, Peru E.T.C have done something horrific.
@@Jordan-bb4xt It's a matter of degree. The Japanese were unequivocally brutal victors over tens of millions of people in the South Pacific and China.
You have no fking idea. ua-cam.com/video/932meyERyFQ/v-deo.html watch their own reaction and make the judgment yourself.
@@Jordan-bb4xt You have no fking idea. ua-cam.com/video/932meyERyFQ/v-deo.html watch their own reaction and make the judgment yourself.
Every nation committed massacres, but Japan was on another level
I had two great uncles stationed in the Philippines, they both survived the Death March. One was killed on a Japanese transport back to the mainland by American aircraft while the other brother was spared. The surviving brother, my great uncle Johnny, had his story published in the Baton Rouge, L.A. Paper. The sad thing was that nobody in my family had read it including my journalist father. It was the most space in a newspaper that I've ever seen allotted to a veteran account of war and was absolutely riveting. I will never forget their sacrifice!
a daring raid on the fridge took place just before i started this video
I hope it was successful.
Excellent
Same here many brave men fell, but the mission was a success.
@@patricianoftheplebs6015 one day, mark fellton may tell the tale of our exploits
But did you hum the intro tune?
this is a jewel of a channel , thank you for your work !
As a child I was at the swimming pool and saw a man whose back was a mesh of scars - an ex-prisoner of the Japanese. Another old boy had moved to Japan in 1916 as the British military attache and stayed there for twenty years. We talked about Japanese war time cruelty and he pointed out that in the 1904 war and the attack on Port Arthur a lot of Russians were taken prisoner after much intense fighting these prisoners were treated humanely. I think that the cruelty was down to intense obedience in the Japanese army combined with the interwar adoption of Japanese political fascism.
Ian Toll in his phenomenal trilogy on the Pacific War goes to lengths to contrast this. That in a generation, how the Japanese military went from - Emperor Meiji's Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors which included "The soldier and the sailor should esteem valor …. To be incited by mere impetuosity to violent action cannot be called true valor. The soldier and the sailor should have sound discrimination of right and wrong, cultivate self-possession, and form their plans with deliberation. Never to despise an inferior enemy or fear a superior, but to do one’s duty as soldier or sailor-this is true valor. Those who thus appreciate true valor should in their daily intercourse set gentleness first and aim to win the love and esteem of others. If you affect valor and act with violence, the world will in the end detest you and look upon you as wild beasts. Of this you should take heed. " - to the awful brutality and disregard for life, civilian or military, is truly astonishing.
Toll states it wasn't really the high command in as much as the hotheads among the mid-level officers forcing their superiors to "act" to "save face." However, I cannot believe that Hirohito did NOT know what was going on, when he often approved of the plans put together by the High Command. His excuse that by nature of Constitutional Monarchy, He could not interfere in consensual decisions taken by the cabinet somehow seems hollow to me. But thanks to MacArthur, a little too late now. I suspect it was with the same rationale that the Allies used former Nazi scientists in the missile program.
@@guhalakshmiratan5566 of course Hirohito knew what was going on. When he died Britain and the rest of the commonwealth pointedly didn't lower their flags at the UN to half mast. If there is a hell Hirohito is burning in it
The Japanese were the OPPOSITE of Fascists, the Fascists were a far left Italian Socialist party, Mussolini hated the monarchy, the church and the big capitalists.
However he needed the support of the monarchy to remain in power and the church was very popular with the people, so though he controlled the means of production, by absolute power he found the Soviet destruction of their economy counterproductive, so he kept business owners in their positions as long as they did exactly what they were told.
The Japanese were the opposite they supported the Monarchy, and the religion.
@Ich Bin Unkonventionell! I disagree, in National Socialist Germany the government had ABSOLUTE control, you did what you were told or your business was nationalized and you went to a camp.
The Reich commissar, had an iron control over ALL prices and wages.
@Ich Bin Unkonventionell! Thats part of the story, indeed the national socialists were backed by mostly the SAME capitalists that put the international socialists in power in the soviet union, however the German capitalists were ABSORBED by the state and put under TOTAL control.
The removal of the SA gave the national socialists the support of the German general staff, but did not change their socialist policys regarding
business AT ALL, they continued to have absolute control over business wages and prices.
All political maneuvering was a means unto an end to allow the swift expansion into lebensraum, and then into a full socialist state.
The national socialists were, like the Fascists voted into power, they did NOT have a revolution and so their path to their form of socialism was different to that which occurred in the Soviet Union where power was seized by an armed coup.
About 10 years ago after reading the books "Knights of Bushido" and "Rape of Nanking" I ended up on a chat site that discussed Japanese brutality. The majority of Japanese insisted that their soldiers were not any worse than any other nation involved in WW2. I guess it is fair to say that today's Japanese people who have not experienced WW2 will think that because that's why they are told by their media and in school.
Southeast Asians were treated like animals by Europeans and worked as slaves for hundreds of years. The Japanese defeated the Europeans, took them prisoners, and treated them like animals. Are the worst Japanese people?
Of course they defend what their country did in world war 2, they never changed
@@fort809 neither have americans
@@fort809americans did worse in the past 20 years
@@me_12-vw1viyou are actually insane if u think we have done worse
Taking one life is too many. Torture and brutally is something that must never be forgotten by whoever it was afflicted by.
It seems Bush, Cheney and their administration's AG disagree. Unfortunately.
@@a5cent Waterboarding terrorists is good, actually.
@@natowaveenjoyer9862 And what sort of misguided bloodlust makes you think that?
What "good" aim does it achieve?
@@a5cent
>And what sort of misguided bloodlust makes you think that?
Wanting to defeat the enemies of America is bloodlust now? Guess I've got the lust.
>What "good" aim does it achieve?
Stopping stuff like 9/11. And, terrorist scum deserve it.
@@natowaveenjoyer9862 Yup. As I suspected.
Every US study on this issue, including CIA internal reviews, has shown we received absolutely no actionable intelligence by torturing prople. People just say whatever they think their torturers want to hear to make the pain stop. The entire WMD narrative, which we now know was fabricated, was "extracted" from a man under torture and then used to dupe the UD public into supporting an illegal war.
Do you have any idea what the best way to recruit terrorists has been for the last 20 years? Of course you don't, but ask anyone in the middle east and they will tell you that pictures of Americans torturing Arabs, without trial or any form of justice system, has entirely replenished their ranks. There are just as many terrorists today, after 20 years of wasted military effort, as there were 20 years ago. Torture has achieved the exact opposite effect of what you think it has.
I am sorry, but your beliefs are extremely juvenile and misguided, not to mention evil and anti christian. If there is a hell, it is people with your views who belong there.
For a fraction of the cost we could have shmoozed the middle east out if the belief that Americans are evil bastards who Allah justifiably wants to see dead. Instead we just reinforced that perception.
Torture does not stop 9/11 events. It just makes more terrorists. Now all they need is another Bin Laden with money.
Conscripts in the IJA were referred to as “1-yen, 5-ren” which was the cost of the post card to notify their family of their death in the war. Additionally, Japan abandoned many of these soldiers overseas - they were legally declared dead and were in their own to make their way home after the war ended. Japanese soldiers were also used by the French as guards in Indochina and Nationalist Chinese as soldiers since they were left behind. The Japanese movie “The Ants” (lit: Ant Soldiers) is a good snapshot of how Japanese soldiers acted in China during the war as it follows a veteran in his trip back to his wartime duty location.
We get bombarded by films about D-Day and so on and the unbelievable horrors that happened in the east are barely mentioned at all let alone analyzed and explained so meticulously. Amazing work!
What? There's like 2 movies about the D-day and a couple dozens of movies about the war in Pacific - many of them quite new. And they analyze the Japanese cruelty well. Check out "Unbroken", the new "Midway" and miniseries "Pacific".
Watch “letters from Iwo Jima” it gives you a good look at how they operated in WWII
@@carldorsey2604 Right, how could I have forgotten about that one?
I think schools leave a lot of the Pacific side out of it other than pear harbor bc that’s the reason we went to war supposedly. I think they focus more on Germany bc of how brutal and graphic the pacific war was. I think it would mess a 5th or 6th grader up a little bit if he heard about pows genitalia being copped off and what not. It’s a pretty bad part of the war even the Japanese try and cover it up
@@jancyraniak Hacksaw Ridge has some points that highlight the difference between the American and Japanese attitudes at the time also.
Only 3 minutes in and I find it difficult to continue. What a disgusting and shameful legacy.
Sors de ton trou mon pauvre christophe !
@@siriusjean-marie8032 Par chance, je suis le patron.
Dw, other countries have terrible legacies, too
@@Red-ki4tk Duh............
no kidding!
@@Red-ki4tk umm, i think even the soviet were better the them. Only germany because of the holocoust
Tol plantation, New Guinea. The Japanese may have forgotten what happened there but the locals havent.
Everyone in Asia didn't forget.
If China gets a chance it will annex Japan, first chance it gets. Japanese and US both know it.
@@toddhellyar4167 you saying as if it's nothing
My uncle found the partially eaten body of his dead brother on the Kokoda track in New Guinea, he said from then on surrendering Japanese were just target practice.