Interestingly, China claims to have discovered a herb-based cure. The researchers claim it was based on a local-remedy used by the Viet Minh and Vietcong in the 50s and 60s
In Feb 1942, in what was eventually called the Banka Island massacre, Japanese machine gunned 22 Australian nurses and 60 Australian and English service men. These allied service personal had just survived the sinking by torpedo of a hospital ship by a Japanese sub. The survivors were rounded up on shore. Then they were forced to stand in the surf, backs to the ocean and were gunned down. Three - one nurse and two soldiers, though wounded managed to survive. Had they not, we would never have known about it. If that isn’t deliberately targeting medical personal, nothing is.
Yes, the Japanese targeted our "corpsman" and army "medics" That has been well documented in many personal journals of Marines and Soldiers in the pacific. I've spoken as a Marine to many Old Breed Marines and they have told me the our Corpsman used to take off as much insignia and medic indicators as they could to blend in with the Marines.
@@blackman5867wasn’t necessary, but an invasion of Japan would have costed many American lives. Their fighting doctrine and ferocity/fighting spirit was incredibly terrifying imo.
The rise of Tojo and the Military Dictatorship of Imperial Japan is something that is often overlooked in history and it’s a shame as I think there is a lot to be learned especially when compared to other rising dictatorships at the time.
Unfortunately the Japanese education system actively suppresses and revises their actions during WW2. Japanese tourists who visit Pearl Harbor are often shocked to learn that Japan initiated the first strike against the U.S.
As far as weakening morale and justice, the intentional shooting at medics or corpsman actually would anger the units they were assigned to help. I heard of a story from WW2 (forgot if it was Europe or Pacific Theater) where upon suspecting that a machine gun nest was purposely shooting at the medic or corpsman, the grunts or infantry unit attacked the position like angry hornets.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In war, a person can see them being shot or bombed as "fair" (not literally but it can be seen as necessary) but intentionally denying the opportunity of saving hundreds or thousands of fellow men is unforgivable (Especially when you would treat your enemy's medics respectfully).
@@RomanTheNotARoman “do unto others” I wish we would’ve shot a few of their Red Cross, I bet if we did they would instantly start arguing “that’s not aloud” after killing ours
Pretty ludicrous. Why wouldn't Japanese shoot medics, people whose job is to put wounded soldiers back into action??? Before WW2, medics had limited capacity, since treatment was limited and we didn't have penicillin or widespread blood plasma transfusion methods. Their job actually involved taking decapitated soldiers to get their limbs amputated or carrying corpses for proper burial, hence not really threats. In ww2, medics kept fighting units going and were exceedingly crucial. Shooting them is 100% justified, just as America would bomb and kill supply lines whose only job was to nourish the soldiers on the front line and keep them fighting. How is a medic any different from a military truck driver? Nowadays, the US blows up families of 'terrorists' and calls it Neutering the opponent, I don't really get this Geneva convention hypocrisy.
My father liberated a Japanese POW camp in 1945. After what he saw there, he completely dismissed the Japanese as human beings. After they retired my mother got interested in travelling and they went all over Asia - but never Japan. Once they had a stopover in Tokyo which could have been used to take a quick trip into Narita town and look at temples or something, but dad just sat in the airport and glared at everyone. Just before he died his mind went and I remember a huge explosion at the dinner table once because the Japanese rugby team happened to be on the television behind us. Until then he'd pretty much kept quiet about it, but his inhibitions went.
That's sad how he could not see Japanese as fellow people, and carried on that hate all his life. The US has its share of war atrocities, and I don't think that's an excuse to see Americans as non-humans. I wonder what he thought of Germany.
@@larshofler8298 He never had the same attitude towards Germans, but then he never liberated a concentration camp either. I think the sight of guys that would have been robust in normal life reduced to half their body weight had a huge effect on him. I don't know what if anything they said to him that they might've also influenced him by explaining what it was like to be a prisoner of the Japanese. He was a person of his time and racist or at least bigoted towards people that didn't look like him, all of which he managed to get rid of later in life - but never the Japanese thing. You are correct it's sad but ...
@@bobmetcalfe9640 I see where he was coming from. I've encountered elderly Chinese and Korean people who survived/served in the war against Japanese invasion, and some of them shared that hatred towards the Japanese. Interesting story though, one that I saw in the news, one elderly Chinese man sued the Japanese government (or maybe one of the Japanese corporations that participated in Imperial Japanese atrocities), and it took place in a court in Japan. So he flew to Japan, and he was overwhelmed by how nice and friendly the Japanese were. His Japanese lawyers sincerely wanted to help him win the case. After seeing all that, he dropped his lawsuit, and let go of his hatred. probably because he was treated so badly as a prisoner in the Japanese labour camp, but when he visited Japan, he was treated with respect and equality. That changed him.
@@larshofler8298 I was in Hong Kong once on vacation and found that the elderly Chinese didn't particularly like Japanese tourists. I guess given what the Japanese did in China, including Hong Kong, it's excusable. I hope that we can all get to a better place in the future.
Two family stories; my great-uncle, William Lee McMillan, was captured on Corregidor Island in May 1942. He was with Company M, 4th Marine Regiment. He languished in Bilibid Prison for nearly three years. Ulcers in his eyes rendered him virtually blind. Malaria paralyzed him from the waist down. Yet, he survived. At least in body, and just barely. He, and many others, were rescued during the Battle of Manila in 1945. He returned home a changed man. The Navy labeled him as 100% disabled. Couldn't hold a job. His only marriage was brief. It did produce a son, but sadly the baby died in less than a year. What's worse, his nephew, my father's father, came home with a Japanese bride! My father and grandmother told how that side of the family was either cold or openly hostile to them. Yet, Uncle Bill was an exception. Grandma recounted that he never raised his voice at her, called her names, or blamed her for what happened to him, but he wouldn't stay in the same room with her for very long. Uncle Bill died at the age of 64. The official cause of death was 'heart failure' but the family knows it was from his captivity. He's buried under a simple headstone in Pennsylvania, but part of Uncle Bill is still in the Philippines. That same grandmother I mentioned earlier, she served the Japanese Red Cross during the war. She, and other nurses, were attached to the Imperial Japanese Army. She had so many stories. What's better, she wasn't shy about telling you about them. Even if you didn't want to hear it. She witnessed the Doolittle Raid in Tokyo! Then was sent to Singapore in 1943, arriving at the docks during a storm that nearly swamped their boat. There she stayed until the formal Japanese surrender. When the Brits and Aussies took control of Singapore, they kept the Red Cross on station to handle the wounded and sick. Grandma had nothing but nice things to say about them. "They were gentlemen! They opened the door for me, and they said, 'Good morning, Ms. Mogami!" Because nurses are officers in most armies, the sentries even saluted her. What's also funny, she also said that she and her staff were trained on the rifle and grenades. Now the hospital had their own guards to maintain order and security. I'm just imagining this 4'10 woman trying to work a Type 38 rifle that's nearly as tall as she was with the bayonet. Grandma said that the only time they were ever expected to pick up a rifle is if the enemy was kicking in the front door of the hospital.
It makes sense she would have been trained to fight. In Japanese culture women traditionally learned to fight (usually with the naginata which in some ways is seen as an elegant feminine weapon) to defends castles/estates from attack while the men were away at war Western medieval cities would see the same thing during sieges, though far less formalized, women would help wounded or run water or throw rocks and oil what have you. When you’re cornered and under attack it’s all hands on deck
My Grandfather was part of and survived the Bataan Death March. Until the day he died in his 80’s he’d have PTSD episodes when in the presence of Japanese people. It was sad to see. He told me some of the stories about what the soldiers did to many of the prisoners. Some of them laughing as they tortured and killed. Truly horrific stuff that you can’t believe that one human being could do that to another. I still get choked up remembering what he said.
I once heard a Bataan veteran describe a Japanese soldier killing a pregnant Filipino woman and her unborn baby by cutting open her stomach with a bayonet
I had a great aunt, the only survivor of her family, her husband and children were Murdered by the Japanese, in the Philippines 🇵🇭 the day she found out my father had purchased a Toyota, I learned words I had never heard before! I was 13, and I was shocked! She was saved by US Army Paratroopers who liberated the Civilian Interment Camp adjacent to a POW Camp. 6 years later one of those Paratroopers was a distinguished guest at an event at Fort Bragg. I got to meet him and shake his hand.
growing up and being exposed largely to ww2 media, I was so surprised to learn a few years back that Japan's ww1 POW camps were almost resort-like in attitude, and how far they fell under military rule into the horror stories we hear and now to also see that in medicine too
@@saracchi1515 I'm sure the Ainu and Emishi and others would be so glad to hear that ancient history never happened. Military fanaticism and oppression wasn't new
My father bought a new color television in 1973 marketed in the U.S. under the brand name MGA. When my cousin Phil found out it was in fact manufactured by Mitsubishi, he was very upset. Like many young American men who served in the Pacific in WW2, he saw the tremendous cruelty and inhumanity of the Japanese thirty years earlier. Obviously it never left him.
When my parents bought a Mitsubishi air conditioner in one of the rooms in my parents house for dinner, my grandpa. He is 89 years old. He saw the new air conditioner unit and asked to make it. When he found out it was made by Mitsubishi, he said he had a strong dislike because of Mitsubishi built too good of airplanes that killed a lot of Americans. He was too young to fight World War 2 but he had brothers that served mostly on home front. But He joins the airforce doing maps.
Civillian employees of Mitsubishi used forced POW labor and often murdered and tortured them. I will never own a Mitsubishi product and when i see a car on the road that is a mitsubishi that is the first thing that comes to mind. Its hard to reconcile and put the past behind us because very few Japanese war criminals were brought to justice and to this day. In their schools they leave out the atrocities of Japan and make it out like they were the victims and we were the bad guys for nuking them.
Speaking of Japan's relationship with Buddhism, Buddhist Warrior Monks were prevalent in their history. Most notably during their Warring States Period 1467 to 1615 where various Buddhist sects act no differently like Feudal Lords of the time. Each with their own Temple Fortresses, fiefs, and armies that warred against other Feudals lords.
IIRC, the Bushido that was so revered in Japan in during the 30's and during WW2 was a heavily revised, romanticised, and propagandized version of it. This resulted in not only the military of Japan being fanatic to its cause, but would also lead to common misconceptions today of what Bushido actually is, how Samurai warriors are portrayed by contemporary media, and perceptions of Asian culture in general (to an extent, i.e. stereotypes). The most notorious example of all being the concept of honor.
Oh completely corrupted version of honor during the war for certain. Bushido is a very loose and broad historic term analogous to chivalry in a sense. Many parts of the country or clans, etc, had entirely different forms of bushido or warrior codes.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsqno honour out there...judging by the atrocities committed in Hong Kong..( a spirited fight by the Canadian battalion there in 1941..) , Singapore, and the Admin box in Burma...
In a PhD thesis in 2011, Oleg Benesch produced overwhelming evidence against the view that “bushido was a centuries-old code of behavior rooted in the historical samurai class and transmitted into the modern period”. Instead, Benesch demonstrated, “the concept of bushido was largely unknown before the last decade of the nineteenth century, and was widely disseminated only after 1900” Oleg Benesch further explains that historical source material and extant scholarship demonstrates there is no evidence for “a single, broadly-accepted, bushi-specific ethical system at any point in pre-modern Japanese history”. Benesch cites professor Yamamoto Hirofumi of the University of Tokyo arguing that, in Benesch’s words, “there were no written works which large numbers of samurai could have used to understand the ‘way of the warrior’”. Bushido, as a warrior code, simply did not exist. In fact Benesch also says “The term ‘bushidō’ has not been found in any medieval texts, and the consensus among historians is that no comparable concepts existed at the time under any other name”. Consequently, Benesch writes, “Current historians of medieval Japan do not consider bushidō a useful exegetical tool, and it is rarely found in their scholarship”. The historical fiction of a centuries old bushido code was almost entirely the product of two very different men, a Japanese Christian named Nitobe Inazō, and an anti-Christian Japanese philosopher named Inoue Tetsujirō. Nitobe’s work, originally published in English, convinced generations of Western scholars, while Inoue’s writings, which sold millions of copies in Japan, became the foundation of a nationalist cult of militarization and imperialism. While Japanese leaders seized eagerly on Inoue’s newly invented bushido, actual historical sources were neglected. Benesch writes “Pre-Meiji texts had little influence on the early development of modern bushidō”, noting that they were only cited selectively to support recently established preconceived views. Dr Rober H. Sharf of the University of California Berkeley likewise writes “The fact that the term bushidö itself is rarely attested in premodern literature did not discourage Japanese intellectuals and propagandists from using the concept to explicate and celebrate the cultural and spiritual superiority of the Japanese”.
Even during the days of feudal Japan, samurai "honor" is something of a joke. Men acted in their personal interests, and that meant betrayal was a regular thing.
After the end of the Russo-Japanese War, Japan began to hate the Western world. Because the Japanese felt that the Western world favored Russia and deliberately suppressed Japan from negotiating a more favorable armistice position with Russia. Ironically, it was American mediation that saved the whole of Japan from national bankruptcy and enabled an honorable end to the war. In the time that followed, with the American decree banning Japanese immigration and the dissolution of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, as well as the increasingly harsh criticism of Japan's invasion in China by the Western world, especially the United States, Japan felt that it had never been respected by the Western world, which tried by all means to turn Japan into a third-rate country. So, until Pearl Harbor, Japanese society was filled with hatred for the Western world after a long period of government propaganda. The consequence of this hatred was that in the Philippines, Hong Kong, the Malay Peninsula, and the Dutch East Indies this hatred turned into extreme cruelty toward Westerners, both military and civilian, by the Japanese military. The Japanese mistreated the local indigenous population because the Japanese felt they were inferior people. The Japanese mistreated Western prisoners of war and civilians because the Japanese felt that Westerners had never treated Japan as an equal.
The civilians didn't the military was just completely fucking nuts the were the root cause of the countries woes of the time they had military installations embedded into Central civilian populations convince them of suicide hell if it wasn't for the efforts of those who wanted the war to end and those who stopped the military from pulling a coup and seizing complete control from the government they would have actually continued fighting
American re-education campaigns did a lot. People have a misconception that they were just left alone after dropping the nukes and turned their emperor into a figure head thinking that was all happened to them.
If you look at history post WW1. You easily find many points that led to the rise of such brutal dictatorships. They all stem from egos of the Allies from WW1, as well as brutal attempts to make it so that a WW2 would never come about. Japan had just a whiplash due to their efforts in WW1 with the Allies, being snuffed out and pushed to the side. They felt ignored, which led to the people being more willing to accept military dictatorship. Just as Italy turned for feeling betrayed. The end if WW1 and the rise of facism, communism, and military dictatorships tells many stories that should not be forgotten lest we do the same for the next big war that comes upon us.
My grandfather used to tell me stories his father told him about the pacific war. He told me about how once a Japanese soldier was running at my great grandfather with a sword and he blew half his head off with a shotgun. The part that disturbed me was my great grandfather knew a little bit of Japanese and was screaming at him saying "DROP IT" until he was like 10 feet from my great grandfather. He was taught that Japanese soldiers were savages with a total disregard for human life.
Wait there's Shotguns in the Pacific theatre?!... Then call of duty: world at War Pacific campaign was right! Got me wondering if it's either an auto-5 or a trench gun your great grandfather used... Imma look into it since Shotguns in the Pacific (to me) is rare or non-existent topic
A Japanese combat medic was taught to sever a severely wounded soldiers jugular vein, so the soldier did not become a burden to his unit. Horrible times
@@CharlesNauckSounds like bs propaganda. Usually these sort of defectors would lie and say anything to get their green card. Case in point a recent defector Guowen gui was in fact arrested by American authorities for scamming Americans. He too publish and told a lot of BS about the CPC. There is also the fact the Chinese pows from the Korean War also never stated anything remotely close to what your so called “Soviet doctor” “witnessed”. On the other hand South Korean troops burning down hospital filled with wounded was very well documented by both sides similarly with North Korea POW camps being run as torture camps that resulted in said camps being replaced by Chinese ones. PS the lack of sufficient evidence is enough to invalidate the validity of a claim
@@CharlesNauck Pretty much he has every reason to lie to a "medic" assuming u were in the military. Do note also in the 80s there was also the Sino-soviet split, even more telling that it is a lie is that it goes counter to the esprit-de-corps of the PLA of no man left behind and unproven by any accounts from the PLA or their enemies. Also this "claim" reminds me of a similar FLG piece of exploding PLA helmets containing every aspect of dehumanization and ridiculousness that these sort of propaganda possesed. Therefore all signs point to a desperate green card seeker that is willing to sprout whatever BS that can keep their job. Besides do note that the American medical system had never recognized their Soviet (or Russian for that matter) counterparts as sufficient for cross border practice in the US. I can list more than a dozen people who immigrated to the US with a Russian practicing license but were forced to switch professions because of the different systems.
I’m surprised you failed to mention Dr. Ben Salomon on Saipan. His aid station was being overrun by Japanese soldiers who sought to kill the wounded there. His MoH citation is quite a read.
Absolutely. I struggled picking just a couple of examples of warcrimes/brutality. Hard to summarize them really. It's tricky making these videos such a short length. I am often restricted by computer processing power or video clips/copyright material I can access.
The killings at the Singapore hospital including shooting a surgical team during and operation then bayoneting the patient to death. A similar thing happened when Japan tried to invade India where patients and medical staff well killed. There was a case of a German sniper who killed a doctor at a British field hospital in 1944. As the tents where the doctor was killed all had big white circles with red crosses on them the sniper could not claim ignorance for his actions so this meant he had deliberately targeted the hospital. He was soon captured but it was obvious the sniper did not regret his actions and he thought he would get away with it just by spending time in prison. So the commanding officer took out his pistol and shot the sniper dead.
The battle of the Admin box in Burma is a stain among many on the Japanese....the revenge after the massacre in the Admin box at Blood Nullah was the least the Anglo Indian Fourteenth army could do at the time..not many Japanese were taken prisoner after that
@@eamonnclabby7067 Thanks, Eamonn. It has been sometime since I read about it so I could not remember the details. So thank you for adding them. I did see an interview with a British soldier who saw the aftermath of the Admin Box and was deeply affected by it. He expressed the opinion that as far as he was concerned the Americans should have carried on dropping nuclear bombs until there was nothing left of Japan.
From all the research I’ve done on the Japanese during WWII, there are no excuses that can be given for the malice, ruthlessness, and cruelty they inflicted upon the world. There are, however, reasons why. And just as the opening of this code states, it CANNOT be understated the deep extent to which the Japanese military intelligencia of the time coerced and manipulated the will of the Japanese people in the name of Emperor and empire. The words of the Emperor were spoken by the Emperor, yes, but they were REINTERPRETED and TWISTED by the men around him to further the agenda of a “superior” Asian Empire that they fantasized and fetishized over constantly. In fact, they were so infatuated with their own desires and goals that when the Emperor explicitly stated, himself, IN FRONT OF HIS MILITARY LEADERS and made a RECORDED ORDER THAT HE WISHED TO BE BROADCAST OVER THE RAIDO that he wanted Japan to cease hostilities, some of those very same military leaders gathered their own forces and attempted to destroy that recording before it could reach a radio station, and had even made plans to arrest the Emperor like some common criminal. Yes, these very same leaders who all claimed to be doing what they did in the name of the Emperor tried to SILENCE their Emperor both figuratively and literally when the Emperor made a very tough and very difficult they didn’t like. The fact that there are still some Japanese out there who support and defend these… COWARDS absolutely disgusts me. THEY are the reasons for the monstrosities that Imperial Japan wrought upon the world, and I hope no one - NO ONE - ever forgets this. The Kyūjō Incident. Look it up.
My research on the Americans in WWII is the same. There's no excuse for the pure evil, barbaric, racist and ruthless way in which they fire bombed Tokyo and killed 80,000-130,000 civilians. The Americans were war criminals and got away with it because they won.
With the amount of 9999999999292999038190993017401084088999183017392798362017309272018.99$ hospital existence fee per bill per for each and every person is beyond absurd. Guess why the Japanese Imperial just goes on a strike.
@@cyphergames8743Hirohito was morally a pretty average and maybe even better than average human being. Anyone who is informed would not place any blame on him.
My granduncle fought in Burma from the side of British Indian Army. He did a bayonet charge in a bunker. Later there four Japanese soldiers were found in the bunker stabbed to death, but he went MIA. Our family learnt the incident from his friend who was present there.
Many fine soldiers in the British Indian Army! ================================================= My great-uncle, Captain Benjamin Sparrow, was in the Garhwal Rifles, and killed leading his company at the Battle of Neuve Chappelle in 1915. The Garhwal Rifles still compete to this day for a silver cup he gave the regiment. Only 3 Indian units won 3 Victoria Crosses in WW1 - and the Garhwal Rifles was one of them. No wonder India has 20+ battalion today! .
To think about how much one single change in leadership can turn a whole nation from one idea to the opposite. Honestly, I feel nothing but contempt for the government that made and enforced this change. Those soldiers who committed those acts would have most likely never commited those acts if not for their corrupt malicious dictatorship lording over them. But I'm not going to rant about war crimes. Enough has been said already.
Thanks for adding that and sort of picking up on the theme of my video. Every society now matter how progressive can learn and take caution from these violent social shifts. It's a case study of humanity not just Japan.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Contrast that with the treatment of German and Italian POW,s in England, Canada and the USA...the film The Keeper ,about Bert Troutman was a great snapshot of that awkward period
No, not a single change of leadership. These people had zero Judaic-Christian formation. Single change of leadership to the mesmerizing Hitler may explain how the germans went insane.
They didn't just followed orders, they did that by themselves. I understand you like the japanese today but they did the most terrible things during and before WW2.
The brutalisation of Japanese soldiers and sailors during their training was astonishingly extreme. Also, they believed their emperor was a god and that’s a major bonus when getting people to do horrific acts. Their contempt for British and US soldiers as weak decadents was in stark contrast to their view of Soviet troops who they were genuinely disconcerted by x some arguing it was they and not the bomb that forced the surrender. Sikhs and Gurkhas also put the heebees up the Japaneses military. Totally agree about the “what about-isms stuff’.
British Indian troops terrified Japan because of how equally fanatically brave they were and yet, far better trained (we are talking by 1944). Specially the trench clearing tactics in Burma (using Willie Pete+ Bren gun combo) by the Indians wrecked havoc on even the most well experienced Japanese troops.
@@dragonstormdipro1013 Also later in the war the Brits developed techniques to get Japanese soldiers to surrender using there own indoctrination against they would be asked to surrender in an extremely formal and polite manner and there brainwashing to follow orders from there senior's at all cost and the final part was if they did not surrender the were to reluctantly burn them out of there positions but you understand we are following senior orders ect
My grandfather was in Okinawa invasion. To this day he is still unsure of how he feels about the Japanese, after he saw what they did to the indigenous islanders and other allied soldiers.
@@dumbo21 ... and then watch the same German soldiers become great workers, artists, and even just honorable members of not just their community but the global community in the decades following the war?
@@Eboreg2Japanese did the same, became out standing citizens in U.s. low crime citizens, very little issues in the u.s, or globally. Hard workers. Artist, scientist, entrepreneurs. Germans also performed experiments, tortured, and committed war crimes. Same as Japan. The difference? One was European, the other Asian.
I studied Japanese Language, Culture, and History in college, but focused mainly on pre-Imperial and post-war Japan, as I already had a general idea of Imperial Japan's history and didn't want every grisly detail of the country's most despicable moment in time. I had never heard of Himeyuri until now, and the notion of it is honestly chilling.
In the final hours of the Battle of Hong Kong between the United Kingdom and the Imperial Japanese, the Japanese stormed a field post in St. Stephens College, manned by mainly nurses and filled with injured British soldiers (either from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada or Rajput), in the resulting incident the Japanese forces bayoneted, shot and tortured the injured soldiers and nurses, this incident is now known as "Black Christmas" due to it taking place on December 25th
My grandpa’s brother was an American pilot in WW2, shot down and captured by the Japanese. Near the end of the war he and a bunch of other POWs were loaded onto a freight ship to be transported somewhere else. There was another ship loaded with Japanese weapons, armor and troops that was marked POW. The ship my grandpas brother was on had no POW markings. His ship was attacked by the US and sunk. My grandpas brother and one other American POW floated around until they hit land and eventually made it back to the US.
Respect for medical personnel depends on both sides not targeting medical facilities and workers. When I was in Korea we had medical arm bands. However no one wants to wear one when the shooting starts. How it would be in other military theaters IDK
USS Comfort (AH-6) was an hospital ship stationed off Okinawa for wounded soldiers. She was struk by a kamikaze. The plane went through thee decks eventually exploding in a surgery filled with medical personnel and patients
My grandfather, a soviet infantrymen and artillerymen later has fought through nazis fields, just to be sent later on japanese front. They marched through Gobi desert to meet all the atrocious acts japanese soldiers have done to chinese people. I remember his deep sunken eyes, when he was telling me about how poor chinese were back then. He was telling often about childrens catching sparrows to eat. I think this wound never healed back.
Fires in the Plain is a very good movie. The story is about a Japanese soldier stationed in the Philippines during the time of the Americans' return in 1944. The situation worsens and worsens and men grow desperate. Be warned, it's extremely dark as hell. In his book, "With the Old Breed," Eugene Sledge was with the US Marine Corps. There's a lot of examples of the Japanese even shooting at stretcher bearers. There was also a lot of mutilation of the dead by both sides.
I read that book in college, and when The Pacific came out, I told my dad "They'll never show some of the stuff Sledge described. Not even HBO will show that." They did. Oh boy, they did.
It's important to note that the Bushido as understood in WWII is not the same as traditional Bushido, but a perversion of it. For instance, traditional Bushido called for showing compassion towards one's enemies, something that the WWII era variant clearly did not do. A Japanese soldier from any other era would likely look upon what their WWII era counterparts did with utter contempt.
Bushido never existed as a traditional code of conduct. It was invented at the turn of the 20th century. It was inspired from romanticized and, ultimately, fraudulent ideas that Samurai all followed a specific, honourable code. But there was no single code, each clan just had their own customs.
I got taught about the Japanese treatment of WW2 POWs in history class (specifically Australian POWs, I'm Australian). Those weren't very fun lessons, but I can't deny that they were valuable. It just went to show the depths of human depravity. Starvation, rampant disease, denial of red cross packages, forced hard labour, severe beatings, the atrocities of the Burma-Thailand railway, lack of medical supplies, just to name a few
My education as to the many atrocities committed by the Js, their mindset, sadistic treatment of non combatants and general disregard of anyone not Japanese, has increased manifold. I've read too many articles by historians and veterans, have heard in person accounts from Philipino men and women and watched too many TY videos which all seem consistent in their content about the Japanese in WW2. On top of that, it angers me that Japan hides its past from its people, choosing to portray Japan as a victim. Shooting a medic is tantamount to shooting a child. They are no threat, have only noble motives and are simply doing a very hard job. It makes me sad and angry at the same time.
A medic patches up and returns soldiers to duty. That is not a civilian. That is an active contributior of the war. For thousands of years it's been common to attack supply routes because they directly contribute to the war. Why is this wrong?
Did you seriously ask that? A soldier who has lost an arm, foot, hand, leg, etc. is not going to return to the battlefield. The goal of a medic is to save lives, not to allow someone to return to the front. There is a very good humanitarian reason for the shooting of medics being illegal per the Geneva Convention! You act like every life a medic saves results in a soldier returning to the war. It only depends on the severity of their wounds. If the unit needs as many troops as possible then those with none life-threatening wounds will be sent back; however, this doesn’t mean they go back to assaulting enemy positions. They might be reassigned to the headquarters element of the unit: i.e. they are made a cook, orderly (secretary), or supply personnel. Asking why it’s wrong to shoot medics is like asking why it’s wrong to shoot POWs because POWs can go back to fighting given the chance, and you have to spare troops that are needed at the front in order to guard them. Get out of here with that. You can’t compare shooting someone who’s job it is to save lives to attacking supply lines. At that point why not attack the civilian population because new troops come from the civilian population, and civilians are the ones making the weapons and equipment the military uses. Are you ok with violating all rules set in place for humanitarian reasons like this one because it’s an inconvenience to the war effort? What is wrong with you?
This happened on many battlefields even 70's & 80's. That was the reason why we only had a small badge to indicate that you are a medic. The red cross on our field ambulaces could be turned around with the back painted the same colour as the rest of the vehicle. The reason for this was the the red cross was been used as a target.
I was a corpsman with the US Navy. I wonder if this was the start of nations no longer respecting the medics role and arming us like every other combatant.
My dad's dad and grandfather's dad were both in Burma fighting the Japanese and as far as i'm aware they never spoke about any of it. I never met my grandfather's dad as he died in the 80s a good few years before i was born. My dad's dad i did know but i was never told he was in the war as i was at that curious age, well you are of things and i understood later on in life why i was most likely never told and i fully respected it
Excellent job as always Johnny. Great job giving the Japanese perspective and the 'why' even though it's still mind blowing. Especially the suicide rather than surrender.
I'd absolutely love to see a video about the infamous butterfly knife, or the balisong. It's very prolific in film, everyone knows what they look like but not everyone can tell you their history.
Your research and analysis in these videos are just superb and I can't stress that enough. Lots of good consistent facts, statistics, and examples. One thing I can't get past is your impressive repertoire of movies and tv shows. I'm convinced you have a team to produce these wonderful videos which would explain a collective knowledge of films to reference or do research on.
You say, you're sorry for going off topic in this video, but honestly that made it so much more interesting for me! Especially the part with religion, really interesting stuff. Nice content!
The forgotten 14th Army in Burma meted out summary justice, in particular after the murder of medics and patients during the battle of the Admin box, especially in Blood Nullah...E...
This is one of the most informative videos I've watched. I love all your videos, but this one is one of your best. I had never heard of the Himeyuri until reading Hornfischer's "The Fleet at Flood Tide," which mentions one of those girls on Saipan. She cared for a group of wounded soldiers until they were surrounded, then watched them kill themselves. She tried to kill herself with a grenade, but apparently either it misfired or she miraculously survived it detonating right under her. She woke up in an American hospital and survived the war. Again, fantastic video. Keep them coming!
My great uncle was an Army medic in the 27th Division and was on the Saipan invasion. He told me he NEVER wore a brassard or a marked helmet and always carried a carbine. He just passed away in August at the age of 98. RIP Jack.
@@307180740 You do know that in a lot of wars in the past, governments used conscription. Meaning you are forced to join the military, or face prison time? Or worse in some cases you’d be executed.
Where on earth did you get that footage of Himeyuri 1953??? I've been digging up the internet for anything from it, and all i've got is a dead torrent and a questionable Ebay dvd!
I was a corpsman of marines. Thanks for doing a video for us. Not all navy medics do, but i was the one that ran around with the jar head grunts shooting machine guns and throwing grenades. We don't wear red crosses anymore and the only things that need to be marked with a red cross are medical vehicles and since I was with the combat element I never saw one unless it was dedicated to came pick up a patient. Navy/Marine CASEVACs aren't required to be marked because they are considered a opportunity of lift from any available air or ground vehicle that is available, so they can come in there guns blazing and drop off ammo and supply. Traditional medevacs are marked with a red crosses and cannot drop off ammo or be equipped with machine guns and require an escort if its a dangerous area.
One minor, minor nit to pick. When watching on my TV, the image is correctly letterboarded, but the extreme left side of the image is clipped (presumably right side as well). This results in the loss of several initial characters of the movie title. For example, the initial image shows "ters from Iwo Jima 2006". Shifting the title to the right in future videos would remedy this.
I have actually read about the Himeyuri Japanese student medical corps before, so I heard of them. I remember one such story about how two American soldiers on Okinawa helped a Himeyuri student get to safety. The Himeyuri student thought the two American soldiers were going to kill her, but instead they treated the maggot infested wound on her leg and then gave her water. I know that the Axis Powers were the bad guys of the Second World War, but they also had their own perspectives to share as well. I am just glad that Germany, Italy, and Japan today have learned their lessons and became our strongest ALLIES! I would also like to suggest a video on the 442nd Japanese-American infantry regiment. From the bottom of my heart, thank you very much for this video! 🥹
They are our allies is a good thing. But also because America did not repeat the mistakes after ww1. Isolationism being at the top. Having bases there makes for a faster response were mother Russia to try anything at the time Helping them rebuild instead of leaving them to their fate was a show of good faith as well. Germany was left unchecked after ww1. That was not going to happen again.
@@john98765333 yes. And they were also ordered to pay reparations of up to 1 billion dollars. Which did not exist at the time. And nobody believed Germany would bounce back Churchill was the only one who saw Hitler for what he was. Germany was left to their fate and it bit the rest of Europe in the fanny So by helping them and Japan rebuild had prevented ww3 up to this point
Japan still spreads propaganda that it was the good guy in WW2 and still denies all of it's numerous horrific gruesome war crimes. They got off with a light slap on the wrist then a pat on the back with trades from the U.S
Japanese forces decided for themselves to live entirely without honor and then call it "honor". Just as the Nazis did. It was a warped and recent phenomenon, not at all ancient.
Interesting fact about the Russo-Japanese War. While at the time Japan had the largest red cross society, they nor the Russians had anything resembling a field medic or corpsman. One of the reasons the war had such a high killed in action count was because casualties were bleeding out from wounds before they could be evacuated to rear line army hospitals. Had they received prompt medical attention a large contingent would have likely survived. The aftermath of this war is what led to the creation of frontline medical corps within most world powers before the start of the first world war.
I as a JROTC cadet took a CLS (Combat Life Saver) class around 2012 with some army guys and one of the things pointed out is basic first aid like the use of tourniquets on bleeding extremities greatly increased survivability. Something like 60% of US servicemen who died in Vietnam died by bleeding out via extremity wounds. A piece of fabric with a stick let that sink in...
Little known fact. In the 1920's. Japan rescued a bunch of Polish orphans that were forcefully exiled to Siberia for slave labor by the Russians before WW2. These efforts were lead by a nurse named Take Hagiwara. Extraordinary story
Honestly if I was a soldier and knew they targeted medics I wouldn’t be discouraged when I saw mine die I would just be angry that and what to avenge him
That was actually the effect it had on the U.S soldiers, just think about it. You are a soldier and you are wounded, a medic comes to heal you but gets deliberately targeted by the demons, you don't cower, you get enraged.
I've met too many vets that served in the pacific that all said they refuse to purchase anything made in Japan , especially emphasizing on cars . They wouldn't be caught dead in a Japanese made car .
Japan wasnt the only one Soviet union also trageted Axis medics, And you could see this as on the Western front German medics would even wear vests with the red cross and helmets painted white and red to mark them as medics. While on the eastern front they generally dint do it as Soviet snipers would often pick off any German medics they saw.
The Germans on the eastern front had no qualms about shooting medics either when it comes to the eastern front, neither side was ever in any particular mood to give quarter or mercy
Still not at bad as the militant form of Atheism like they have in China where they are committing an ethnic cleansing of the Uyghurs right now as we speak.
I remember in the videogame Medal of Honor Pacific. They include alot of small historical tidbits, the US Marines usually shout "Sailor" or other names to the medics just to confuse the Japs
My father served in the Pacific during WWII. He said that the Japanese snipers would shoot the medics in the center of the Red Cross on their helmet to show that they did not care that the soldier was a medic. He also told me that some of the US soldiers would file down the tip of their 30-06 bullets until they could see the lead core, thereby making it a more dangerous bullet.
2:35 the most fucked up thing were: Bushido wasn´t use it as a moral code so strictely until the militar dictatorship... yes it existed and their peak before Tojo was the Bosshin Wars (due to the propagand enforced the use of the bushido code for differentiate from the imperial factions those were occidentalized ergo depravates)... but as something romantically taken from the literary media as samurai stories rather as something enforced (like the chavalry in the west), were in reality samurais operate as almost-neolitical PMC were the only moral code was the money and treasures that lives provide.... if you havent the bad luck of being a peasant who literally will die on the next cholera epidemic. Ironically, few mangas as Inuyasha really show how samurais operates, as selfish thugs for hire who licks the feet of their feudal lord rather than the romantically (in the Literary sense) depicted image by most japanese media.
VERY interesting topic. Thanks for the presentation. I have been a "WW2 buff" for ;longer than you have been alive, but you brought up quite a bit of new information.
It is also worth noting that EVERY participant in World War II was heavily using drugs that we know today to be dangerous and addictive in their militaries, usually because that simply wasn't well-understood yet. The US deployed "bennies" -- the amphetamine benezedrine -- extensively towards the end of the war. The book _Ghost Soldiers_ has a striking scene where the exhausted Rangers hauling the POWs from Cabanatuan prison camp back across Leyte get their first dose of the things and are immediately jolted awake from literal days worth of marching and fighting. It's illustrative of why these parties would use drugs that still weren't well-understood; the effects that WERE understood were extremely valuable for a combat perspective. This is not meant to equivocate the two, however. As the video should hopefully have illustrated thoroughly, there was effectively no redeeming factor to Japan's military-nationalist dictatorship. It took just about everything that had been positive or laudable about Japan's pre-dictatorship society and crushed it in favor of avenues that enhanced its ability to control the Japanese people on every conceivable level.
A friend's father was a medic. I don't remember exactly the details, bit at one point he found himself up close at the wrong end of a Mauser. He pointed at the medic's pin (or armband,, sorry, don't remember) and the German soldier waved his gun as to say "go !" Truthfully: That social inheritance/capital dates back to the Christian, knightly order and the Crusades. The Hospitalers come to mind. .
You’d think these men would have come to their senses and just kill the leaders that were waging the war, the whole vomit was such a waste of human life and time
@@BaronEvola123 I'm responding to Kane, not you. Germany's economic policies were terrible for sustainability. The most accurate modern day comparison would be Venezuela, but with the oil to finance it.
Sort of related: A neighbour of ours was a sapper during the war (South African Army). He helped build roads in North Africa during the battles around El Alamein. He told me how after the war in the late 40s or early 50s, he went to Madagascar to build roads there. There were a lot of British and Australians who had served in Burma also working on the roads. At one point, a Japanese road engineer was sent to the area where they were working. He'd apparently been a soldier during the war though I can't remember what position he'd held. One night, a bunch of the Brits/Aussies cornered him and beat the living shit out of him. I don't know the exact reasons why they beat him up, but I can well imagine the animosity a lot of those old soldiers still had, especially at that time. The scars left by that war run deep.
Interesting video. On a wider scale a hospital ship fully light up was torpedoed off the coast of Australia by a Japanese submarine during WW2. Probably not the only one.
There is a story (I don't know if it's true) that the USS Wahoo spotted a Japanese hospital ship, lit up and with Red Cross markings. Given Mush Morton's absolute hatred of the Japanese, he lined up on it--he didn't tell the crew what they were shooting at, since they were taking an underwater shot, and he was the only one looking through the periscope. The ship blew up when it was hit: it wasn't a hospital ship, but an ammunition ship disguised as one. Again, I don't know if that story is true.
For anyone who hasn't had experience with recreational drug use, the idea of fighting while under the influence of speed sounds like it'd be terrifying. After being awake for a few days the phone ringing makes you jump out of your skin, let alone grenades and gun fire.
7:37 When I lived in Okinawa I avoided the Himeyuri museum until my girlfriend said I should see it. As a sort of ‘bear witness’ type of thing. I couldn’t stop crying
I remember reading or hearing somewhere that soldiers would even call medics "Molly," since the Japanese have a hard time with L's. That said, I can't seem to find that backed up anywhere, so now I'm unsure.
These claims must be true. Every password for American units, which would change every day, would be something like "Abraham Lincoln" Since it was a nightly occurrence of Japanese crawling into American lines and killing them with swords and knives. Every password chosen was because the Japanese could not pronounce the Ls in the English language. Because there is no L sound in the Japanese language
It really is a huge eye opener when you read pre-WW2 Japanese military culture. During the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese treated Russian prisoners very well to the point that even the western powers applauded their humanitarian acts. Same can be said to the German prisoners after the Siege of Tsingtao during WWI.
Excellent topic. I enjoy the descriptions of weapons used. But the psychology during battles was something else to ponder. I hope you continue with more such topics.
My uncle James Luther Lee was a Navy Corpsman. He was killed in Bougainville at the battle of Piva Forks while rendering aid to mortally wounded Marine. He received the Navy Cross and Purple Heart. I have forgiven Japan, love the country and love the people.
I always found it odd the concept that shooting medics would impact enemy moral. When a man is shot and killed he's dead. His kit can be taken and repurposed, and another soldier must take his place while a letter is written to loved ones. That's the end of the consequences. When a man is shot and crippled he shouts out in pain crying to God and his mother. Men around him are demoralized and some may stop to help their friend stalling advance. Resources are expended to preserve his life taxing supply lines. The man can no longer fight but he still needs to eat. If he's missing a limb everywhere he walks he decreases moral. If he's severely crippled he might not even be able to work on the home front. From a logistical standpoint a man who is crippled is worse than dead. Anti-personnel landmines are actually designed maim instead of kill exactly for these reasons.
@@ismaeljimenez6562 As the fat electrician often says, "don't take potshots at doc or the officer because if you do your going to find out why it's not a warcrime the first time"
Flawed logic, because you are thinking about logic and logistics opposed to morale. Shooting a medic dad means that in combat, he cannot treat friendly troops, without a medic to treat wounds, any minor wounds can lead to death, the troops then thus either fear that their lives are in even further danger or are angry they that their last lost option to survive if injured is dead. Anything from a basic sickness to gunshot would can make a man fear death if there is no medic because there is no hope of treatment. There is fear because there is no hope. For every medic is speciality trained, you remark how their kit can be taken, but each medic and his skill takes time to be taught, years of knowledge which is not very very common. Not everyone can apply a tourniquet properly so as I said, even a basic would can become deadly. Your soldiers are to fight in combat and provide suppressive fire if you need to be collected due to wounds. Medics are the ones who actually treat you or pull you back, you fellow soldiers cannot often risk pulling you back, because if you all are under fire, they cannot easily fire back and suppress the enemy meaning you all may die. At least with a medic, they can drag you back while your pals provide covering fire. You find it an odd concept because you don’t understand what morale is, you are looking at war logistics
@@jessicaregina1956 as in spiritual guides in the military...preachers for soldiers not charlie chaplin. Next time know what your talking obout before being acting all haughty
My great grandfather was a medic in the Pacific during ww2. His battalion ended up staying stationed in the Philippines after the Phillipines campaign. He received a purple heart after the war. He was shot and tended his own wounds before returning to his medic duties. He taught me a lot before he died that ill never forget. He never really wanted me to be in the military but should I ever be drafted I promise to make one hell of a medic.
Sorry I didn't get into the battle over Quinine supplies in Asia. The fight against malaria in Asia is almost it's own WW2 subject.
True...Mrs C, s da suffered from bouts of malaria all his life from his time in the Chindits in Burma and Indo China....
Can you please do dp 27 light machine gun and m1919 browning medium machine gun in the movies
Interestingly, China claims to have discovered a herb-based cure. The researchers claim it was based on a local-remedy used by the Viet Minh and Vietcong in the 50s and 60s
G&T - the best medicine
@@fod1855 a nice way to have quinine....cheers....
In Feb 1942, in what was eventually called the Banka Island massacre, Japanese machine gunned 22 Australian nurses and 60 Australian and English service men. These allied service personal had just survived the sinking by torpedo of a hospital ship by a Japanese sub. The survivors were rounded up on shore. Then they were forced to stand in the surf, backs to the ocean and were gunned down. Three - one nurse and two soldiers, though wounded managed to survive. Had they not, we would never have known about it. If that isn’t deliberately targeting medical personal, nothing is.
Indeed so....Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence was a good depiction based on Lauren Van der post,s memoir
Jesus Christ makes you think what we don’t know
@@m00nch11dYou know what worded is completely a bad thing right?
@@m00nch11d Hirohito over here
@@m00nch11d okay Tojo, back to Hell with you.
Yes, the Japanese targeted our "corpsman" and army "medics" That has been well documented in many personal journals of Marines and Soldiers in the pacific. I've spoken as a Marine to many Old Breed Marines and they have told me the our Corpsman used to take off as much insignia and medic indicators as they could to blend in with the Marines.
Thank God we dropped 2 Nukes for Tojo
@@lukasbauer586 though it's controversial to talk about it but I agree that it was necessary to use the nukes
It was. They were even arming their children.
@@blackman5867wasn’t necessary, but an invasion of Japan would have costed many American lives. Their fighting doctrine and ferocity/fighting spirit was incredibly terrifying imo.
If the medic is armed they're an illegal combatant
The rise of Tojo and the Military Dictatorship of Imperial Japan is something that is often overlooked in history and it’s a shame as I think there is a lot to be learned especially when compared to other rising dictatorships at the time.
to be learned ????
@@oddballsok LEARN???? FROM HISTORY???? ARE YOU MAD???? lmao
Unfortunately the Japanese education system actively suppresses and revises their actions during WW2. Japanese tourists who visit Pearl Harbor are often shocked to learn that Japan initiated the first strike against the U.S.
@@n8zog584 I second that- Dan Carlin is an expert
i think learn to avoid that dictatorship path
As far as weakening morale and justice, the intentional shooting at medics or corpsman actually would anger the units they were assigned to help. I heard of a story from WW2 (forgot if it was Europe or Pacific Theater) where upon suspecting that a machine gun nest was purposely shooting at the medic or corpsman, the grunts or infantry unit attacked the position like angry hornets.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
In war, a person can see them being shot or bombed as "fair" (not literally but it can be seen as necessary) but intentionally denying the opportunity of saving hundreds or thousands of fellow men is unforgivable (Especially when you would treat your enemy's medics respectfully).
Completely agree it seems entirely backwards but propaganda does weird things to people's perspectives.
Seems like their propaganda come biting them back due to how wrong they were
@@RomanTheNotARoman “do unto others” I wish we would’ve shot a few of their Red Cross, I bet if we did they would instantly start arguing “that’s not aloud” after killing ours
Pretty ludicrous. Why wouldn't Japanese shoot medics, people whose job is to put wounded soldiers back into action??? Before WW2, medics had limited capacity, since treatment was limited and we didn't have penicillin or widespread blood plasma transfusion methods. Their job actually involved taking decapitated soldiers to get their limbs amputated or carrying corpses for proper burial, hence not really threats. In ww2, medics kept fighting units going and were exceedingly crucial. Shooting them is 100% justified, just as America would bomb and kill supply lines whose only job was to nourish the soldiers on the front line and keep them fighting. How is a medic any different from a military truck driver? Nowadays, the US blows up families of 'terrorists' and calls it Neutering the opponent, I don't really get this Geneva convention hypocrisy.
My father liberated a Japanese POW camp in 1945. After what he saw there, he completely dismissed the Japanese as human beings. After they retired my mother got interested in travelling and they went all over Asia - but never Japan. Once they had a stopover in Tokyo which could have been used to take a quick trip into Narita town and look at temples or something, but dad just sat in the airport and glared at everyone. Just before he died his mind went and I remember a huge explosion at the dinner table once because the Japanese rugby team happened to be on the television behind us. Until then he'd pretty much kept quiet about it, but his inhibitions went.
That's sad how he could not see Japanese as fellow people, and carried on that hate all his life. The US has its share of war atrocities, and I don't think that's an excuse to see Americans as non-humans. I wonder what he thought of Germany.
@@larshofler8298 He never had the same attitude towards Germans, but then he never liberated a concentration camp either. I think the sight of guys that would have been robust in normal life reduced to half their body weight had a huge effect on him. I don't know what if anything they said to him that they might've also influenced him by explaining what it was like to be a prisoner of the Japanese.
He was a person of his time and racist or at least bigoted towards people that didn't look like him, all of which he managed to get rid of later in life - but never the Japanese thing. You are correct it's sad but ...
@@bobmetcalfe9640 I see where he was coming from. I've encountered elderly Chinese and Korean people who survived/served in the war against Japanese invasion, and some of them shared that hatred towards the Japanese.
Interesting story though, one that I saw in the news, one elderly Chinese man sued the Japanese government (or maybe one of the Japanese corporations that participated in Imperial Japanese atrocities), and it took place in a court in Japan. So he flew to Japan, and he was overwhelmed by how nice and friendly the Japanese were. His Japanese lawyers sincerely wanted to help him win the case. After seeing all that, he dropped his lawsuit, and let go of his hatred.
probably because he was treated so badly as a prisoner in the Japanese labour camp, but when he visited Japan, he was treated with respect and equality. That changed him.
@@larshofler8298 I was in Hong Kong once on vacation and found that the elderly Chinese didn't particularly like Japanese tourists. I guess given what the Japanese did in China, including Hong Kong, it's excusable. I hope that we can all get to a better place in the future.
It's sad to imagine what your father went through. Thanks for sharing this perspective 🙏
Two family stories; my great-uncle, William Lee McMillan, was captured on Corregidor Island in May 1942. He was with Company M, 4th Marine Regiment. He languished in Bilibid Prison for nearly three years. Ulcers in his eyes rendered him virtually blind. Malaria paralyzed him from the waist down. Yet, he survived. At least in body, and just barely. He, and many others, were rescued during the Battle of Manila in 1945. He returned home a changed man. The Navy labeled him as 100% disabled. Couldn't hold a job. His only marriage was brief. It did produce a son, but sadly the baby died in less than a year. What's worse, his nephew, my father's father, came home with a Japanese bride!
My father and grandmother told how that side of the family was either cold or openly hostile to them. Yet, Uncle Bill was an exception. Grandma recounted that he never raised his voice at her, called her names, or blamed her for what happened to him, but he wouldn't stay in the same room with her for very long. Uncle Bill died at the age of 64. The official cause of death was 'heart failure' but the family knows it was from his captivity. He's buried under a simple headstone in Pennsylvania, but part of Uncle Bill is still in the Philippines.
That same grandmother I mentioned earlier, she served the Japanese Red Cross during the war. She, and other nurses, were attached to the Imperial Japanese Army. She had so many stories. What's better, she wasn't shy about telling you about them. Even if you didn't want to hear it. She witnessed the Doolittle Raid in Tokyo! Then was sent to Singapore in 1943, arriving at the docks during a storm that nearly swamped their boat. There she stayed until the formal Japanese surrender.
When the Brits and Aussies took control of Singapore, they kept the Red Cross on station to handle the wounded and sick. Grandma had nothing but nice things to say about them. "They were gentlemen! They opened the door for me, and they said, 'Good morning, Ms. Mogami!" Because nurses are officers in most armies, the sentries even saluted her. What's also funny, she also said that she and her staff were trained on the rifle and grenades. Now the hospital had their own guards to maintain order and security. I'm just imagining this 4'10 woman trying to work a Type 38 rifle that's nearly as tall as she was with the bayonet. Grandma said that the only time they were ever expected to pick up a rifle is if the enemy was kicking in the front door of the hospital.
It makes sense she would have been trained to fight. In Japanese culture women traditionally learned to fight (usually with the naginata which in some ways is seen as an elegant feminine weapon) to defends castles/estates from attack while the men were away at war
Western medieval cities would see the same thing during sieges, though far less formalized, women would help wounded or run water or throw rocks and oil what have you. When you’re cornered and under attack it’s all hands on deck
This is real history, unlike the History Channel and White House BS
I'm from Singapore. Does she have anything to say about Singapore during the occupation? Did she interact with locals?
Ty for sharing that story.
What a story. Thank you for sharing!
My Grandfather was part of and survived the Bataan Death March. Until the day he died in his 80’s he’d have PTSD episodes when in the presence of Japanese people. It was sad to see. He told me some of the stories about what the soldiers did to many of the prisoners. Some of them laughing as they tortured and killed. Truly horrific stuff that you can’t believe that one human being could do that to another. I still get choked up remembering what he said.
I once heard a Bataan veteran describe a Japanese soldier killing a pregnant Filipino woman and her unborn baby by cutting open her stomach with a bayonet
Its the Japanese so i wouldnt doubt any of these happened
@@reimuhakurei2123 go back to gensokyo
Lol, your grandpa being afraid of japanese people.
I had a great aunt, the only survivor of her family, her husband and children were Murdered by the Japanese, in the Philippines 🇵🇭 the day she found out my father had purchased a Toyota, I learned words I had never heard before! I was 13, and I was shocked!
She was saved by US Army Paratroopers who liberated the Civilian Interment Camp adjacent to a POW Camp. 6 years later one of those Paratroopers was a distinguished guest at an event at Fort Bragg. I got to meet him and shake his hand.
growing up and being exposed largely to ww2 media, I was so surprised to learn a few years back that Japan's ww1 POW camps were almost resort-like in attitude, and how far they fell under military rule into the horror stories we hear
and now to also see that in medicine too
You know that military fanatism came after their inspiration in the West right?
@@saracchi1515 I'm sure the Ainu and Emishi and others would be so glad to hear that ancient history never happened.
Military fanaticism and oppression wasn't new
@@saracchi1515 there are literal mounds of noses taken from korea during the imjin war.
@@pavivier Asians are all violent and extremists lmao
@@shadosnake cope more, every region had that. Cope more lmao
My father bought a new color television in 1973 marketed in the U.S. under the brand name MGA. When my cousin Phil found out it was in fact manufactured by Mitsubishi, he was very upset. Like many young American men who served in the Pacific in WW2, he saw the tremendous cruelty and inhumanity of the Japanese thirty years earlier. Obviously it never left him.
When my parents bought a Mitsubishi air conditioner in one of the rooms in my parents house for dinner, my grandpa. He is 89 years old. He saw the new air conditioner unit and asked to make it. When he found out it was made by Mitsubishi, he said he had a strong dislike because of Mitsubishi built too good of airplanes that killed a lot of Americans.
He was too young to fight World War 2 but he had brothers that served mostly on home front. But He joins the airforce doing maps.
I wonder how he'd feel about weebs 😂
@@AmericanImperialMenswear If he's at the very least like any normal person, he'll hate them.
Sad to see that he doesn't tremendous cruelty and inhumanity by Americans happening until right now
Civillian employees of Mitsubishi used forced POW labor and often murdered and tortured them. I will never own a Mitsubishi product and when i see a car on the road that is a mitsubishi that is the first thing that comes to mind. Its hard to reconcile and put the past behind us because very few Japanese war criminals were brought to justice and to this day. In their schools they leave out the atrocities of Japan and make it out like they were the victims and we were the bad guys for nuking them.
Japan dodging war crime accusations like how my father dodged my child support
yup
So sorry that happened to you. Your right he's your father, but not your daddy
Same
日本は1965年に韓国と1972年に中国との全ての戦時賠償問題を完了した声明を共同で出しています。
国家間の約束は終わっているので残りは中国や韓国の国内問題です。それぞれの政府と被害者が話し合うべき問題です。
Speaking of Japan's relationship with Buddhism, Buddhist Warrior Monks were prevalent in their history. Most notably during their Warring States Period 1467 to 1615 where various Buddhist sects act no differently like Feudal Lords of the time. Each with their own Temple Fortresses, fiefs, and armies that warred against other Feudals lords.
Based Buddhism. 😎☸️
@@thelastmanleftbehind1142 how is domination, theft, and impressment upon one’s fellows based?
Ah the ikko ikki and theiir jodo shinshu budhism
@@robertaylor9218 right, it's based if Christians do.
@@jonangorman6341 ?
IIRC, the Bushido that was so revered in Japan in during the 30's and during WW2 was a heavily revised, romanticised, and propagandized version of it.
This resulted in not only the military of Japan being fanatic to its cause, but would also lead to common misconceptions today of what Bushido actually is, how Samurai warriors are portrayed by contemporary media, and perceptions of Asian culture in general (to an extent, i.e. stereotypes). The most notorious example of all being the concept of honor.
Oh completely corrupted version of honor during the war for certain. Bushido is a very loose and broad historic term analogous to chivalry in a sense. Many parts of the country or clans, etc, had entirely different forms of bushido or warrior codes.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsqno honour out there...judging by the atrocities committed in Hong Kong..( a spirited fight by the Canadian battalion there in 1941..) , Singapore, and the Admin box in Burma...
@@eamonnclabby7067 all were well deserved.
In a PhD thesis in 2011, Oleg Benesch produced overwhelming evidence against the view that “bushido was a centuries-old code of behavior rooted in the historical samurai class and transmitted into the modern period”. Instead, Benesch demonstrated, “the concept of bushido was largely unknown before the last decade of the nineteenth century, and was widely disseminated only after 1900”
Oleg Benesch further explains that historical source material and extant scholarship demonstrates there is no evidence for “a single, broadly-accepted, bushi-specific ethical system at any point in pre-modern Japanese history”. Benesch cites professor Yamamoto Hirofumi of the University of Tokyo arguing that, in Benesch’s words, “there were no written works which large numbers of samurai could have used to understand the ‘way of the warrior’”. Bushido, as a warrior code, simply did not exist.
In fact Benesch also says “The term ‘bushidō’ has not been found in any medieval texts, and the consensus among historians is that no comparable concepts existed at the time under any other name”. Consequently, Benesch writes, “Current historians of medieval Japan do not consider bushidō a useful exegetical tool, and it is rarely found in their scholarship”.
The historical fiction of a centuries old bushido code was almost entirely the product of two very different men, a Japanese Christian named Nitobe Inazō, and an anti-Christian Japanese philosopher named Inoue Tetsujirō. Nitobe’s work, originally published in English, convinced generations of Western scholars, while Inoue’s writings, which sold millions of copies in Japan, became the foundation of a nationalist cult of militarization and imperialism.
While Japanese leaders seized eagerly on Inoue’s newly invented bushido, actual historical sources were neglected. Benesch writes “Pre-Meiji texts had little influence on the early development of modern bushidō”, noting that they were only cited selectively to support recently established preconceived views.
Dr Rober H. Sharf of the University of California Berkeley likewise writes “The fact that the term bushidö itself is rarely attested in premodern literature did not discourage Japanese intellectuals and propagandists from using the concept to explicate and celebrate the cultural and spiritual superiority of the Japanese”.
Even during the days of feudal Japan, samurai "honor" is something of a joke. Men acted in their personal interests, and that meant betrayal was a regular thing.
It was nice also looking into Imperial Japan before WW2, it’s jarring how much they changed in their humanitarian stance between conflicts
after getting ripped off after ww1 they changed their stance
After the end of the Russo-Japanese War, Japan began to hate the Western world. Because the Japanese felt that the Western world favored Russia and deliberately suppressed Japan from negotiating a more favorable armistice position with Russia. Ironically, it was American mediation that saved the whole of Japan from national bankruptcy and enabled an honorable end to the war. In the time that followed, with the American decree banning Japanese immigration and the dissolution of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, as well as the increasingly harsh criticism of Japan's invasion in China by the Western world, especially the United States, Japan felt that it had never been respected by the Western world, which tried by all means to turn Japan into a third-rate country.
So, until Pearl Harbor, Japanese society was filled with hatred for the Western world after a long period of government propaganda. The consequence of this hatred was that in the Philippines, Hong Kong, the Malay Peninsula, and the Dutch East Indies this hatred turned into extreme cruelty toward Westerners, both military and civilian, by the Japanese military. The Japanese mistreated the local indigenous population because the Japanese felt they were inferior people. The Japanese mistreated Western prisoners of war and civilians because the Japanese felt that Westerners had never treated Japan as an equal.
The civilians didn't the military was just completely fucking nuts the were the root cause of the countries woes of the time they had military installations embedded into Central civilian populations convince them of suicide hell if it wasn't for the efforts of those who wanted the war to end and those who stopped the military from pulling a coup and seizing complete control from the government they would have actually continued fighting
American re-education campaigns did a lot. People have a misconception that they were just left alone after dropping the nukes and turned their emperor into a figure head thinking that was all happened to them.
If you look at history post WW1. You easily find many points that led to the rise of such brutal dictatorships. They all stem from egos of the Allies from WW1, as well as brutal attempts to make it so that a WW2 would never come about.
Japan had just a whiplash due to their efforts in WW1 with the Allies, being snuffed out and pushed to the side. They felt ignored, which led to the people being more willing to accept military dictatorship. Just as Italy turned for feeling betrayed. The end if WW1 and the rise of facism, communism, and military dictatorships tells many stories that should not be forgotten lest we do the same for the next big war that comes upon us.
My grandfather used to tell me stories his father told him about the pacific war.
He told me about how once a Japanese soldier was running at my great grandfather with a sword and he blew half his head off with a shotgun. The part that disturbed me was my great grandfather knew a little bit of Japanese and was screaming at him saying "DROP IT" until he was like 10 feet from my great grandfather.
He was taught that Japanese soldiers were savages with a total disregard for human life.
Your grandfather defended him self in a war and even gave a warning which is more then most people do. He didn’t do anything wrong.
Wait there's Shotguns in the Pacific theatre?!... Then call of duty: world at War Pacific campaign was right! Got me wondering if it's either an auto-5 or a trench gun your great grandfather used...
Imma look into it since Shotguns in the Pacific (to me) is rare or non-existent topic
@@jehoiakimelidoronila5450 shorgun os useful close range fight since battles in pacific is close rnage
@@jehoiakimelidoronila5450 Guess why they were also called trench guns.
the sad part is they were
A Japanese combat medic was taught to sever a severely wounded soldiers jugular vein, so the soldier did not become a burden to his unit. Horrible times
Most soldiers were brainwashed to commit sepuku (stab themslves in the stomach) when theyre about to surrender
@CharlesNauck still no official source so can't be believed fully.
@@CharlesNauckSounds like bs propaganda. Usually these sort of defectors would lie and say anything to get their green card. Case in point a recent defector Guowen gui was in fact arrested by American authorities for scamming Americans. He too publish and told a lot of BS about the CPC. There is also the fact the Chinese pows from the Korean War also never stated anything remotely close to what your so called “Soviet doctor” “witnessed”. On the other hand South Korean troops burning down hospital filled with wounded was very well documented by both sides similarly with North Korea POW camps being run as torture camps that resulted in said camps being replaced by Chinese ones.
PS the lack of sufficient evidence is enough to invalidate the validity of a claim
@@CharlesNauck Pretty much he has every reason to lie to a "medic" assuming u were in the military. Do note also in the 80s there was also the Sino-soviet split, even more telling that it is a lie is that it goes counter to the esprit-de-corps of the PLA of no man left behind and unproven by any accounts from the PLA or their enemies.
Also this "claim" reminds me of a similar FLG piece of exploding PLA helmets containing every aspect of dehumanization and ridiculousness that these sort of propaganda possesed.
Therefore all signs point to a desperate green card seeker that is willing to sprout whatever BS that can keep their job. Besides do note that the American medical system had never recognized their Soviet (or Russian for that matter) counterparts as sufficient for cross border practice in the US. I can list more than a dozen people who immigrated to the US with a Russian practicing license but were forced to switch professions because of the different systems.
@@jcn268 I've heard about them blowing themselves up with grenades
I’m surprised you failed to mention Dr. Ben Salomon on Saipan. His aid station was being overrun by Japanese soldiers who sought to kill the wounded there.
His MoH citation is quite a read.
Absolutely. I struggled picking just a couple of examples of warcrimes/brutality. Hard to summarize them really. It's tricky making these videos such a short length. I am often restricted by computer processing power or video clips/copyright material I can access.
I’m surprised you failed to mention Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and dresden.
@@cococock2418 I’m surprised you didn’t read the title nor understand the topic of the video…
@@cococock2418
Look up Japanese section 731 ❄️
@@cococock2418 Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden would never have happened if not for Perl Harbor and the invasion of Poland. Let that sink in.
The killings at the Singapore hospital including shooting a surgical team during and operation then bayoneting the patient to death. A similar thing happened when Japan tried to invade India where patients and medical staff well killed.
There was a case of a German sniper who killed a doctor at a British field hospital in 1944. As the tents where the doctor was killed all had big white circles with red crosses on them the sniper could not claim ignorance for his actions so this meant he had deliberately targeted the hospital. He was soon captured but it was obvious the sniper did not regret his actions and he thought he would get away with it just by spending time in prison. So the commanding officer took out his pistol and shot the sniper dead.
The battle of the Admin box in Burma is a stain among many on the Japanese....the revenge after the massacre in the Admin box at Blood Nullah was the least the Anglo Indian Fourteenth army could do at the time..not many Japanese were taken prisoner after that
@@eamonnclabby7067 Thanks, Eamonn. It has been sometime since I read about it so I could not remember the details. So thank you for adding them. I did see an interview with a British soldier who saw the aftermath of the Admin Box and was deeply affected by it. He expressed the opinion that as far as he was concerned the Americans should have carried on dropping nuclear bombs until there was nothing left of Japan.
@@bigblue6917 Mrs C,s da RIP would have heartily agreed....he hero worshipped General Slim and Orde Wingate,
You're one the best sources for additional info on the channel sir
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Thanks
From all the research I’ve done on the Japanese during WWII, there are no excuses that can be given for the malice, ruthlessness, and cruelty they inflicted upon the world. There are, however, reasons why. And just as the opening of this code states, it CANNOT be understated the deep extent to which the Japanese military intelligencia of the time coerced and manipulated the will of the Japanese people in the name of Emperor and empire. The words of the Emperor were spoken by the Emperor, yes, but they were REINTERPRETED and TWISTED by the men around him to further the agenda of a “superior” Asian Empire that they fantasized and fetishized over constantly. In fact, they were so infatuated with their own desires and goals that when the Emperor explicitly stated, himself, IN FRONT OF HIS MILITARY LEADERS and made a RECORDED ORDER THAT HE WISHED TO BE BROADCAST OVER THE RAIDO that he wanted Japan to cease hostilities, some of those very same military leaders gathered their own forces and attempted to destroy that recording before it could reach a radio station, and had even made plans to arrest the Emperor like some common criminal. Yes, these very same leaders who all claimed to be doing what they did in the name of the Emperor tried to SILENCE their Emperor both figuratively and literally when the Emperor made a very tough and very difficult they didn’t like. The fact that there are still some Japanese out there who support and defend these… COWARDS absolutely disgusts me. THEY are the reasons for the monstrosities that Imperial Japan wrought upon the world, and I hope no one - NO ONE - ever forgets this. The Kyūjō Incident. Look it up.
And then America fire bombed Japanese cities killing countless women and children. Then detonated 2 nuclear bombs in large population centres.
My research on the Americans in WWII is the same. There's no excuse for the pure evil, barbaric, racist and ruthless way in which they fire bombed Tokyo and killed 80,000-130,000 civilians. The Americans were war criminals and got away with it because they won.
With the amount of 9999999999292999038190993017401084088999183017392798362017309272018.99$ hospital existence fee per bill per for each and every person is beyond absurd. Guess why the Japanese Imperial just goes on a strike.
Do not blame this solely on the emperor. A leader without any followers does not have any power.
@@cyphergames8743Hirohito was morally a pretty average and maybe even better than average human being. Anyone who is informed would not place any blame on him.
My granduncle fought in Burma from the side of British Indian Army. He did a bayonet charge in a bunker. Later there four Japanese soldiers were found in the bunker stabbed to death, but he went MIA. Our family learnt the incident from his friend who was present there.
Many fine soldiers in the British Indian Army!
=================================================
My great-uncle, Captain Benjamin Sparrow,
was in the Garhwal Rifles,
and killed leading his company
at the Battle of Neuve Chappelle in 1915.
The Garhwal Rifles still compete to this day
for a silver cup he gave the regiment.
Only 3 Indian units won 3 Victoria Crosses in WW1 -
and the Garhwal Rifles was one of them.
No wonder India has 20+ battalion today!
.
W uncle, L filthy demons
To think about how much one single change in leadership can turn a whole nation from one idea to the opposite. Honestly, I feel nothing but contempt for the government that made and enforced this change. Those soldiers who committed those acts would have most likely never commited those acts if not for their corrupt malicious dictatorship lording over them. But I'm not going to rant about war crimes. Enough has been said already.
Thanks for adding that and sort of picking up on the theme of my video. Every society now matter how progressive can learn and take caution from these violent social shifts. It's a case study of humanity not just Japan.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Contrast that with the treatment of German and Italian POW,s in England, Canada and the USA...the film The Keeper ,about Bert Troutman was a great snapshot of that awkward period
No, not a single change of leadership. These people had zero Judaic-Christian formation. Single change of leadership to the mesmerizing Hitler may explain how the germans went insane.
They didn't just followed orders, they did that by themselves. I understand you like the japanese today but they did the most terrible things during and before WW2.
The brutalisation of Japanese soldiers and sailors during their training was astonishingly extreme. Also, they believed their emperor was a god and that’s a major bonus when getting people to do horrific acts.
Their contempt for British and US soldiers as weak decadents was in stark contrast to their view of Soviet troops who they were genuinely disconcerted by x some arguing it was they and not the bomb that forced the surrender.
Sikhs and Gurkhas also put the heebees up the Japaneses military.
Totally agree about the “what about-isms stuff’.
Everything else is fair except one thing they were scared us soldiers
British Indian troops terrified Japan because of how equally fanatically brave they were and yet, far better trained (we are talking by 1944). Specially the trench clearing tactics in Burma (using Willie Pete+ Bren gun combo) by the Indians wrecked havoc on even the most well experienced Japanese troops.
@@dragonstormdipro1013 Really didn't know that thanks
@@dragonstormdipro1013 Also later in the war the Brits developed techniques to get Japanese soldiers to surrender using there own indoctrination against they would be asked to surrender in an extremely formal and polite manner and there brainwashing to follow orders from there senior's at all cost and the final part was if they did not surrender the were to reluctantly burn them out of there positions but you understand we are following senior orders ect
Dragonstorm Dipro They were also terrified of Fijian troops, due to their reputation as cannibals ( which was played up by the British of course)
My grandfather was in Okinawa invasion. To this day he is still unsure of how he feels about the Japanese, after he saw what they did to the indigenous islanders and other allied soldiers.
That's like an American soldier watching Nazis horribly maim and kill innocents, and saying that he doesn't know if they are good or bad
@@dumbo21 ... and then watch the same German soldiers become great workers, artists, and even just honorable members of not just their community but the global community in the decades following the war?
@@Eboreg2Japanese did the same, became out standing citizens in U.s. low crime citizens, very little issues in the u.s, or globally. Hard workers. Artist, scientist, entrepreneurs.
Germans also performed experiments, tortured, and committed war crimes. Same as Japan.
The difference? One was European, the other Asian.
@@Ghost-sz2qm I honestly don't know how to respond to that given how much you missed the point of my comment.
I studied Japanese Language, Culture, and History in college, but focused mainly on pre-Imperial and post-war Japan, as I already had a general idea of Imperial Japan's history and didn't want every grisly detail of the country's most despicable moment in time. I had never heard of Himeyuri until now, and the notion of it is honestly chilling.
In the final hours of the Battle of Hong Kong between the United Kingdom and the Imperial Japanese, the Japanese stormed a field post in St. Stephens College, manned by mainly nurses and filled with injured British soldiers (either from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada or Rajput), in the resulting incident the Japanese forces bayoneted, shot and tortured the injured soldiers and nurses, this incident is now known as "Black Christmas" due to it taking place on December 25th
They did the same thing at the Singapore Hospital.
My grandpa’s brother was an American pilot in WW2, shot down and captured by the Japanese. Near the end of the war he and a bunch of other POWs were loaded onto a freight ship to be transported somewhere else. There was another ship loaded with Japanese weapons, armor and troops that was marked POW. The ship my grandpas brother was on had no POW markings. His ship was attacked by the US and sunk. My grandpas brother and one other American POW floated around until they hit land and eventually made it back to the US.
Respect for medical personnel depends on both sides not targeting medical facilities and workers. When I was in Korea we had medical arm bands. However no one wants to wear one when the shooting starts. How it would be in other military theaters IDK
USS Comfort (AH-6) was an hospital ship stationed off Okinawa for wounded soldiers. She was struk by a kamikaze. The plane went through thee decks eventually exploding in a surgery filled with medical personnel and patients
My grandfather, a soviet infantrymen and artillerymen later has fought through nazis fields, just to be sent later on japanese front. They marched through Gobi desert to meet all the atrocious acts japanese soldiers have done to chinese people. I remember his deep sunken eyes, when he was telling me about how poor chinese were back then. He was telling often about childrens catching sparrows to eat. I think this wound never healed back.
I wonder how many war crime he commited. The russians were just as bad as the germans.
i really enjoyed this style and the way he branches out out to other topics that he finds interesting. solid video JJ!
Fires in the Plain is a very good movie. The story is about a Japanese soldier stationed in the Philippines during the time of the Americans' return in 1944. The situation worsens and worsens and men grow desperate. Be warned, it's extremely dark as hell.
In his book, "With the Old Breed," Eugene Sledge was with the US Marine Corps. There's a lot of examples of the Japanese even shooting at stretcher bearers. There was also a lot of mutilation of the dead by both sides.
I read that book in college, and when The Pacific came out, I told my dad "They'll never show some of the stuff Sledge described. Not even HBO will show that." They did. Oh boy, they did.
That was a brutal movie.
映画と原作の小説ではラストが違います。原作では全てのエピソードが夢だったという結末で終了します。
It's important to note that the Bushido as understood in WWII is not the same as traditional Bushido, but a perversion of it.
For instance, traditional Bushido called for showing compassion towards one's enemies, something that the WWII era variant clearly did not do.
A Japanese soldier from any other era would likely look upon what their WWII era counterparts did with utter contempt.
Bushido never existed as a traditional code of conduct. It was invented at the turn of the 20th century. It was inspired from romanticized and, ultimately, fraudulent ideas that Samurai all followed a specific, honourable code. But there was no single code, each clan just had their own customs.
Or laughter because they believed its what the Samurai actually did
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimizuka?wprov=sfti1
Kind of hard to believe what with the literal mound of severed ears and noses
Japan read the text book on war crimes and used it as a manual
The Geneva checklist.
I've always been struck by how well the Japanese treated POWs in the Russo-Japanese war compared to their utter barbarity in WWII.
Also their German prisoners in WW1!
"Honor" can be good or bad depending on how you taught it.
@@EmanresuadeenGerman prisoners in Japan in WWII? They were allies. They didnt have any German prisoners.
@@scottstone4948In WW1, Japan took some German Islands scattered around in the Pacific
@@fiery_gamerz i misread the original post. Apologies. Thought he was talking just about wwii
I got taught about the Japanese treatment of WW2 POWs in history class (specifically Australian POWs, I'm Australian). Those weren't very fun lessons, but I can't deny that they were valuable. It just went to show the depths of human depravity.
Starvation, rampant disease, denial of red cross packages, forced hard labour, severe beatings, the atrocities of the Burma-Thailand railway, lack of medical supplies, just to name a few
My education as to the many atrocities committed by the Js, their mindset, sadistic treatment of non combatants and general disregard of anyone not Japanese, has increased manifold. I've read too many articles by historians and veterans, have heard in person accounts from Philipino men and women and watched too many TY videos which all seem consistent in their content about the Japanese in WW2.
On top of that, it angers me that Japan hides its past from its people, choosing to portray Japan as a victim.
Shooting a medic is tantamount to shooting a child. They are no threat, have only noble motives and are simply doing a very hard job.
It makes me sad and angry at the same time.
A medic patches up and returns soldiers to duty. That is not a civilian. That is an active contributior of the war. For thousands of years it's been common to attack supply routes because they directly contribute to the war. Why is this wrong?
Did you seriously ask that? A soldier who has lost an arm, foot, hand, leg, etc. is not going to return to the battlefield. The goal of a medic is to save lives, not to allow someone to return to the front. There is a very good humanitarian reason for the shooting of medics being illegal per the Geneva Convention! You act like every life a medic saves results in a soldier returning to the war. It only depends on the severity of their wounds. If the unit needs as many troops as possible then those with none life-threatening wounds will be sent back; however, this doesn’t mean they go back to assaulting enemy positions. They might be reassigned to the headquarters element of the unit: i.e. they are made a cook, orderly (secretary), or supply personnel. Asking why it’s wrong to shoot medics is like asking why it’s wrong to shoot POWs because POWs can go back to fighting given the chance, and you have to spare troops that are needed at the front in order to guard them. Get out of here with that. You can’t compare shooting someone who’s job it is to save lives to attacking supply lines. At that point why not attack the civilian population because new troops come from the civilian population, and civilians are the ones making the weapons and equipment the military uses. Are you ok with violating all rules set in place for humanitarian reasons like this one because it’s an inconvenience to the war effort? What is wrong with you?
How did japan view medics?
"Uh... through a sniper scope I guess."
LMAO
This happened on many battlefields even 70's & 80's. That was the reason why we only had a small badge to indicate that you are a medic. The red cross on our field ambulaces could be turned around with the back painted the same colour as the rest of the vehicle. The reason for this was the the red cross was been used as a target.
I was a corpsman with the US Navy. I wonder if this was the start of nations no longer respecting the medics role and arming us like every other combatant.
My dad's dad and grandfather's dad were both in Burma fighting the Japanese and as far as i'm aware they never spoke about any of it. I never met my grandfather's dad as he died in the 80s a good few years before i was born. My dad's dad i did know but i was never told he was in the war as i was at that curious age, well you are of things and i understood later on in life why i was most likely never told and i fully respected it
Excellent job as always Johnny. Great job giving the Japanese perspective and the 'why' even though it's still mind blowing. Especially the suicide rather than surrender.
How fitting that a military police state obsessed with the concept of "honor" would behave so dishonorably.
Japanese atrocity in ww2 is a rarely talked sbout subject. Props to you for touching on it a bit.
I'd absolutely love to see a video about the infamous butterfly knife, or the balisong. It's very prolific in film, everyone knows what they look like but not everyone can tell you their history.
Never considered this! Cool idea I'll add it to my list
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq then the good old Commando knife....Knuckle dusters still coming in handy...no pun intended...well maybe...!!..
@@eamonnclabby7067 Ooo knuckle dusters! Never considered that one..
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Awesome! I can't wait 😁
Your research and analysis in these videos are just superb and I can't stress that enough. Lots of good consistent facts, statistics, and examples. One thing I can't get past is your impressive repertoire of movies and tv shows. I'm convinced you have a team to produce these wonderful videos which would explain a collective knowledge of films to reference or do research on.
Thanks for the encouraging words. I'm slowly trying to up the quality 🙏
You say, you're sorry for going off topic in this video, but honestly that made it so much more interesting for me! Especially the part with religion, really interesting stuff.
Nice content!
8:26 "Of all Japanese soldiers that shot medics, not were brought to justice."
Marine from WW2 "Justice was brought in. In formed of the 30-06.
The forgotten 14th Army in Burma meted out summary justice, in particular after the murder of medics and patients during the battle of the Admin box, especially in Blood Nullah...E...
This is one of the most informative videos I've watched. I love all your videos, but this one is one of your best. I had never heard of the Himeyuri until reading Hornfischer's "The Fleet at Flood Tide," which mentions one of those girls on Saipan. She cared for a group of wounded soldiers until they were surrounded, then watched them kill themselves. She tried to kill herself with a grenade, but apparently either it misfired or she miraculously survived it detonating right under her. She woke up in an American hospital and survived the war.
Again, fantastic video. Keep them coming!
Thanks man. Really appreciate that. Was kind of depressing to make this one but very interesting to research.
My great uncle was an Army medic in the 27th Division and was on the Saipan invasion. He told me he NEVER wore a brassard or a marked helmet and always carried a carbine. He just passed away in August at the age of 98. RIP Jack.
Your great uncle was a mere drone trained to follow order then? Lmao.
Nothing to be proud of.
@@307180740
You do know that in a lot of wars in the past, governments used conscription.
Meaning you are forced to join the military, or face prison time?
Or worse in some cases you’d be executed.
@@307180740 without those 'mere drones' you wouldn't be writing that in english, dummy
@@307180740 you left an s off order, its understandable given how hard you were focusing on being a jerk. 😐
@@307180740 wash your mouth!
There is no honor in killing someone who is trying to help someone else.
Where on earth did you get that footage of Himeyuri 1953??? I've been digging up the internet for anything from it, and all i've got is a dead torrent and a questionable Ebay dvd!
“Recruited from jails and insane asylums.”
The entire western world: *Turns to look at Russia*
Wagner Group: 😐What? What are you looking at?
I was a corpsman of marines. Thanks for doing a video for us. Not all navy medics do, but i was the one that ran around with the jar head grunts shooting machine guns and throwing grenades. We don't wear red crosses anymore and the only things that need to be marked with a red cross are medical vehicles and since I was with the combat element I never saw one unless it was dedicated to came pick up a patient. Navy/Marine CASEVACs aren't required to be marked because they are considered a opportunity of lift from any available air or ground vehicle that is available, so they can come in there guns blazing and drop off ammo and supply. Traditional medevacs are marked with a red crosses and cannot drop off ammo or be equipped with machine guns and require an escort if its a dangerous area.
Great video.
It’s funny how the Geneva Conventions becomes the Geneva Suggestions every time a war happens
One minor, minor nit to pick. When watching on my TV, the image is correctly letterboarded, but the extreme left side of the image is clipped (presumably right side as well). This results in the loss of several initial characters of the movie title. For example, the initial image shows "ters from Iwo Jima 2006". Shifting the title to the right in future videos would remedy this.
Oh, sorry about that. I actually appreciate you letting me know. I'll see if I can fix that for future videos. 🙏
2:22 "Well it's not completely black and white" *shows black and white movie. I see what you did there
Finally someone who gets me
Japan was to Asia what Germany was to Europe in WW2
That's kinda the point they were allies
Don't mind the off topic. Interesting to learn about if Japan had a chaplain division.
As a very lapsed Catholic...sometimes I feel people's purgatory is very much in this world...
If you mean a Christian Chaplin I’d bet every dollar I have that they didn’t.
@@eamonnclabby7067 The fuck are you talking about?
I have actually read about the Himeyuri Japanese student medical corps before, so I heard of them. I remember one such story about how two American soldiers on Okinawa helped a Himeyuri student get to safety. The Himeyuri student thought the two American soldiers were going to kill her, but instead they treated the maggot infested wound on her leg and then gave her water. I know that the Axis Powers were the bad guys of the Second World War, but they also had their own perspectives to share as well. I am just glad that Germany, Italy, and Japan today have learned their lessons and became our strongest ALLIES! I would also like to suggest a video on the 442nd Japanese-American infantry regiment. From the bottom of my heart, thank you very much for this video! 🥹
They are our allies is a good thing. But also because America did not repeat the mistakes after ww1. Isolationism being at the top. Having bases there makes for a faster response were mother Russia to try anything at the time
Helping them rebuild instead of leaving them to their fate was a show of good faith as well. Germany was left unchecked after ww1. That was not going to happen again.
@@iowa_lot_to_travel9471 Germany was horrendously mangled after WW1, a war that they didn't even start.
@@john98765333 yes. And they were also ordered to pay reparations of up to 1 billion dollars. Which did not exist at the time. And nobody believed Germany would bounce back
Churchill was the only one who saw Hitler for what he was. Germany was left to their fate and it bit the rest of Europe in the fanny
So by helping them and Japan rebuild had prevented ww3 up to this point
Japan still spreads propaganda that it was the good guy in WW2 and still denies all of it's numerous horrific gruesome war crimes. They got off with a light slap on the wrist then a pat on the back with trades from the U.S
@@john98765333also the Germans were the closest thing to being good in WW1. There were no actual good guys in that war.
Japanese forces decided for themselves to live entirely without honor and then call it "honor". Just as the Nazis did. It was a warped and recent phenomenon, not at all ancient.
The end felt sudden, i still feel so shocked that the sudden change in tone feels wrong, i wish this was longer.
Yah I should have made this longer
“You see that Shinji? That big Red Target means ‘shoot me’ so shoot as many as you can!”
"No, you can't make me, Dad! I don't wanna get in the big robot!"
(Sorry--whenever I hear Shinji, I think Evangelion.)
@@PolarizedMechsLOL 😂
I thought of Shinji Ikari too when I read this comment.
Very instructive vídeo! Congratulations! 😍🇧🇷
Interesting fact about the Russo-Japanese War. While at the time Japan had the largest red cross society, they nor the Russians had anything resembling a field medic or corpsman. One of the reasons the war had such a high killed in action count was because casualties were bleeding out from wounds before they could be evacuated to rear line army hospitals.
Had they received prompt medical attention a large contingent would have likely survived. The aftermath of this war is what led to the creation of frontline medical corps within most world powers before the start of the first world war.
I as a JROTC cadet took a CLS (Combat Life Saver) class around 2012 with some army guys and one of the things pointed out is basic first aid like the use of tourniquets on bleeding extremities greatly increased survivability. Something like 60% of US servicemen who died in Vietnam died by bleeding out via extremity wounds.
A piece of fabric with a stick let that sink in...
The Florence Nightingale museum at Saint Thomas's university hospital..opposite the houses of parliament in London is definitely worth a visit...
I believe Tojo and several other military leaders were charged with the war crime of shooting medics.
Tojo attempted to kill himself, when he was convicted he was executed.
Fantastically interesting video jonny, good shit!
All that fighting spirit crushed by two doses of sunlight
Little known fact. In the 1920's. Japan rescued a bunch of Polish orphans that were forcefully exiled to Siberia for slave labor by the Russians before WW2. These efforts were lead by a nurse named Take Hagiwara. Extraordinary story
That's in the 20's with the kind and friendly Japanese. This is in the 40's with filthy demons that kill, rape, and torture anything.
Honestly if I was a soldier and knew they targeted medics I wouldn’t be discouraged when I saw mine die I would just be angry that and what to avenge him
That was actually the effect it had on the U.S soldiers, just think about it. You are a soldier and you are wounded, a medic comes to heal you but gets deliberately targeted by the demons, you don't cower, you get enraged.
I've met too many vets that served in the pacific that all said they refuse to purchase anything made in Japan , especially emphasizing on cars . They wouldn't be caught dead in a Japanese made car .
Japan wasnt the only one Soviet union also trageted Axis medics, And you could see this as on the Western front German medics would even wear vests with the red cross and helmets painted white and red to mark them as medics. While on the eastern front they generally dint do it as Soviet snipers would often pick off any German medics they saw.
The Germans on the eastern front had no qualms about shooting medics either when it comes to the eastern front, neither side was ever in any particular mood to give quarter or mercy
I really enjoy learning about films that may or may not have been heard about. Thank you!
Very Close to 100k subs let's go!
yah buddy!
Aw yea!
Thirded...even if grammatically incorrect....
The militant form of Buddhism you talked about is still alive in Myanmar where they have ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya
Still not at bad as the militant form of Atheism like they have in China where they are committing an ethnic cleansing of the Uyghurs right now as we speak.
@@SergeantExtreme True. When it comes to evil like this, it shouldn't be a competition.
I remember in the videogame Medal of Honor Pacific. They include alot of small historical tidbits, the US Marines usually shout "Sailor" or other names to the medics just to confuse the Japs
My father served in the Pacific during WWII. He said that the Japanese snipers would shoot the medics in the center of the Red Cross on their helmet to show that they did not care that the soldier was a medic. He also told me that some of the US soldiers would file down the tip of their 30-06 bullets until they could see the lead core, thereby making it a more dangerous bullet.
That sounds like a hollo-point bullet
@@animelovers000 Yes, and they were outlawed by the Geneva Convention but the troops in the Pacific did not care.
@@jimstand Sounds dumb. It fucks with the aerodynamics of the bullet.
@@animelovers000 makes it a soft point, but same premise. Most hunting rounds are soft points
A soldier is a soldier.
In all fairness, a radio operator is a fair game for any military.
2:35 the most fucked up thing were: Bushido wasn´t use it as a moral code so strictely until the militar dictatorship... yes it existed and their peak before Tojo was the Bosshin Wars (due to the propagand enforced the use of the bushido code for differentiate from the imperial factions those were occidentalized ergo depravates)... but as something romantically taken from the literary media as samurai stories rather as something enforced (like the chavalry in the west), were in reality samurais operate as almost-neolitical PMC were the only moral code was the money and treasures that lives provide.... if you havent the bad luck of being a peasant who literally will die on the next cholera epidemic.
Ironically, few mangas as Inuyasha really show how samurais operates, as selfish thugs for hire who licks the feet of their feudal lord rather than the romantically (in the Literary sense) depicted image by most japanese media.
I also didn't know about the Red Cross in Japan and how big it was
VERY interesting topic. Thanks for the presentation. I have been a "WW2 buff" for ;longer than you have been alive, but you brought up quite a bit of new information.
It is also worth noting that EVERY participant in World War II was heavily using drugs that we know today to be dangerous and addictive in their militaries, usually because that simply wasn't well-understood yet. The US deployed "bennies" -- the amphetamine benezedrine -- extensively towards the end of the war. The book _Ghost Soldiers_ has a striking scene where the exhausted Rangers hauling the POWs from Cabanatuan prison camp back across Leyte get their first dose of the things and are immediately jolted awake from literal days worth of marching and fighting. It's illustrative of why these parties would use drugs that still weren't well-understood; the effects that WERE understood were extremely valuable for a combat perspective.
This is not meant to equivocate the two, however. As the video should hopefully have illustrated thoroughly, there was effectively no redeeming factor to Japan's military-nationalist dictatorship. It took just about everything that had been positive or laudable about Japan's pre-dictatorship society and crushed it in favor of avenues that enhanced its ability to control the Japanese people on every conceivable level.
i mean meth was originally a decongestant/weight controller
A friend's father was a medic. I don't remember exactly the details, bit at one point he found himself up close at the wrong end of a Mauser. He pointed at the medic's pin (or armband,, sorry, don't remember) and the German soldier waved his gun as to say "go !"
Truthfully: That social inheritance/capital
dates back to the Christian, knightly order and the Crusades. The Hospitalers come to mind. .
You’d think these men would have come to their senses and just kill the leaders that were waging the war, the whole vomit was such a waste of human life and time
@@kanesmith8271 Hitler wanted land and blood, hope he’s happy
@@kanesmith8271 The war was powering Germany's social welfare. It was one of the primary reasons why they started in the first place.
@@BaronEvola123 I'm responding to Kane, not you. Germany's economic policies were terrible for sustainability. The most accurate modern day comparison would be Venezuela, but with the oil to finance it.
Uhm... This treatment did not really extent to slavic soldiers now, did it?
My great grandfather was one of the Australian soldiers massacred at Alexandra hospital.
RIP sir.
Sort of related: A neighbour of ours was a sapper during the war (South African Army). He helped build roads in North Africa during the battles around El Alamein. He told me how after the war in the late 40s or early 50s, he went to Madagascar to build roads there. There were a lot of British and Australians who had served in Burma also working on the roads. At one point, a Japanese road engineer was sent to the area where they were working. He'd apparently been a soldier during the war though I can't remember what position he'd held. One night, a bunch of the Brits/Aussies cornered him and beat the living shit out of him. I don't know the exact reasons why they beat him up, but I can well imagine the animosity a lot of those old soldiers still had, especially at that time. The scars left by that war run deep.
Thank you for this nuanced and balanced take on this subject.
ua-cam.com/users/shortsBmc9NFfhx74?feature=share
4:54 “An army can not function without medicine…”
Russia: Hold my Beer!
Interesting video. On a wider scale a hospital ship fully light up was torpedoed off the coast of Australia by a Japanese submarine during WW2. Probably not the only one.
There is a story (I don't know if it's true) that the USS Wahoo spotted a Japanese hospital ship, lit up and with Red Cross markings. Given Mush Morton's absolute hatred of the Japanese, he lined up on it--he didn't tell the crew what they were shooting at, since they were taking an underwater shot, and he was the only one looking through the periscope. The ship blew up when it was hit: it wasn't a hospital ship, but an ammunition ship disguised as one. Again, I don't know if that story is true.
@@PolarizedMechs that's like warcrime squared.
@@ThePumpkinRot It was an ammo ship. Besides, the Japanese believed in dying for their emperor
@@mountainrogue3448 i mean the Japanese going impersonating medical staff while also killing them.
For anyone who hasn't had experience with recreational drug use, the idea of fighting while under the influence of speed sounds like it'd be terrifying. After being awake for a few days the phone ringing makes you jump out of your skin, let alone grenades and gun fire.
7:37
When I lived in Okinawa I avoided the Himeyuri museum until my girlfriend said I should see it. As a sort of ‘bear witness’ type of thing.
I couldn’t stop crying
I remember reading or hearing somewhere that soldiers would even call medics "Molly," since the Japanese have a hard time with L's.
That said, I can't seem to find that backed up anywhere, so now I'm unsure.
These claims must be true. Every password for American units, which would change every day, would be something like "Abraham Lincoln"
Since it was a nightly occurrence of Japanese crawling into American lines and killing them with swords and knives.
Every password chosen was because the Japanese could not pronounce the Ls in the English language.
Because there is no L sound in the Japanese language
Saying a marine is full of bloodlust is probably the greatest compliment you could give them lol
I didn't know Japanese medical culture changed so rapidly before ww2
It really is a huge eye opener when you read pre-WW2 Japanese military culture. During the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese treated Russian prisoners very well to the point that even the western powers applauded their humanitarian acts. Same can be said to the German prisoners after the Siege of Tsingtao during WWI.
@@imgvillasrc1608 Makes it even more of a waste to see them turn to this horrendous amalgamation of murder and "honor"
@Luca Johnen Ironic how the IJA were truly honorable when they used to treat the weak with dignity instead as rabid animals.
Excellent topic. I enjoy the descriptions of weapons used. But the psychology during battles was something else to ponder. I hope you continue with more such topics.
My uncle James Luther Lee was a Navy Corpsman. He was killed in Bougainville at the battle of Piva Forks while rendering aid to mortally wounded Marine. He received the Navy Cross and Purple Heart. I have forgiven Japan, love the country and love the people.
I always found it odd the concept that shooting medics would impact enemy moral.
When a man is shot and killed he's dead. His kit can be taken and repurposed, and another soldier must take his place while a letter is written to loved ones. That's the end of the consequences.
When a man is shot and crippled he shouts out in pain crying to God and his mother. Men around him are demoralized and some may stop to help their friend stalling advance. Resources are expended to preserve his life taxing supply lines. The man can no longer fight but he still needs to eat. If he's missing a limb everywhere he walks he decreases moral. If he's severely crippled he might not even be able to work on the home front. From a logistical standpoint a man who is crippled is worse than dead.
Anti-personnel landmines are actually designed maim instead of kill exactly for these reasons.
Nowadays, shooting a medic is how you get new war crimes added to the list because of they're squad members
@@ismaeljimenez6562 As the fat electrician often says, "don't take potshots at doc or the officer because if you do your going to find out why it's not a warcrime the first time"
The Kentucky long rifles did something similar in the American Revolution.
Flawed logic, because you are thinking about logic and logistics opposed to morale.
Shooting a medic dad means that in combat, he cannot treat friendly troops, without a medic to treat wounds, any minor wounds can lead to death, the troops then thus either fear that their lives are in even further danger or are angry they that their last lost option to survive if injured is dead. Anything from a basic sickness to gunshot would can make a man fear death if there is no medic because there is no hope of treatment. There is fear because there is no hope. For every medic is speciality trained, you remark how their kit can be taken, but each medic and his skill takes time to be taught, years of knowledge which is not very very common. Not everyone can apply a tourniquet properly so as I said, even a basic would can become deadly. Your soldiers are to fight in combat and provide suppressive fire if you need to be collected due to wounds. Medics are the ones who actually treat you or pull you back, you fellow soldiers cannot often risk pulling you back, because if you all are under fire, they cannot easily fire back and suppress the enemy meaning you all may die. At least with a medic, they can drag you back while your pals provide covering fire.
You find it an odd concept because you don’t understand what morale is, you are looking at war logistics
Would be interested to learn about Chaplins in World War 2 next
Chaplin never served 🤣
@@jessicaregina1956 as in spiritual guides in the military...preachers for soldiers not charlie chaplin. Next time know what your talking obout before being acting all haughty
🤣
@@elijahlawson4365 ChapLAIN
My great grandfather was a medic in the Pacific during ww2. His battalion ended up staying stationed in the Philippines after the Phillipines campaign. He received a purple heart after the war. He was shot and tended his own wounds before returning to his medic duties. He taught me a lot before he died that ill never forget. He never really wanted me to be in the military but should I ever be drafted I promise to make one hell of a medic.
Great video thanks Johnny, as always ❤❤
UA-cam ad algorithms are silly. I had an ad for a video on a Japanese method of treating an enlarged prostate. Just do it every night..