I was a not quite 19 year old infantry replacement standing in a line on Leyte to get battle gear for the coming invasion of Japan. When a slightly older Lt. came out and told us to go back to our tents because the war was over there was a feeling of relief. However, for me there was some mixed emotions because I would never get the opportunity to try for revenge over my one and only older brother being killed on Okinawa. I am very honest in my feelings that at the time I wanted to kill as many and any Japs as possible and I believe many if not most of the infantry being prepared for the invasion felt the same. Our training was to be killers. We were told and realized the invasion would be costly in lives on both sides. I suppose some had serious trepidation but for me and many others it was ‘lets get it on’. No doubt the atomic bombs saved many millions of lives by taking out a fewer amount. I have never felt remorse over the Jap lives lost in the war because I grew up knowing about the heinous actions of the Jap soldiers and watched as the Jap civilians praised their warriors.
There has to be something inherently wrong with a society capable of such atrocities as the Japanese
The Massacre, Rape and Plunder of Nanking
http://www.olive-drab.com/od_history_ww2_ops_battles_1937nanking.php
Japanese forces advanced towards Nanking from Shanghai, attacking from three directions on 25 November. The Chinese General Tang Sheng Zhi commanded an army of over a hundred thousand men, but they were poorly led by officers who deserted as the fighting intensified. When the city fell on 13 December 1937, a third of the Chinese Army was still within the walls, shedding their uniforms and trying to hide among the civilians.
For a period of six weeks after the fall of Nanking, the Chinese were not simply murdered. They were tortured, brutalized, and raped. The Japanese used every variety of murder. Chinese victims were:
•Chased into the Yangtze River with machine guns, drowning them
•Drenched with gasoline, then shot so they burned like candles
•Mutilated by cutting off testicles or gouging out eyeballs, then burned while alive
•Tied to posts in groups, then executed with grenades or machine guns.
•Covered with acid until dead from the corrosive effects
•Attacked with awls or other tools or clubs
•Eviscerated and confronted with their internal organs
•Beheaded in swordplay displays by Japanese officers
•Used for grotesque experiments by Japanese doctors and scientists
Women and babies were singled out for special tortures:
•Women were beaten on the vagina with fists and other objects until dead
•Babies were skewered and tossed into boiling water
•Fetuses were cut from living pregnant women and put into jars of preservative
•Large numbers of women were gang raped and tortured, then killed
•Rape victims left alive had their stomachs cut open or their breasts chopped off
•Women were kept as sex slaves at the service of any Japanese man
Japanese soldiers laughingly made games out of these atrocities. Japanese officers organized contests to see what soldier could kill the most Chinese in a given time with numbers as high as 500 required to win. Tokyo newspapers, such as Nichi-nichi, printed stories about the contests with pride and praise for winners.
The Japanese government also sponsored bombings on villages to test germ warfare agents for later use on the United States.