[nickedknack]

Interesting perspective. Everyone should remember that the Japanese have never formally apologized for the manifold war crimes & atrocities they committed against the Allies and their Asian neighbors before and during WWII. The genocidal actions are glossed over in their school texts, and there are many in Japan, younger generations included, who feel they did nothing wrong because they were forced into war by the U.S. All bullsh*t, of course.

[Simon Foxx]

Well, the Japanese textbooks are telling a (half)-truth there:

- The US embargo on Japan of 1941 WAS in fact an act of (cold) war any way you look at it.

- However, the reason for that embargo by the USA against Japan was Japan’s unprovoked (hot) war against China and elsewhere in Asia.

- FDR was indeed trying to provoke the Japanese so that he could get into the US into the war and save Europe from Hitler (the Pacific being a decidedly second tier theater).

Once the war got going, only about 20% of our war resources went into the Pacific, and that was more than enough to defeat Japan, a second-rate power.

FDR’s main and primary goal was always stopping Hitler, but since Hitler would nto provide a pretext for the US to join that war, their allies in Japan would have to do.

And they did. If they had listened to the Japanese Army’s advice, and left the US alone, Japan might still be in China and Korea.

[doorgunner69]

there are many in Japan, younger generations included, who feel they did nothing wrong because they were forced into war by the U.S.

I have run into American liberals online that believe the same thing.

[Ax]

When I was in high school in the late fifties, I spent an inordinate amount of time reading about WW2 in the Pacific, much to the detriment of my other subjects. Shortly after graduation, and with no danger of college on my radar, I enlisted in the Mighty United States Air Force. After finishing radio School, I was assigned to Clark Air Base in the Philippines.

I loved the PI. I found the people to be very warm and friendly; to this day I go out of my way to greet Filipinos that I happen to meet in Tagalog. I couldn't understand then or now how one group of people could be so cruel to them.

Several years later, I got an assignment to Japan. I couldn't look at a Japanese man that I assumed to be in their 40s or 50s and wonder if he was one of those unspeakably monstrous people who lopped off the heads of innocent civilians or our GIs from Bataan. Not surprisingly, I was never able to form any kind of friendship with any Japanese person.

[FrankR]

My Dad was also a civilian machinist at Pearl during the bombing. He never talked about it much.