“The Japanese escort mine sweeper W-12, starts to pick up Japanese survivors leaving the Allied captives behind. Between 200 and 250 men are floating in the sea. The minesweeper then makes several slow circles around the survivors and minutes later machine-gun and rifle fire are directed towards the defenseless swimmers. Empty rafts and lifeboats are then rammed and sunk.”
Reconciling the above action with the US post war compassion and generosity to Japan is difficult for me.
Likewise. Although our side is known to have engaged in similar massacres. Our submarines, anyway.
Nations with Western, Judeo-Christian values see soldiering very differently. What first tipped me that Japanese soldiers might be acting from a radically different culture rather than simply being sadistic monsters was the account I read of the beheading of an American prisoner, recounted in a captured war diary.
"An American prisoner today was accorded the death of a samurai."
That sure is not the way I would look at it.