Anyone who was alive at the time of these events still uses the term Jap. I do, for one. Call it a racial slur if you wish but it is a term that was used by us then and still used by us now. It is nothing to the terms the JAPS had for us at the time and many japs probably still use their derogatory terms.
My Dad was a Pharmacists Mate with a marine division that invaded Iwo Jima and Nagasaki. He still uses the term "Japs." I believe the Pacific War was a racist war of the first order. It was a fight to the death that can leave emotional scars. I think my Dad still harbors some bitterness toward Japanese. I find it difficult to be judgemental about it.
He has a friend at his church who is both Catholic and Nisei and likely doesn't want his friend killed. He also in rare moments, when he let's down what little hair he still has, will say Japanese Americans were treated disgracefully in having their lives destroyed when so many of them were innocent and patriotic Americans.
You believe the Pacific war was a "...a racist war of the first order"?
Can you explain exactly what you mean by that? I really am curious.
Were we racist towards them? Were they racist towards us? Both sides racist towards each other?
Or did they only attack us ONLY because we were mostly caucasian? Did we fight them all the way across the Pacific ONLY because they were orientals?
Do you suppose the military people who fought against the Japanese did it so strenously due to unrelenting racism?
Are you contrasting the Pacific war with the "more civilized" European theatre?
I really am curious, I would like to know what you mean.
Oh it was indeed. But major big time racists were the guys with the red meatballs on their aircraft and the rising sun flag on their ships. They considered the Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, etc, little more than monkeys to be ruled by the warrior elite (themselves). Europeans, other than Germans, they held in near total contempt, and Americans were inferior as well, and soft to boot. They learned otherwise.