Beheaded at whim and worked to death: Japan's repugnant treatment of Allied PoWs

The Daily Mail (U.K.) ^ | September 17, 2007 | Max Hastings

[flowerplough]

Re: total denial about
WWII as a Japanese brain dysfunction.

Remember another PBS explanation of the forcibly-impressed Japanese military prostitute “comfort women” that showed a young Japanese historian beaming with pride explaining his admiration for the many Asian women who did what they could to aid “their” soldiers-heroes.

[Chanticleer]

My father was a corpsman in the South Pacific. Some of the natives on the islands where he was stationed would behead the Japanese whenever they could -- because that's what the Japanese did to them.

You can read his story and others in The Navy Log at LoneSailor.Org

[AnAmericanMother]

The Dean of the Chapel at my college, Ernest Gordon, was likewise in the Argyll & Sutherlands, went into the bag after Singapore, was in Chung Kai, but he survived (barely). He was an atheist when he went in, a Christian when he came out - and became a Presbyterian minister.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

“I would like to hear Japan say “sorry””

The Danish Government just apologized to Ireland for the 10th century Vikings raids. Give it time.

[sasportas]

So much said here on this thread about the River Kwai. Yet nobody had mentioned the movie “The Bridge over the River Kwai.”

With so many veterans of the pacific war still around, who had first hand experience with the Japanese, no wonder the movie took top honors in every category the year they came out with the movie.

You mention the River Kwai today, and you are greeted with blank stares.

I wonder what the people who actually worked on the slave gangs on the bridge, thought of the movie. Whether it accurately portrayed it or not.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

My mom has a shoe box full of original photos my late uncle took when his group liberated a European concentration camp somewhere at the end of the war.

[sasportas]

Correction, I meant to say:

I wonder what the people who were in the slave gangs working on the bridge thought of the movie.

[OESY]

There's an 800-pound gorilla in this room. On other FR threads you can still find intense hatred of all things German, including the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who lived in the Nazi dictatorship. Living in New York City, I grew up hearing friends say "I wouldn't set foot in that country" or "I would never buy a German car." I'd love to have a dollar for each time I heard "Scratch a German (or a Welsh-German-American), bleed a Nazi." Interestingly, in my Congressional district, which votes 90% Democratic, that saying has morphed into "Scratch a conservative, bleed a Nazi." One day I brought some photographs of my Army days at Fort Benning and in Europe: airborne training, infantry exercises, tank maneuvers, etc. I was labeled a Nazi by one of the secretaries. So much for the esteemed tolerance of liberals and their ilk. Meanwhile, Japanese cars sell exceedingly well. One has to wonder if the Japanese strategy to avoid acceptance of guilt in WWII and to deny responsibility and reparations wasn't the smarter approach.

.

[ARE SOLE]

The Dean of the Chapel at my college, Ernest Gordon, was likewise in the Argyll & Sutherlands, went into the bag after Singapore, was in Chung Kai, but he survived (barely)

Thanks for the response. I know well of the Ernest Gordons hardships and of his redemption. A wonderful man.

My family had always thought my Grandfather died in Japan. We got word from Stirling Castle, home of the Argylls in Scotland, that he had in fact been captured in Singapore then held as a slave on the Thai Burma Railway and was buried in Thailand.

I was am contact with Brit and Aussie expats in Thailand. In Kanchanaburi to be more specific. They run the Thai Burma Death Railway Historical Center.

These fine folks keep the story alive with exhibits and data bases on Commonwealth POW's. There were some Yanks, a small number, on the railway as well. One Email to the folks in Thailand and the next day I get mail back with an attachment.

The Thai Burma Railway Museum is on the opposite side of the the Kwai from the ChungKai camp, this guy had walked over the bridge, bought some flowers and put them on my Grandfathers grave and sent me a beautiful picture.

There are some really great folks out there.

Regards

[BBell]

Putting panties on a mans head is an atrocious act against the Geneva convention and should be considered on par with all the atrocity's committed by Japan and Germany during WWII. Thats what the world’s media would have you believe.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I'd have liked to have seen him stripped, paraded through the streets of Tokyo and summarily sliced, julienne style before his imperialist cabinet and warlord officer corps.

I think if that had been done it would have become necessary to exterminate every living Japanese soul.

They never would have surrendered if their Emperor were treated thus.

[B4Ranch]

If it was accurately portrayed, the soft civilian audience would be puking for days. Foolish question of the day!

[Doc91678]

We have never had anything to be ashamed of.
The question is what do the Islamofascist terrorists do with the people they capture from our side?
From what I understand their captives are treated to torture, mutilation, and then beheading. Not as swiftly as the Japanese did.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks indcons.

[Stoat]

We have never had anything to be ashamed of.

Agreed

The question is what do the Islamofascist terrorists do with the people they capture from our side?
From what I understand their captives are treated to torture, mutilation, and then beheading. Not as swiftly as the Japanese did.

One possible bright side to this matter is that because the islamofascists are incapable of building anything or doing anything of a constructive nature whatsoever, their prisoners will most likely not be worked to death. The prisoners may be tortured, then paraded in front of the cameras and their heads sawn off with dull blades, but at least they won't be worked to death over the course of months or years.

Having never been a POW (thank God) I'm guessing that this would be a 'better end', but I would of course want to leave such judgments to people who have been closer to this ugly arena than I have.  Perhaps a work-camp environment at least gives prisoners some hope for escape?  But for the prisoners who are unable to escape and who are brutally worked and starved to death over the course of years, they may well have preferred a swifter end.

Also, because of the differences in the type of warfare we are now Blessed with far fewer soldiers who have been captured.  Of course every capture and loss is heartbreaking, but I would suggest that things have improved over the times when there were thousands of our brave soldiers huddled in miserable work / death camps.

[yarddog]

We were far more generous to the Japanese than the Germans and oddly, the Germans treated our POWs far better than the Japanese did.

Of course part of that was due to the death camps but the idea of Commies judging German soldiers at Nurenburg is disgusting.

All in all it was probably right that we went easy on the Japanese, tho I think every single one who purposely tortured and murdered allied POWs should have been summarily hanged.

[Stoat]

We were far more generous to the Japanese than the Germans and oddly, the Germans treated our POWs far better than the Japanese did.

Of course part of that was due to the death camps but the idea of Commies judging German soldiers at Nurenburg is disgusting.

All in all it was probably right that we went easy on the Japanese, tho I think every single one who purposely tortured and murdered allied POWs should have been summarily hanged.

Agreed.  I have heard stories of the comparative treatments given to prisoners, and I've been told that the Nazis unleashed their most uncompromising brutality upon the Russians.  The stories I've been told were that the differences in treatment given to American or British soldiers were like night and day compared with what was done to the Russians.

The Russians were none too kind to the Nazis either.  I remember a story of a trainload of German POW's who were returned to Germany sometime in the 1950's from some gulag, and I was told they looked much like the photos of the poor souls we've all seen of the Jews in the Nazi concentration camps

We were far more generous to the Japanese than the Germans and oddly, the Germans treated our POWs far better than the Japanese did.

Of course part of that was due to the death camps but the idea of Commies judging German soldiers at Nurenburg is disgusting.

All in all it was probably right that we went easy on the Japanese, tho I think every single one who purposely tortured and murdered allied POWs should have been summarily hanged.

[Stoat]

I recall seeing that PBS program on the River Kwai as well, and your recollections coincide with mine.

That Japanise officer stuck in my mind also, because he was simply unable to believe that he had done anything wrong or had anything to be ashamed of.....truly a powerful example of the effectiveness of brainwashing, a form of which we are seeing again in our fight against islamofascism.

[Stoat]

Bill Zumar, an orphan boy, lived with us in Comanche, Oklahoma through his highschool years. After Pearl Harbor, he joined the army and was sent to the Philipines. He endured the Bataan Death March. Sent to Japan on a “Hell Ship”, he worked in the coal mines near Nagasaki. The horrors he experienced are described in a book “My Hitch in Hell” written by a former prisoner who had a similar POW experience. He returned to the US and lived out his short life in Oklahoma and Texas. He was my all time Hero!

WOW....quite a story.  And a much better hero to look up to than most that popular culture thrusts upon us these days.  Thanks very much for telling about this.

Amazon.com My Hitch in Hell The Bataan Death March (Memories of War) Books Lester I. Tenney

[AnAmericanMother]

American Heritage magazine did an interview with an American woman whose whole family was interned after Singapore. She survived, but most of her family did not.

It's great that there are folks who are working to keep the history alive, and remembering the human aspect as well. Those who forget the past, &c. &c.