Posted on 03/21/2005 8:09:29 PM PST by Racehorse
Baron Nishi is probably a familiar name to people who know the history of Japan in the days leading up to World War II. Born an aristocrat, his first name was Takeichi. He won a gold medal in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, and served in the Imperial Japanese Army during the war. After a tour in Manchuria, he was shipped to Iwojima island, where he was killed in action.
It is said that U.S. soldiers on Iwojima tried in vain to get Nishi to surrender, calling out to him by name: ``Olympic hero Baron Nishi, please turn yourself in. You are too great a man to die.'' But Nishi refused.
Some think this story was made up after the war. According to official records, Nishi died on March 17 exactly 60 years ago.
Mitsuhiko Niwa, 17, Nishi's great-grandson, visited Iwojima for the first time last weekend. Wearing a funereal black necktie and carrying two cameras, he walked around the island with about 110 people whose family members had also died there.
As many as 27,000 Japanese and American soldiers perished on the island, but Mitsuhiko found it surprisingly small. He had read many books about his great-grandfather, but it was only after ``stepping into dark, deep trenches and walking on blood-soaked beaches'' that he was truly able to feel his great-grandfather's ``physical presence'' for the first time.
Mitsuhiko climbed Mount Suribachi, where young Japanese and American soldiers literally fought to the death six decades ago. A photograph of the Stars and Stripes fluttering atop the mountain is still well-known in the United States partly because the photo is effective for raising morale. Whenever a catastrophe comparable in magnitude to 9/11 occurs, the photo is invariably used on fliers soliciting donations or announcing meetings of bereaved families.
Yasunori Nishi, 77, Baron Nishi's eldest son and Mitsuhiko's grandfather, noted: ``Japanese and Americans feel entirely differently about Iwojima. For us Japanese, it is an island for mourning the dead. For the Americans, it is an island for glorifying their victory.''
Mitsuhiko will enroll in an American university this autumn. He hopes to start horseback riding there--a sport his great-grandfather would have enjoyed into old age, had he lived in peacetime.
Agreed. Like Racehorse, I also respect those who can neither forget nor forgive Japanese atrocities.
(Did you know that the US Marines fought Koreans in 1871? It was our first real contact with Korea?)
I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing. :)
Of French History, I'm astonished by the unusual fearlessness of French foreign missionaries (especially the martyrs). Koreans often accepted the Christian message much more openly than many other East Asian nations. It's for that reason the devil hates Koreans and has been trying to destroy them for the past century. A parallel is a history of Ireland. When such wickedness happens to a people, it could only prove the existence of a pure evil.
Really, and the millions of murdered Chinese by the Japs from 1933 onward would have been what, forgiven??
Sounds made up to me. Only a few intelligence and commanding officers would have known the bio of the Japanese commander, and they wouldn't have had much reason to capture him.
Agreed - particularly having been on the island for a month. Those guys (whether they knew who he was or not) weren't in the mood to tell some Japanese guy what a great man he was at that point, I'm guessing.
When you're afraid to fall asleep, you get a little jumpy.
They even had to make up ways to call a medic ("Tallulah!", because of the pronounciation, so the enemy couldn't imitate them and take out their docs) - so it's a pretty good stretch to think they'd be sweet talking this guy.
I don't care about Japans pain.
I care about the pain of Americans as well as other nations citizens that died because of Japan.
The Japaneese were more then brutal. They were savage.
I would no sooner buy a mitsubishi then I would tour France.
This company as well as many other Japaneese firms used American and other P.O.W.s as slave labour.
I can go on for about ten pages decumenting the abuses meeted out by these "Allies".
The only reason they care a whif about us is to have us help keep China at bay.
The Chineese would still love to beat hell out of japan after the carnage they suffered so long ago.
Not just young people. I've told a few adults that my dad was wounded on Iwo Jima, and I got the deer in the headlights look.
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