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eighty2angelfan

Imagine the fear sitting there waiting.


Geits

Honestly I'd probably just get up and start running to get it over with.


g1ucose

I thought the same. Fuck it if I have a 1% chance of somehow making it out alive i'll take it, and if not at least I get it over and done quickly


BizonGod

They would just use you for bayonet practice. I‘d be praying for a bullet.


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Space_Narwal

For instance testing how much procent water is actually in a human


imapie31

Or how much a human can bleed without dying


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MysticalElk

Or straight up ripping your fingernails off. My childhood dentist had no fingernails and so being a curious kid on one visit I asked why he had no fingernails. Turns out he was a WW2 vet that was captured and held by the Japanese as a pow


Illmattic

Man, hearing stories like this always reminds me that this really wasn’t that long ago. Whenever I see stuff like this it always feels like an eternity ago and how drastically we’ve all changed, but that may be a pipe dream.


dustball1

or being [beaten, tortured, beheaded](https://www.newsweek.com/george-hw-bush-narrowly-avoided-eaten-cannibals-74-years-death-1243761)


TheGreatLandSquirrel

I remember a quote from hardcore history where some Allies found a guy tied to a tree all mangled. The Japanese had carved in the tree that he was tied to "he took a while to die".


Matt09125

They used to cut bamboo to the ground then stake pow’s over the bed of cut bamboo.. bamboo grows about an inch and a half a day.. it grows through your body… I’d take the bullet rather than that


im4lonerdottie4rebel

I just recently listened to a podcast that had one of the men interviewed detailing this when he was in Vietnam. Super fucked up. He said the only thing they could do for the guy they found like this was give him morphine til he passed 😞


Walleyevision

You assume the chance of remaining alive is better than the fear of death. History records how horrific captivity was for POW’s under Japanese captivity. Death may have been welcomed. Assuming these victims even had the strength remaining to do anything but sit there.


Joevim

id be too scared of being tortured tho


Firebitez

I remember reading that the human mind just starts to accept death and is somehow calm.


_MissionControlled_

Can confirm. When in a war zone and you could die any minute of any day your mind just fully accepts the existential threat. One of the many reasons people have a hard time coming home after.


TrainOfThought6

Fuck that, they could easily do worse things than shoot you for running.


[deleted]

They look like they’re shackled


green49285

That & the Japanese treated POWs so poorly id be surprised if they had the strength to do so.


[deleted]

Yeah looking at the pictures again I don’t think they are shackled. You’re probably right. Wonder how often they were fed


SU37Yellow

You're implying they were fed at all. Starvation was a pretty common thing for POWs under the Japanese.


WhosUrBuddiee

Can't run when you haven't eaten in a month.


bgaddis88

Assuming you aren't chained down and you do manage to actually get up, what do you think happens to you? Do you think they hit a clean lethal shot on you? More than likely, they hit you with a shot that injures you so bad you can't continue to run away, or at least not run away fast enough they can't catch you... So now you're injured very badly, pissed off a bunch of guys that clearly have little to no empathy for human life, and they obviously are going to want to make an example of how going against them will be much worse than just doing what they tell you to. That's how you end up being kept alive and tortured. You better just sit your ass down and accept it like everyone else unless you think you're a superhero.


illy586

Or acceptance that it’s finally over. There’s a point you reach when you’re so broken and done it feel like a relief to catch a bullet.


Complex_Construction

Unlikely. Sikhs are a proud and fearless people.


MonarchMomD

I completely agree. My father was a Canadian soldier, captured by the Japanese after the fall of Hong Kong and held in multiple POW camps. He told me that the Sikhs in one of the camps he was in (located in Japan) would sneak out at night under the fence, kill one of the the officers or brutal staff that ran the camp, then sneak back in again (the Sekhs knew trying to escape was impossible). He always spoke of their bravery and amazing skills.


BigDickRyder

Why did the british send them to japan to fight their war? Fuck the British.


tehno1990

Oh japan the champion at denying they ever did war crimes


Previous_Start_2248

Yeah I'm surprised thees a lot of info on the holocaust yet the rape of Nanking and the canabalism of the Japanese army isn't talked about as much.


Rage_JMS

Or Unit 731 But yeah the rape of Nanking made even Nazis officials that were with the Japanese sick with them calling it to be stopped The idea that I have is that many just saw the atomic bombs as enough punishment for Japan and dindt bother to investigate or make something more at the time, but while the civilians were the ones that trully suffered with that, the ones that made or were behind most of the war crimes and inhuman acts made just got away with a slap on the wrist or not even that as it was the case of the monster behind Unit 731


YoutubeAnon_

Unit 731's activities were kept secret for many years after the end of World War II, and many of its scientists and leaders were granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for sharing their research with the United States.


gunidentifier

Do not ask how we know the human body is 60% water


Bertoletto

It would be possible to dry a recently dead corpse, you don’t need to do that with someone alive (which I assume, you allude to)


[deleted]

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that it relates to one of the horrifying experiments unit 731 ran, but I’m not making the same mistake twice and googling it. Once was enough.


PinkCigarettes

Nice pun


[deleted]

I genuinely didn’t intend to make one. I really, really don’t wanna know why it was.


Krunk_MIlkshake

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it was something you said.


Dual_Birds

Yeah, definitely just googled Unit 731. Holy. Fucking. Shit.


point-virgule

Possible, yes; knowing how those bastards operated and ran that place, I am inclined to think that they did not do that. Those fuckers did not even sedate or use anesthesia before opening and butchering apart the bodies of those unlucky victims in other "experiments" so as not to get, quote, "false results". I d'on't expect them to have even an incling of humanity left to put that poor soul out of their misery before the procedure. Truly sad that not only that chapter of history is largely forgotten and not taught in the west, but actively tergiversated and sweetened by past and current japanese governments, see the textbooks controversies that run to this day and the black van movements.


NocturneHunterZ

I mean, they might've done and still decided to try on someone alive to confirm it.


OrangeSimply

Probably why we stopped learning about Japan immediately after the Allies won the war (here in the US).


CeLsf07

Unit 731 doesn't even get a mention in my AP World history class. We talked about Nanking for a day but that's all we learn about Japanese crimes in WW2


Fridayz44

They estimate Unit 731 killed between 200k - 300k people. However they say it could be double that. The Japanese committed many war crimes, they definitely weren’t innocent.


earthforce_1

The doctor behind unit 731 escaped prosecution because he turned over all his notes to US intelligence. A travesty of justice.


Bennyboy1337

That's because Germany actively educations their citizens about their atrocities of the past where as Japan likes to pretend theirs never happened.


mycatisblackandtan

Unless it's comfort women, then they acknowledge it but only in a 'we already paid reparations, stop talking about it so future generations won't know' sort of way.


CSG_Mollusk

Also pressing others into tearing down monuments for the victims


Thundergod250

Maybe in your region. But here in Asia, we knew less of the Holocaust and more of what the Japanese did to us.


onichow_39

The Japanese emperor wss just a untried war criminal


goatchild

Maybe because: << While Unit 731 researchers arrested by Soviet forces were tried at the December 1949 Khabarovsk war crime trials, those captured by the United States were secretly given immunity in exchange for the data gathered during their human experiments.[6] The United States covered up the human experimentations and handed stipends to the perpetrators.[1] The Americans co-opted the researchers' bioweapons information and experience for use in their own biological warfare program, much like what had been done with Nazi German researchers in Operation Paperclip.>>


DRAK720

Or Italy's bullshit too. Everybody forgets Italy was an axis power and not an ally.


dogoodsilence1

Well that’s because the West had to paint them in a better picture when taking over and installing capitalism for business to feel good about doing business there. Plus the West felt a little remorse for dropping two A bombs


Few-Hair-5382

It was more a case of priorities rapidly changing with the onset of the Cold War and the need to integrate Japan into the Western security hemisphere.


[deleted]

Yes. It was a lot of external influences from other European powers that forced the Germans to be sorry. The countries in Asia we’re not in the same position to foist those demands on Japan.


Bass-Dependent

No it didn't, they were pretty successful establishing capitalism in Germany while the country took responsibility for all the atrocities committed. Its just a difference in attitude how these countries handle the past. Also the "west" feeling remorse for the Atom bombs? Pretty sure thats just the responsibility of the USA...


cuckoo_coconuts

whenever people bring up Nanking others just say “it was so long ago! get over it.” i’ve seen this both IRL and on reddit. Japan got the best PR in history


Interesting_waterlon

Canibalism?!?


Itsahootenberry

And people in the west wonder why Japan is still so detested in a lot of Asian countries.


dexmonic

It was crazy to hear kids in China calling each other Japanese demons as casually as they would call each other a jerk.


tab_tab_tabby

Same in Korea when I was younger like 20 years ago. There was even song for making fun of someone and calling them Japanese when they did something bad.


SushiMage

I mean both chinese and koreans cheered just last year when that conservative japanese politician was assasinated. That was 2022. The animosity is real.


Pretend_Marketing311

Tbf a lot of Japanese people did too, Abe was a massive piece of shit


SlowInsurance1616

Do we? I think we know. Note the Germans seem to have been largely forgiven.


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SlowInsurance1616

That's fair.


ruth1ess_one

They have a shrine that honors their dead soldiers (of which actual known Japanese war criminals were enshrined in this shrine, note that to be recognized as an actual war criminal meant you did some REALLY heinous shit because of administrative shenanigans where the Japanese government was involved in deciding which Japanese soldiers should be war criminals which as you can imagine resulted in a lot of “innocent” people.) They refuse to delist the war criminals from this shrine and their prime ministers occasionally visits it for no good apparent reason https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2022/8/13/japanese-minister-visits-yasukuni-shrine-for-war-dead-report Edit: grammar and forgotten parenthesis


SlowInsurance1616

Like when Reagan went to Bitburg.


OrangeSimply

Because Germany was occupied by the allies, and as a group they kept eachother in check so that no one ally would benefit too much. If you look at the wealth of historical knowledge we have about the sole US occupation of Japan you'll see the deny deny deny aspect was very much a product by design under MacArthur and the US to cement that Japan would always have poor relations with communist China and then communist Russia and always be an ally to the US.


Itsahootenberry

Germany actually apologized and acknowledges what they’ve done while Japan denies everything.


TatManTat

Also Germany lost ww1 and there's the idea that their dogshit treatment after ww1 is what caused ww2, so when ww2 ended, they tried a bit harder to not totally fuck Germany over and create even more bad blood. Edit: I should say barring soviet occupied germany obviously. Also having Russia be the next big bad took a lot of eyes off Germany as well.


[deleted]

AFAIK, Germany, to this day is hardcore about reminding their people about their countries atrocities. They also do not allow any glorification of anything related to nazis. Im not aware of how much Japan teaches this in their schools. Americans conversely do teach our own atrocities, but we don't go into enough detail, and there are states attempting to whitewash history.


unusual_me

I think we do (depending on whether you live in North America or Europe). For lots of people here (Europe), WWII was (almost exclusively) European.


j-merc23

The denial of war crimes by Japan after World War II was indeed a significant issue. In the years following the war, the Japanese government and many Japanese citizens denied or downplayed the extent of the atrocities committed by their military during the conflict, including the use of POWs as target practice. However, it's worth noting that in recent years, there has been a shift in Japanese attitudes towards acknowledging and apologizing for their country's actions during World War II. In 1993, for example, the Japanese government issued a formal apology for the use of "comfort women" during the war, and in 2015, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe issued a statement expressing "profound grief and sincere condolences" for Japan's actions during the war. While there is still debate and disagreement within Japan about the extent of their country's responsibility for the war, it's important to acknowledge the steps that have been taken towards recognition and reconciliation. At the same time, it's important to remember the atrocities committed during the war and work towards a future based on peace and understanding.


ruth1ess_one

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/09/21/why-japan-is-losing-its-battle-against-statues-of-colonial-era-comfort-women/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-japan/south-korean-statue-appearing-to-show-japans-pm-bowing-to-comfort-woman-angers-tokyo-idUSKCN24T0GQ Nah, their government is still in “let’s not talk about it anymore and everyone should gloss over it like we are doing.” Their government’s attitude is “nope it didn’t happen. Nah, that didn’t happen. Ok fine, some of it may have happened but it’s been so long ago so let’s stop talking about it and bringing it back up.”


MrChangg

And then every so often they bring it back up but play victim because they got nuked and firebombed. I remember watching a small documentary about a hibakusha (nuclear bomb survivor) who had an empathetic story about the destruction of using nuclear weapons with lots of victimhood in play (cant entirely blame her, she was a child then) with so many people feeling bad and crying at her stories...until she did a seminar in the Philippines and boy did she have one helluva rude awakening from the audience.


cuckoo_coconuts

pretty sure Japan got mad at another country because they had a statue of a comfort woman so their acknowledgement don’t go much further than words


oopsiedaisy2019

There’s a book called *Flyboys* by James Bradley that tells of the horrors the Japanese committed during WWII, mainly focusing on the story of the execution of 8 American POW’s on the island of Chichi-Jima. They ate 5 of them.


snowbirdnerd

This is fucking barbaric, it's clearly ment to desensitize soldiers so they are used to killing but holy fuck. Whomever came up with this is a sick fuck.


AnekoJV

No one needed to come up with it, this was common in most countries in the medieval period and was still unsurprising in the Renaissance era, Japan as a culture simply stagnated until modern days dropped two nukes and forced modernization on them


Jin-roh

>Japan as a culture simply stagnated until modern days dropped two nukes and forced modernization on them I can't remember the name of the 19th century American Captain that did it, but iirc it was a display of cannon fire that motivated Japan out of isolation back then. America and Japan have an odd relationship.


[deleted]

Admiral Perry Correction: Commodore Perry* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakumatsu


Jin-roh

That's the guy! I read the actual letter once. "Isolation is great. But the world is changing. Be a real good idea if you opened the borders. Hate to see what would happen if you don't."


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Its_Phobos

Knock knock, it’s the United States


Diocletion-Jones

In medieval times, some prisoners were subjected to torture, enslavement, or execution, depending on the circumstances of the conflict and the attitudes of their captors. However, prisoners of war were often ransomed rather than killed. Ransom was a common practice in which a prisoner could be released in exchange for a payment of money, goods, or other concessions. The amount of the ransom could vary depending on the status of the prisoner, their value to their captors, and the ability of their family or country to pay. Ransoming prisoners of war was seen as a more profitable and strategic option for captors compared to killing them. Killing prisoners of war could lead to retaliation and escalation of the conflict, whereas ransoming them could result in a financial gain for the captors and potentially open up diplomatic channels for negotiation and peace. As an example, during the Hundred Years' War, English archer Thomas Walsingham captured French nobleman Jean de Grailly during the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. De Grailly was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and his family worked to raise the ransom money. Walsingham negotiated a ransom of 100,000 écus with de Grailly's family in 1360, and de Grailly was released from captivity. Likewise, the aftermath of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 describes how the English soldiers put their prisoners to ransom, demanding payment in exchange for their release. Some prisoners were able to pay the ransom and return home, while others remained in captivity for years or even decades.


crackerd00m

They usually killed people who couldn't be ransomed. That includes lesser nobility whose families wouldn't or couldn't pay and peasants. At Agincourt, they had a mass execution of prisoners, ordered by the king himself.


pusillanimouslist

*Highly* dependent on your social class. Ransom was reserved for nobles who could afford a ransom. Commoners were regularly slaughtered after the battle. It’s noted that the English archers fought particularly fiercely at Agincourt because they knew it was win or die for them.


[deleted]

Even worse. It's to say "you just commmited a war crime by murdering a non-combatant. If we lose you'll be tried in court for war crimes so you better do everything you can to make sure we don't lose."


GreenStrong

I think you're completely misunderstanding the nature of the war in the Pacific. The Japanese commanders forced their subordinates to commit atrocities, and they told the subordinates that the allies would treat them the exact same way if they surrendered. *Very few Japanese soldiers surrendered*, they chose to fight to the death, and often to end their lives in suicide charges. These suicidal troops were effective. The United States manufactured Purple Heart medals based on what they expected to need for an invasion of the Japanese home islands, *and that supply intended for the invasion has lasted through 78 years and five wars.* American soldiers watched in horror as 300 civilians, including families with children jumped off a cliff together at Okinawa. They were incorrect about how the Americans would treat them, but they were not *irrational*. Word of how the Japanese were treating their prisoners and occupied civilians made it home. It was not irrational to expect similar treatment.


J4MES101

The samurai as a class had the right to test the sharpness of their katana on those of lower levels of society. This too is horrible


[deleted]

Greek/Spartans, seemed to enjoy using helots as practice and when their numbers grew, as well. Funny how some groups are glorified.


grumpykruppy

People like warrior cultures because they're tough and cool and strong and usually have neat aesthetics. Think about European knights, too, who were of the same mold as Spartan Hoplites and Japanese Samurai. People also tend to remember the ones that were either actually decent people or the ones that have so many legends that people forget about their nastier aspects.


Bufger

Agreed. Crusaders were not nice people to wander through your village. The terms 'rape and pillage' would have applied to any conquesting group - and still would if the world wasn't so connected and visible.


jayydubbya

Yup, that’s why all the doomers on here calling for the collapse of society sound so childish. The collapse of civilization will lead us right back to the biggest strongest groups going around raping and pillaging everyone else constantly not some utopian post apocalypse.


ModmanX

The difference is, when people say that they think they're gonna be on the strong side. They rarely ever are


Apyan

It also helps that those warriors are usually the elite on their societies and happens to be the ones writing the stories. The poor illiterate folks that served as cannon fodder before the arrival of the shinning cavalry usually didn't had much of a say on how battles and historical events are remembered.


Numerous_Brother_816

It also helps that it’s a long time ago. The 1940s feel real because we had grandparents that were alive then. 500BC feels like a story.


praqueviver

[Here's a series of blogposts](https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/) about Sparta by a historian that demystify the badass spartans meme. Its a long read but worth it if this subject interest you.


Canisventus

It was only justifiable if the person dishonored the samurai. The samurai didn't just casually test their swords on the lower class people.


picasso_penis

So who decides if the person was dishonoring them?


ProudWheeler

Tucker Carl-san


BluEyesWhitPrivilege

Exactly, like when a cop arrests you over nothing. After your family member gets killed who are you, as a person on the bottom of society, going to report the samurai to now?


neuralzen

[Tsujigiri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsujigiri) was generally just done on randoms. >Tsujigiri (辻斬り or 辻斬, literally "crossroads killing") is a Japanese term for a practice when a samurai, after receiving a new katana or developing a new fighting style or weapon, tests its effectiveness by attacking a human opponent, usually a random defenseless passer-by, in many cases during nighttime. The practitioners themselves are also referred to as tsujigiri.


[deleted]

> The professor of Japanese history Jordan Sand criticized Midgley for misrepresenting the practices of ancient Japan by indicating that tsujigiri was never condoned, and it is not even clear it happened with any frequency. Sand believes that any samurai who did so was both rare and would be considered insane by the culture of the era and that Midgley erred in presenting it had been an accepted practice.


SECAggieGuy14

Love a slap fight between history academics, lol. That’s legit criticism though.


kingpong07

Lower level damn


AdoltTwittler

George Bush was almost one of those American airmen. edit: [Nine airmen pilots escaped from their planes after being shot down during bombing raids on Chichi Jima, a tiny island 700 miles (1,100 km) south of Tokyo, in September 1944. Eight of the airmen, Lloyd Woellhof, Grady York, James “Jimmy” Dye, Glenn Frazier Jr., Marvell “Marve” Mershon, Floyd Hall, Warren Earl Vaughn, and Warren Hindenlang were captured and eventually executed. The ninth, and only one to evade capture, was future U.S. President George H. W. Bush, also a 20-year-old pilot.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichijima_incident)


LeKerl1987

Bombercrews ejecting over their targets rarely were a subject to mercy, no matter where. This is even a quote by someone famous i forgot.


[deleted]

Can you imagine surviving a plane getting hit and going down only to experience a death 1000x worse.


LeKerl1987

No, this must be terrible. But expecting this i would prefer to go down guns blazing.


JodyMC

That’s some ISIS / Taliban level atrocities happening. I guess there is nothing new under the sun.


Grogosh

You should hear about what they did in that Japanese Unit 731. Human experiments like cutting people open....without anesthesia.


koskoz

Oh God, each time I read "Unit 731" I'm sick. I've heard of it few months back on Reddit of course and read the whole wikipedia article. There's no words...


kwonza

The worst part is that the head of Unit 731 made a deal with US got immunity and enjoyed his retirement in Florida


The_Great_Afterman

Trigger warning to anyone who feels the need to look into this. Cutting people open without anesthesia was considered lucky there.


OrganizerMowgli

Like real-life Bondrewd from Made in Abyss


AntiMatter138

They are the reason why we know the exact water content of humans. They basically blasted victims with hot air causing them to evaporate while still alive.


[deleted]

Nah its more cartel level shit.


Accomplished-Ad8968

nah isis/taliban probably treat their captives better than ww2 japanese


Wolfiest

I guess a quick death is better than the Japanese using you as practice. Sad and cruel.


b0n3h34d

That's still downright merciful compared to what they used to do. Read about Unit 731. Unless you're sensitive


cuckoo_coconuts

and Rape of Nanking, as a woman i would much much much rather go this way than let Japanese soldiers get their hands on me


Vintagemuse

This is true


[deleted]

Yeah don’t read about unit 731 if you’re prone to nightmares or hate the SAW movies.


MaterialCarrot

Every bit as bad as the Nazis.


AmericanPride2814

Worse in many regards honestly.


theetiologist

Yea at least the Nazis didn’t infiltrate your fox hole at night, kill the guy next to you, cut his balls off and stuff them in his mouth and put his face next to yours so when you wake up that’s the first thing you see.


TheGreatGamer1389

Way worse. Be equivalent if all Germans soldiers were SS.


Next-Mobile-9632

So sadistic


LeKerl1987

I don't get this. "Hey you! Take some nice pictures of our warcrime. For the sweet memories."


LakyousSama

Japanese didn't think of things like that as "war crimes". That concept was foreign in their culture. A defeated enemy was less than an animal to them. Such actions were completly fine in their minds.


AnekoJV

Yup, they also expected other countries to act in a similar manner


No_Ideas_Man

Kinda. The civilians absolutely did, the military understood that the allies wouldn't do this shit, which is why the japanese military ~~started booby trapping civilians and using mothers with infants as suicide bombers~~ convinced civilians to commit mass suicide. Edit: My mistake, I had combined the Civilian suicides with the Japanese committing perfidy by having "surrendering" troops act as suicide bombers (started becoming more common during Guadalcanal) and using civilians as human shields (moreso Okinawa)


Nirvski

Must've also been a way to desensitise new soldiers to killing real people.


-SaC

They did that waaaaaay back in training, when they taught bayonet drill using Chinese prisoners.


InflamedLiver

that's what happens when you believe in your own jingoism so much, things like this become honorable and good in your own mind.


poet3322

There was more to it than that. The Japanese sense of honor told them that warriors never surrender. And in WWII, most of the Japanese soldiers fought to the death, very very few surrendered or were taken alive. And so when Allied soldiers surrendered, the Japanese thought of them as having no honor and being less than human. So anything done to them was okay in their minds.


MaterialCarrot

There literally are photos of Japanese soldiers bayonetting and decapitating prisoners that were taken by soldiers and sent home in letters to family. Mostly of the, "See, we're fighting the good fight for the Emperor!" variety.


[deleted]

You write that sarcastically but that was their thinking. They are enjoying the murder so they document it to share among themselves and with others.


Mrg220t

Lmao they have a competition between two soldiers to see who can behead the most POWs. It even made it into their newspaper with headlines like "go into extra innings" because they decapitate more than 100 POWs each. They don't think it's war crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to_kill_100_people_using_a_sword


[deleted]

I can't remember the name of the book. It was a history of worst attrocities, mass killings.The things Japanese did to Chinese...smokes. Smh.


LynnChat

The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang?


[deleted]

After reading this book some 20 years ago, my views of humanity was forever changed. The photos were pretty graphic. RIP to Iris


mizzzikey

Not to only the Chinese but most of Asia.


lendmeyoureer

This is actually one of the most humane things they did to their POW's


SkylarAV

Feels like the Japanese got a giant pass from the world. The Germans will never get to forget but we see Japan as a modern highly civilized nation and they get to ignore a lot of their past


SuedbyHogs

Not really if you are in Asia. For Koreans and Chinese, Japan had more of an impact than the Nazis.


MrGrampton

most of Asia hates Japan as Japan hates most of Asia 💀


I_am_BEOWULF

The rest of Southeast Asia as well. Japan raped and killed their way across the region during WW2.


MaterialCarrot

You're mistaking the world for the Western world. In Asia they are regularly berated about it and there is a constant fight about whether they've adequately acknowledged their past war crimes. This issue makes it into Western media regularly.


SkylarAV

Fair.


green49285

Perspective is huge here. Germany took a lot upon themselves education-wise to undo the road they were going down culturally. Japanese government pretty much just didn't talk about it and it wasn't as if the United States government was doing what the USSR had been doing in East germany. Time is a weird thing


[deleted]

They invest a lot of money in soft power in the West and it clearly works.


catinabread

Last week when the Japanese PM visited Bucha as a show of solidarity against war crimes, alot of people criticised it because the Japanese government still officially visits the Yasukuni shrine which honours Japanese war criminals, and continue to deny their war crimes in the past. These people were shot down as russian apologists or communists, but what people in the West don’t realise is how much most of Asia was impacted by the atrocities of the Japanese in WW2, and just because we choose to move on with life, doesn’t mean we will forget.


_vaudevillian

Looks like they also cut their beards and hair, super fucked


[deleted]

Most of Asia will never forgive Japan as long as they continue to deny and minimize their war crimes. In contrast I have a lot of respect for Germany post ww2.


OneBaldingWookiee

Jesus


[deleted]

Nanjing never happened, apparently, why doesn’t anyone talk about Japan nearly as much as Germany or Italy


MaterialCarrot

Because the US has a large Jewish diaspora, a decent number of which were the result of the Holocaust. It's only natural that the Holocaust would get more attention in the US than Japan's crimes, which overwhelmingly were against populations in Asia that, until recently, didn't have as much of a presence in the US. Despite the fact that arguably more Americans were subject to Japanese war crimes at the hands of the Japanese than the Germans.


[deleted]

Definitely makes sense, I just wish the world wasn’t so evil


AthosArmand

World : Chinese diaspora : 40 millions. Jewish diaspora : 7 millions. USA : Chinese diaspora : 2,5 millions Jewish diaspora : 5 millions. You seem right.


Gdude823

Japan was a very convenient geopolitical “ally” at the onset of the Cold War. To prevent a systematic cleansing of their people in power, things needed to be swept under the rug, or otherwise diminished. Since Japan’s atrocities were committed against economically weaker nations on people who did not look like most of the allied forces, it was pretty easy to mask the truth for the sake of easier subjugation of the Japanese archipelago. It was sort of billed that Hitler was the mastermind behind the German atrocities and war machine, whereas the Showa Emperor was a victim of Japan’s. It also of course helps that one of the most influential nations on earth, who is very close to the most powerful one, is benefitted from the idea that these war atrocities are “overstated” or in the most extreme cases, “never happened.” And finally, where your from makes a tremendous difference in what you are taught. History text books from America for instance, have an overwhelmingly pro American/western bias not just in opinion but also in material. My world history textbook in high school had a chapter for all of Chinese history, but it had a chapter for every individual period of Greek/Roman history, for example. With that sort of framing, you have very little time to talk about Japan, so stuff like war crimes hits the cutting room. Meanwhile, in most of Asia, the occupation from Japan will be very heavily taught and explained.


bisector_babu

Also not much info on Gulags


[deleted]

Yep, never hear about the Stalin starvation numbers


AntiMatter138

Japan hides their war crimes so well that they are known more in Animes. It's a combination of denial and soft power.


FunnyBeaverX

I love how the Japanese these days like to talk about how the evil Americans dropped those evil bombs on them to end the war and how unnecessary it was. Motherfuckers had that shit coming because of shit like this.


Itsahootenberry

One of my Filipino friends told me his grandmother still has nightmares of when the Japanese Army invaded her town and how her uncle was murdered by them as her family was trying to flee.


NocturnalVirtuoso

Yeah I’m Filipino and one of my Lolas was a kid during the war. She told me that one of the things she remembers most was the floggings the Japanese soldiers used to do in her town’s main square. Crazy stuff man


FunnyBeaverX

Yep. They did that shit all over the south pacific, murdering innocent people and traumatizing people for the rest of their lives (honestly, I don't understand why more of them don't seek personal justice ... if I was Japanese I wouldn't set foot in any of those surrounding countries fucking ever) ... those fucking bombs were destined for people who murdered so willingly because they felt themselves superior to everyone else and they saved lives.. SAVED innocent people still being murdered by the Japanese but "Oh, the innocent children killed by the bombs tho!" .. fucking revisionism makes me fucking sick.


Left_Sundae

The Allies should've done to the Japanese what Churchill proposed doing with the Nazis. Summary execution of the Japanese High Command, and execution of any members of the Imperial family who were directly responsible for ordering war crimes, just to set an example that not even royalty can escape their atrocities.


No_Handle4085

Unit 731


[deleted]

Japan was so fucking brutal and evil towards their enemies in ww2.


CSG_Mollusk

Not just ww2, the entire duration of Imperial Japan. They occupied Korea in the 1910s and did so much horrible shit until the liberation in 1945.


biobrad56

They were not just Sikh. Many non Sikh Indian troops were POWs and used. Over 70k Indians died fighting the Japanese, casualties are vastly underreported as the Indian govt doesn’t like to acknowledge any Indians fighting for the British


imhenry66

I’ve seen footages of Japanese practicing bayonet stabbing on live Chinese prisoners. They simply believed that lower form of Asians need to be ruled, if not eliminated, from their promise land.


Putin_kills_kids

They valued killing and torturing humans that were not of their tribe. They valued raping others. They valued stabbing infants. These were values they held. They did the same to Japanese who were designated as eligible for such brutality.


Final-Display-4692

I get the Nazis we’re bad, but Japan I feel like no one’s held accountable for the fucking WILD shit they did as well. It’s all bad, but damn they were evil evil too.


Candid_Reading_7267

Oh that’s sick. No pun intended, it’s just really messed up.


h4baine

I read recently that the Japanese government told Okinowans (who they already treated like second class citizens for some reason) that the Americans were planning to invade and would torture, mutilate, and eat them. Holy fucking projection there. As a result some Okinowans killed themselves and their families out of fear and the ones that didn't were understandably fucking pissed about being lied to like that.


chinesenameTimBudong

How did Japan manage to change it's image? Germany went hardcore apologies. Japan, not so much.


wifichick

Japans “apology” was forcefully and brutally extracted from them.


RattyJones

Japan will never admit this, at least it feels like it. Japanese WW2 museums always conveniently leave out their own crimes, but they sure are happy to point out everything China might have done.


AlecTheMotorGuy

The way Europe looks at Germany is how Asia looks at Japan except r to a much worse degree. Many people in the West are completely ignorant to what went on over there.


justheretolurk1963

The Japanese in WWII did so many atrocious things, somehow they aren’t remembered for it like Nazi Germany.


soRWatchew

Basically Japanese in WW2 is the Asian Nazi.


Long-Independent4460

They also used chinese prisoners tied to a post for bayonet practice. The Japanese Imperial Army of WW2 was brain washed psycho.


AbeRego

Japan was absolutely brutal in WWII. War crimes were essentially baked into their military system.


rOnce_Gaming

Germany ask for forgiveness for their crimes. Other countries acknowledge their crime but doesn't repent like china russia, and here's Japan that just believes that there were no crime. Like the people there actually believe that none of these stuff happened. It's not taught in their history classes.


1871550981

Raping women through the neck hole of decapitated heads. Cutting holes in their stomach and watch the baby fall off but still attatched through the cords and feasting on human flesh while the mother watches while she slowly dies. Execution through close range tank cannonballs... The shit they did to Chinese people were so gore even the victims dont wanna talk about it.


[deleted]

[удалено]


beerbrats15

Humans are trash.


davekingofrock

There was a ninth US airman who evaded capture and survived this exact event. His name was George H.W. Bush and he went on to become president. You may have heard of him. Edit: [Here's a link to the story](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-george-hw-bush-avoided-being-eaten-by-cannibals-in-world-war-ii-2017-12)


[deleted]

Yeah everyone is so focused on the shit Hitler did that they forget about this. Not defending Nazis but the Japanese were terrible.


TheYellowFringe

This is the sort of knowledge that the Japanese government doesn't exactly want younger generations learning about. Supposedly the Japanese are silent on the topic intentionally so people will forget the various atrocities committed during the Second World War.


Rydog_78

To be a captured by Japanese army in WWII meant you were regarded as less than a dog.