Japanese war crimes so bad?

[Uyraell]

@Rising_Sun

I don’t know what point you’re trying to make with that comment, but on a scale of brutality, inhumanity and general bastardry the Soviets don’t come near the Japanese for the way each of them treated POWs. That is demonstrated by the fact that, even if your 10% death figure for Japanese POWs in Soviet hands is correct, it’s still only about a third of the death rate of Allied POWs in Japanese hands.

While I have elsewhere defended the original Japanese martial virtues (as opposed to the later perversion of those same virtues) , I am by no means blind to the heinous crimes various elements within the Japanese army comitted. Shizuo Ookha in his book “Fires on the plain” details some of them, including those by Japanese on fellow Japanese. Similarly, Romero in “Last man off Bataan” relates similar heinous atrocities.

In short, RS*, my friend, I have to agree with you here: while there were Japanese POWS that undoubtedly did suffer at Russian hands, I find it invidious to compare those few examples to the vast Pacific War examples known and to which you allude.

Respectful Regards, Uyraell.

[Chevan]

@herman2

Really!!..My god!..Them dam Ruskkies!..hang em all I tell Ya. I never knew that. Thanks!

Really you didn’t know it , poor child?

[Chevan]

@Rising_Sun

I don’t know what point you’re trying to make with that comment, but on a scale of brutality, inhumanity and general bastardry the Soviets don’t come near the Japanese for the way each of them treated POWs. That is demonstrated by the fact that, even if your 10% death figure for Japanese POWs in Soviet hands is correct, it’s still only about a third of the death rate of Allied POWs in Japanese hands.

Mate 10% of death rate TOTAL for 5 years is about 2-2,5% per year:)
It’s not like i wish to tell it was Rest camp for them , but though…
Even the GErman pows suffered in GULAG more harsh treating within 1944-53.
I don’t compare, say, the treating of Soviet pows in GErmany or Finland( 10 and 12% absolute Death-rate respectively ONLY for 1941-42 winter).
BTW that’s where he got the supposed figures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union
But still the treating of Japan pows in USSR has nothing common with ethnic-race terror in Axis camps.

“Siberian Internment” (the Japanese term) was a unique and paradoxical phenomenon. Many of them have nostalgic and sentimental recollection of this period of their life. In their memoirs and recollections they drew a distinction between the attitude of the Soviet state machine and ordinary Russian people. Unlike Germans, Japanese were not associated in the perception of Russians with Nazi atrocities in the Russian land, although initially the attitude of Russians was hostile, under the influence of Soviet propaganda. What is more, romantic relations between Japanese internees and Russian women were not uncommon. For example, in the city of Kansk, Krasnoyarsk Krai about 50 Japanese married locals and stayed. Japanese noticed the overall poverty of the Russian population. They also met Soviet political prisoners in the GULAG prison camps abundant in Siberia at the time, and acquired a good understanding of the Soviet system. All of them recall the ideological indoctrination during the compulsory daily “studies of democracy”, however only a very small number of them embraced communism

Not a bad i think for former asian Master-race:)

[Rising_Sun]

@Chevan

Mate 10% of death rate TOTAL for 5 years is about 2-2,5% per year:)

If we convert the average total of roughly (it varied between places and national forces) 25%+ Allied POW deaths in Japanese captivity to an annual rate over about 3.5 years of war (which wrongly assumes that all prisoners were captured early in 1942) it comes down to a bit over 7% a year.

Then again, if we annualise the about 1% of German prisoners who died in Allied hands and vice versa over a little over 5 years of war (with the same wrong assumption about everyone being captured at the start of the war) it comes out at 0.2%. So the Japanese on an annual basis managed to be about 35 times worse than the Germans and Allies. They look better on gross figures of only 25 times worse for their whole war.

On the other hand, we both know that the Soviet prisoners in German captivity had far worse death rates than even Allied prisoners in Japanese hands.