I think that both opponents have made abominable mistakes. The Japanese High Command must realized that war was lost and then it had to surrender; the Allies had to choose dropping the Bomb on the military site first and not striking direct a great city. However the war stands out the worst look of the human nature close to mere heroism and unselfishness acts.
How many do you think they had avaiable to the end of August 1945?
A-bombing did not leave any chances for survival unlike traditional warfare.
That would be a comfort for a lot of people, if they’d survived conventional bombing, burns and blast injuries in places like Tokyo and Dresden.
There wasn’t any tradition of mass bombing before WWII. Even Guernica was minor compared with that. So were Rotterdam and Coventry compared with what came later.
Using A-bombing against civilians was an act of American cowardice.
Measured against which standards of Japanese bravery?
A sneak attack on Pearl while their diplomats pretended to be negotiating to avoid the war they knew had already been ordered from Tokyo?
The Bataan Death March?
The Burma Railway?
The Queen Alexandra Hospital?
Massacring Chinese in Singapore and everywhere else they went?
Keeping Red Cross packages meant for starving prisoners, then releasing them and sucking up to prisoners after they’d lost the war?
Live vivisections on American POW’s?
Killing the six year old kid I mentioned earlier?
The Toll Plantation massacre?
Murdering the nurses at Banka Island?
Colonel Tsujii eating the livers of his enemy to enhance his warrior powers?
Cannibalism of Allied prisoners?
And a few hundred thousand other incidents of such outstanding bravery?
Oh, yes, the knights of bushido at their brave best. What an impressive bunch of heroes they were.
Can’t imagine why anyone would want to wipe them at out at their source.
The fact that the Americans didn’t is testament to their superior conduct.
American “heroes” wanted to save their bacons from open combat at the expense of Japanese women and children.
Find me one instance of Japanese troops doing anything like Pelileu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Saipan and many other assaults by American forces on Japanese strongholds. The only time the Japanese tried anything remotely similar was Guadalcanal, where the Americans wiped out a Japanese assault regiment at the Tenaru River and eventually repelled the Japanese. Which is more than the Japanese in strongly fortified positions ever managed when assaulted by the Americans.
As for things done at the expense of women and children, how about the Japanese propaganda at Saipan about the supposed torture the Americans would wreak on its inhabitants that resulted in women jumping off Suicide Cliff with their children, all to die below?
While the Americans were doing all they could to stop it, horrified by the event?
Don’t try to tell me that the Americans were the bad guys.
Quite correct. Americans weren’t more humane than Japaneses.
Bullshit!
Where are the American equivalents to the Rape of Nanking, the Burma Railway, the Bataan Death March, the treatment of POW’s, the Korean Comfort Women, and other such atrocities and inhumane exercises by the Japanese?
Neither does Japan, especially after A-bombing.
So Dresden wipes out Auschwitz?
FFS!
The Japanese just state the fact that Americans deliberately killed hundreds of thousands civilians and it was a war crime on behalf of America from every point of view.
Not from my point of view, nor from that of many people who think Japan reaped as she sowed, and still can’t handle it.
Here’s a newsflash, 62 years after the event.
America, with some help from its allies, did win the Pacific war.
America didn’t starve the Japanese people. Which is a bloody sight better than the Japanese did in many of the territories they occupied.
America worked hard to rebuild the Japan that its militarist leaders had led to destruction.
Modern Japan exists because of Allied, primarily American, post-war reconstruction, in spite of the destruction brought upon Japan by its own leaders to 1945.
That’s not quite true.
Japan had vigorous public debates on all sorts of issues, including the status of the Emperor, in the 19th century and well into the 1920’s, but as the militarist / fascist elements gained control from the 1920’s people learned to curb their tongues. It’s not the same thing as revering the Emperor.
It’s also not the case that the militarists truly revered the Emperor. They used him but, like their predecessors over a couple of thousand years, they probably would have deposed and even killed him if it became necessary, and the Emperor knew it. When it suited the IJA, it did what it wanted regardless of imperial wishes or desires. Naturally this reality was concealed from the people, who were presented with an entirely different picture of their Emperor and encouraged to serve him unquestioningly. Because the militarists spoke to the nation through him.
The vicious militarist police state which descended on Japan in the 1930’s ensured that public dissent was rarely expressed.
This produced apparent conformity of opinion, because of the absence of dissenting public opinion, but there were still elements of underground free thought.
The masses, however, were manipulated into Orwellian group think by the education system and other social devices.
Oddly enough, the Japanese educational bureaucracy which survived reasonably intact after the war utilised the same system to produce the new group think that Japan was the victim of war crimes in being nuked, while carefully concealing the realities of Japan’s conduct during the war.
There were all the capacities to produce new ones.
Measured against which standards of Japanese bravery?
A sneak attack on Pearl while their diplomats pretended to be negotiating to avoid the war they knew had already been ordered from Tokyo?
Pearl was the base of the American Navy and Japanese pilots targetted ships and the port.
The Bataan Death March?
The Burma Railway?
The Queen Alexandra Hospital?
Americans often didn’t take any prisoners at all.
Massacring Chinese in Singapore and everywhere else they went?
And how does it concern Americans? The US troops killed half a million civilians in the Philippines. I doubt that their treatment of Chinese would have been better if they had controlled China.
Killing the six year old kid I mentioned earlier?
None of American soldiers have harmed Japanese kids. What will you say else?
Can’t imagine why anyone would want to wipe them at out at their source.
The fact that the Americans didn’t is testament to their superior conduct.
Why should Americans have done it? The Japanese had never invaded the mainland USA.
As for things done at the expense of women and children, how about the Japanese propaganda at Saipan about the supposed torture the Americans would wreak on its inhabitants that resulted in women jumping off Suicide Cliff with their children, all to die below?
I doubt that the destiny of these women would have much differed from the claims of the Japanese propaganda.
Don’t try to tell me that the Americans were the bad guys.
All right they would have been as kind as the Japanese if they had not used A-bombs
Where are the American equivalents to the Rape of Nanking, the Burma Railway, the Bataan Death March, the treatment of POW’s, the Korean Comfort Women, and other such atrocities and inhumane exercises by the Japanese?
The most well-known - Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
America didn’t starve the Japanese people. Which is a bloody sight better than the Japanese did in many of the territories they occupied.
America worked hard to rebuild the Japan that its militarist leaders had led to destruction.
Modern Japan exists because of Allied, primarily American, post-war reconstruction, in spite of the destruction brought upon Japan by its own leaders to 1945.
The Japaneses worked hard on their own to rebuild Japan. The American administration just conduced it. If the Americans had prevented this process, the Japanese resistance would have been formed, evidently got support from the communist states and outperformed their Vietnamese comarades in defeating Americans.
Kato, you need a new crystal ball…
The Japanese Imperial Army was very prepared to sacrifice women and children, and thousands of Japanese civilians committed suicide after the American victory on Okinawa precisely because they had been told that US Marines and soldiers were cannibal barbarian rapists…
Maybe you should do a little historical research before making such general statements…
Quite correct. Americans weren’t more humane than Japaneses.
You’re quite simply out of your mind or completely ignorant with statements such as this. Ask the Chinese residents of Nanjing how “humane” the IJ’s policies were…
And feel free to compare the Japanese occupation of Manchuria with that of the US occupation of Honshu…
Neither does Japan, especially after A-bombing.
The Japanese just state the fact that Americans deliberately killed hundreds of thousands civilians and it was a war crime on behalf of America from every point of view.
As opposed to the Japanese deliberately murdering and raping millions? Facts that the Japanese gov’t goes out of its way to prevent from being stated…
Only after several months. And I believe there was one bomb kept in reserve. In which case, the US would have commenced the invasion, which would have been bloody for all sides…
Pearl was the base of the American Navy and Japanese pilots targetted ships and the port.
Yes, in a surprise attack prior to a declaration of war, and in response to the US’ policy of isolating them in response to the Japanese rape of China…
Americans often didn’t take any prisoners at all.
True. But after seeing the Japanese POWs continually throw grenades after capture, the brutal treatment of US POWs, and incidents of discover dead, captured Allied soldiers and marines devoid of their flesh, I think you might understand where the bitterness came from…
And how does it concern Americans? The US troops killed half a million civilians in the Philippines. I doubt that their treatment of Chinese would have been better if they had controlled China.
When? Really? Uh, no, the US never killed half a million Filipinos. And does that make Japanese atrocities towards Filipinos okay in occupation period of 1942-45?
None of American soldiers have harmed Japanese kids. What will you say else?
Well, they didn’t kidnap their daughters and place them into sexual slavery…
And feel free to point out the “horrific” post-War occupation of Japan by US forces… Good luck!
Why should Americans have done it? The Japanese had never invaded the mainland USA.
They didn’t have the ability too…However, judging by their treatment of civilian contract workers captured on Wake Island (who almost all died in captivity), of the Western civilians interned in the Philippines, I doubt they would have treated occupied American very well…
I doubt that the destiny of these women would have much differed from the claims of the Japanese propaganda.
[quote]All right they would have been as kind as the Japanese if they had not used A-bombs
The most well-known - Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
You know, you’re getting suspiciously close to trolling here…
Really? six-million Chinese murdered by the Japanese Army, often for sport, really compares?
With American money and resources - without which they’d be an agrarian society today…
The American administration just conduced it.
“Conducted” what? Reconstruction?
If the Americans had prevented this process, the Japanese resistance would have been formed, evidently got support from the communist states and outperformed their Vietnamese comarades in defeating Americans.
Again, you’re perilously close to trolling here with such statements…
Help from Russia? Really? I doubt they would have cared that much. In any case, there was no occupied Soviet sector, making any aid largely ineffective, unless you count the Kuril Islands, which are economic basket cases…
And “Vietnamese comrades?” Is there a shortage of history books in the Ukraine these days?
That demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge of all relevant factors.
The dominant elements in Japanese society were rabidly anti-communist. Any attempt at a Soviet backed communist resistance by the Japanese communists who survived the anti-communist repression before and during the war would have been opposed by those elements, and by all Japanese military and former military elements, as strongly as by the American and other Allied occupiers. It was never going to get off the ground.
There’s also the problem that the Soviets were still at war with Japan and reluctant to come into direct conflict with America. This made it most unlikely that the Soviets would support an insurgency in Japan.
As for China, it wasn’t in a position to do anything as a communist state before 1950 at the earliest, by which time Japan was well on the way to reconstruction and falling into America’s arms in an anti-communist crusade, taking up again what the militarists and dominant elements in Japan had been doing to August 1945.
Vietnam is an irrelevant comparator. America never occupied North Vietnam. It occupied all of Japan, giving it considerably more control and military flexibility than it ever had in Vietnam.
What exactly do you have against Americans? You’re not prepared to give them any credit for anything and are quite irrational in many of the assertions you make against them.
That was primarily a consequence of Japan imbuing its troops with the ‘never surrender’ mentality that shamed them and their family if captured.
It’s just another aspect of the little value that the Japanese leadership placed on the lives of their own men, as reflected in other things like poor military medical services and inadequate rations.
The ‘never surrender’ mentality is also attributable to the glory attached to dying for the Emperor. It seems it was a great thing to die for the Emperor all over Asia until mid-August 1945, then all of a sudden a couple of A bombs which conferred instant glory on a lot of people somehow changed the rules of the game. Even now Japan glorifies those who died for the Emperor, except those who died for the Emperor at Hiroshima and Nagasaki who are somehow victims of the evil Americans.
They can’t have it both ways. Either all Japanese dead died in a great and glorious cause for Japan, or they didn’t.
The Japanese also often didn’t take prisoners. Those they took they often tortured, used for bayonet practice, hacked limbs off, disembowelled, and inflicted other miseries on while still alive. Or ate. Or, big heroes they were, hacked their heads off to demonstrate their Samurai spirit and skill. You won’t find the Allies doing that, because they didn’t adhere to the same primitive, savage, inhumane culture that Japan’s militarists created. If they did, the streets of Japan would have been running with blood during the early stages of the occupation, as happened in many places occupied by Japan.
The simple fact is that many Japanese are too ignorant of, or refuse to admit, what Japan did to see how well they were treated by the Allies, and how badly they were let down by their own leadership in its willingness to sacrifice its own people.
The only reason Tibbets and co are historical figures is because Japan started a war and wouldn’t surrender long after it knew it was beaten. That is entirely Japan’s fault and responsibility. It’s a measure of Japan’s immaturity as a modern nation in certain respects that it still can’t, or won’t see it.
Check this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War
Americans had and have no right to assume the role of moralist in that region.
So stop tell us that Americans cared for the Chinese or Koreans suffering under the Japanese yoke. It is rediculous.
They didn’t have the ability too…However, judging by their treatment of civilian contract workers captured on Wake Island (who almost all died in captivity), of the Western civilians interned in the Philippines, I doubt they would have treated occupied American very well…
Americans interned the Japanese citizens of the US.
With American money and resources - without which they’d be an agrarian society today…
It was a super-power that kept pace with the West in technologies and science for decades prior to the WWII without American money and resources.
So the Japanese would be an agrarian society today only if Americans did their best to turn it into the one.
“Conducted” what? Reconstruction?
Did not hinder the reconstruction conducted by the Japanese.
Again, you’re perilously close to trolling here with such statements…
Help from Russia? Really? I doubt they would have cared that much. In any case, there was no occupied Soviet sector, making any aid largely ineffective, unless you count the Kuril Islands, which are economic basket cases…
And “Vietnamese comrades?” Is there a shortage of history books in the Ukraine these days?
I just pointed out that if Americans had oppressed the Japanese after the end of WWII, then there would have been armed resistance to the Americans and this resistance would have been pro-communist according to the general tendencies in the region at that time and naturally it could count on receiving extensive support from communist states just the way Northern Korea and Vietnam.
That was the main reason for more or less good conduct of Americans in Japan.
The dominant elements in Japanese society were rabidly anti-communist. Any attempt at a Soviet backed communist resistance by the Japanese communists who survived the anti-communist repression before and during the war would have been opposed by those elements, and by all Japanese military and former military elements, as strongly as by the American and other Allied occupiers. It was never going to get off the ground.
The dominant elements in Chinese society were rabidly anti-communist as well.
There’s also the problem that the Soviets were still at war with Japan and reluctant to come into direct conflict with America. This made it most unlikely that the Soviets would support an insurgency in Japan.
The situation changed in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time the anti-American insurgency in Japan would have been a great chance for the USSR to oust Americans from the South-Eastern Asia
Jesus wept!
If the Yanks were going to lay waste to Japan, do you think they were going to wait ten to twenty years to do it?
If they were such bastards and had such a great nuclear production capacity, why didn’t they just stay offshore and keep nuking Japan for the fun of seeing the Nips, especially their children, burn?
Or occupy and clean it up by mid-1946 when nobody could oppose them.
As for North Korea and Vietnam supporting Japanese insurgencies, look at the histories of both places under the Japanese and work out whether they’d be for or against anyone giving the Japanese some grief.
As for North Korea and Vietnam being communist states that would support an insurgency, work out who controlled them and the historical and political factors which dictated that they couldn’t and wouldn’t do anything before about 1950 and 1955 respectively, even if they were minded to, which they weren’t.
If you’re going to engage in historical debate, it’d help if you had even a vague grasp of the relevant history.
As for North Korea and Vietnam supporting Japanese insurgencies, look at the histories of both places under the Japanese and work out whether they’d be for or against anyone giving the Japanese some grief.
Don’t perverse my posts. North Korea and Vietnam were only the comsumers of military aid from the USSR and China. So the sponsors of anti-American movements could be only the USSR and China.
Considering the fact that Chinese Communists tried to keep out of the war with Japaneses in China, gathering resources for their revolution, one may see that ideological reasons for them were more important. Besides, Taiwan is the closest ally of Japan today. So as you see past is not that crucial in the local politics.
I don’t need to.
They’re already stunningly perverse by themselves, and magnificent perversions of history, and become more so with each of your posts.
This is a pointless discussion as you lack the knowledge and objectivity to participate in it constructively.
I’m inclined to agree with Nickdfresh’s suspicion that you’re trolling, so I’ll bow out of responding to you until you make some rational and informed contribution.