# What, about WWII, are the Japanese denying? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 20, 2015, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506 "2015-03-20T16:43:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/41 "2015-03-22T11:34:08Z")
> [@nicky](#): > > where’s the Japanese Schindler [Chiune Sugihara.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara) (Probably not what you meant, but still worth mentioning. He’s a man who deserves to be remembered). ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/42 "2015-03-22T14:57:12Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I am not talking about Official apologies, but Imperial “apologists” which exist in Japan just like Southern Apologists exist in the USA. So, it’s the War of Western Aggression? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/43 "2015-03-22T15:09:40Z")
> [@Kamakiri](#): > > No doubt. No doubt you weren’t there almost 25 years ago. My first visit to Japan was actually more than 30 years ago. My more recent experience living there was about 10 years ago. > [@](#): > > It’s probably a very different country now. There are no veterans alive to counter the Revisionists. It’s interesting that you keep making statements about Japan “today”, “now”, “these days”, etc., when you’re really describing either things that happened more than 20 years ago or things you’ve simply imagined. Of course there are WWII veterans alive in Japan today, as well as other people old enough to remember the war years, and in my experience younger Japanese people know more about WWII than you’re giving them credit for. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/44 "2015-03-22T19:03:29Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > You make some good points as to why the Japanese people dont quite have the sense of collective guilt as the Germans. > > But to me, that would have me say “Yeah, bad things happened, now let’s get on with life”. However, as you know, **some have argued** that the USA forced Japan to attack. There’s a difference between the two attitudes. Define “some” and we can have a discussion. There’s always a few percent of the population which is nuts. > [@Kamakiri](#): > > They take a most vociferous form as the [Zaiutokukai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaitokukai), and anyone who has any mental image of the Japanese as a meek, slightly naive culture would do well to remind themselves of the true fanaticism of a large proportion of the populace during WWII. From wiki. > [@](#): > > According to its official website, its membership is over 15,000. pfffffft. In a country of over 100 million, there are 15k ultra nationalists. In WWII, the country as a whole was not truly fanatical. The military, especially the IJA was, but the population was not. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/45 "2015-03-25T06:13:12Z")
> [@Kamakiri](#): > > I was based in Osaka, but I managed to make it to Hiroshima three times and Yamaguchi-ken once. My work took me all around the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto area. I see. Does that tend to be more of a hotbed of Japanese nationalism than elsewhere? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/46 "2015-03-25T07:44:19Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > in my experience younger Japanese people know more about WWII than you’re giving them credit for. Not in Tokyo, at least. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/47 "2015-03-25T12:27:14Z")
Are the Japanese also in denial about maybe it might’ve been a good idea to surrender after we nuked Hiroshima? ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/48 "2015-03-25T13:15:55Z")
I’m sure thinking in Japan probably is different now from when Dave Barry wrote his book in the 1990s. > [@Kamakiri](#): > > No doubt. No doubt you weren’t there almost 25 years ago. It’s probably a very different country now. There are no veterans alive to counter the Revisionists. Aren’t there? Mr. Neville’s grandfather, who was a WWII veteran, died just a few years ago. The last known WWI veteran, Frank Buckles, [died in 2011](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Buckles). [The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates there are over a million surviving WWII vets in the US as of 2014.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving_U.S._veterans_of_World_War_II) AIUI, life expectancies in Japan are on par with or longer than those in the US. I would expect there to still be some WWII veterans alive in Japan. > [@billfish678](#): > > A memory I have of some poster here on the SDMB where they summed up the typical Japanese high school coverage of WWII. It had the feel of the following. > > 1. Something something (and not much of it at that). To be fair, my high school history classes in the US didn’t have too much more than that on WWII. It came near the end of the semester, when time was running out. Maybe Japanese history classes have the same problem. Running out of time to cover the stuff toward the end of the syllabus is not unique to history classes, in my experience. Would you _want_ to tell young kids details about sadistic medical experiments, women forced into prostitution, and soldiers eating POWs (all of which the Japanese military in WWII did)? That kind of thing would probably get a TV-MA rating if you showed it on TV. You could make a very reasonable argument that it’s not suitable for kids under 18. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/49 "2015-03-25T13:16:57Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > So, it’s the War of Western Aggression? Or more politely put “The Pacific Unpleasantness” ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bruce\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/50 "2015-03-25T15:11:36Z")
> [@Kamakiri](#): > > My own then-wife dismissed my views about the Japanese treatment of POWs until I showed her the irrefutable evidence of that newspaper article, published during the war, on the “[Contest to Cut Down 100](https://sites.google.com/site/renemalenfant/hyakuningirikyousou).” She was uncharacteristically quiet for about a week after that. I don’t think that link is a good example of a Japan’s war crimes. While I assume some of those cut down were civilian, I don’t see where the article says as much. The article mentions that one of the swords was damaged on a helmet and that both officers fought on the front line. If two US Marines fought hand to hand combat against members of ISIS and killed 106 and 105 respectively they would get medals. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/51 "2015-03-26T00:00:30Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > Then when a new government comes in they say that the “statement” is not “binding government policy”. Well, they’re right, it’s not. An apology is not policy. That’s just what those words mean. However, it indisputably IS Japanese national policy to constitutionally forbid itself from foreign military adventures, so in fact there is policy demonstrating a commitment to avoid the very thing they’ve apologized for. [QUOTE=Kamakiri] One could say that Admiral Nagumo, who came up with Pearl Harbor, and who had been educated in the States, was extremely sanguine about Japan’s chances in any war with the US. He gave Japan 'six months of unchallenged victories." [/QUOTE] You are confused. Nagumo Chuichi was the commander of the First Air Fleet during the Battle of Midway, and proved to be somewhat unsuited for the command. The sentiments to which you are referring were expressed by Yamamoto Isoruku, Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet (in essence, almost the entire Imperial Japanese Navy.) That said, Yamamoto’s sentiments were shared by quite a few Japanese general officers. The Japanese staff included many men who were not fools, and knew Japan was in serious trouble. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/52 "2015-03-26T01:28:29Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > That said, Yamamoto’s sentiments were shared by quite a few Japanese general officers. The Japanese staff included many men who were not fools, and knew Japan was in serious trouble. Well, yes, but they still pushed Japan into war…or failed to raise any real objections. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/53 "2015-03-26T02:39:06Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Well, yes, but they still pushed Japan into war…or failed to raise any real objections. I thought that the army pushed them into war. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/54 "2015-03-26T18:37:02Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I thought that the army pushed them into war. Mostly, yes, but Rick mentioned “…Japanese general officers. The Japanese staff…” not just the Naval staff. The Army contained far more War Hawks than the Navy, but the Navy was itching to show what it’s powerful new fleet could do. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/55 "2015-03-26T18:40:11Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > the Navy was itching to show what it’s powerful new fleet could do. Had they seriously fired on anyone since the Tsushima strait? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2015, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/56 "2015-03-27T00:40:22Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Not in Tokyo, at least. I only ever spent about a week in Tokyo, but I find it difficult to believe that, in a city of 13+ million people with a fair number of inhabitants old enough to remember the war years, the only ones willing to say anything about WWII at all are the Japanese equivalent of neo-Nazis and that this has resulted in the young people of Tokyo knowing nothing about the period except what the far-right nutjobs tell them. That many young people in Japan don’t know very much about the war I can easily believe, although in fairness I doubt the average young American knows much about WWII. That far-right nutjobs exist in Japan I know for a fact; I met one (although AFAIK only the one) myself when I was living there. However, **Kamakiri** has been making more extreme claims than that. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2015, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/57 "2015-03-27T08:10:41Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I only ever spent about a week in Tokyo, but I find it difficult to believe that, in a city of 13+ million people with a fair number of inhabitants old enough to remember the war years, the only ones willing to say anything about WWII at all are the Japanese equivalent of neo-Nazis and that this has resulted in the young people of Tokyo knowing nothing about the period except what the far-right nutjobs tell them. No one listens to the ultra nationalists. They have their blaring sound trucks which everyone hates, but not a significant number of followers. > [@](#): > > That many young people in Japan don’t know very much about the war I can easily believe, although in fairness I doubt the average young American knows much about WWII. That far-right nutjobs exist in Japan I know for a fact; I met one (although AFAIK only the one) myself when I was living there. However, **Kamakiri** has been making more extreme claims than that. I think this pretty much sums up the entire thread, minus minor hijacks. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2015, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/58 "2015-03-27T08:12:36Z")
Isn’t western Japan somewhat more nationalist/hawkish than Eastern Japan? Is there a west = conservative, east = liberal dynamic in Japan? ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/59 "2015-03-27T14:23:26Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Had they seriously fired on anyone since the Tsushima strait? Yes. In the coastal areas of China, from '37+. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506/60 "2015-03-27T15:23:42Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > No one listens to the ultra nationalists. They have their blaring sound trucks which everyone hates, but not a significant number of followers. Do they still do this? Why don’t they just have websites and Facebook pages, like wingnuts in other countries do? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-wwii-are-the-japanese-denying/715506.md?page=4)