One more post
A lot of stuff in that treaty, for instance
According to the treaty I linked to above, even keeping the Prisoners in an unhealthy climate (say, where malaria predominates) is against the treaty, even if thats where they were fighting when captured.
Strange that I’d jump in to defend the people who tortured my dad and stuff. Actually, those guys I’m not defending. It’s the other ones.
Anyway, not all Japanese commanders didn’t take prisoners early in the war. Nor were all Japanese soldiers hard-assed practitioners of the Bushido Code. Unfortunately, the bad stuff you’ve heard is true. Perhaps the extent of it has been overstated.
I always like to mention Unit 731 when threads like this come up. Of course the US used that technology and didn’t punish most of the participants. Double lesson learned there, I hope. Wish we and the Soviets hadn’t aerosolized anthrax et al? Know I do.
In Hampton Sides’ excellent Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II’s Most Dramatic Mission, I learned one of the reasons for the widespread beating of POWs by the Japanese soldiers. Hampton Sides points out that the Japanese soldiers themselves were beaten by their officers for minor infractions. Consequently, the Japanese soldiers thought little about beating their prisoners. Start to stumble during the Bataan Death March? Smack!
I recommend Sides’ book. It is well-written, insightful, and moving.
MMI
I was mistaken on Japan not signing the 1929 Geneva Convention.
It’s very difficult to find much detail on this topic on the net but if the details here are accurate it seems that although Japan signed the convention in 1929 it failed to ratify it and walked out of the League of Nations in 1933. Although it did give an undertaking to the Swiss embassy in Tokyo after the Pearl Harbour attack that it would abide by the conditions of the treaty, something it failed to do.
As to whether an embassy letter could be classed as an official ratification of the treaty, I’m not sure.
For National Socialist Germany and the USSR, they were not signatories and POWs were definitely not treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
This is not offering an excuse for any countries of the period to have committed atrocities, as the requirements or minimum acceptable standards expected for POWs had been long established and were well known to all countries engaged in the war.
Alan Owen Bess
I think we are largely in agreement here. You may be right about non-ratification of 1929 convention, although I would guess that this would be an indication of the dividing line between being an active part in the international system as represented by the conventions and going off on their own. The Soviet Union was definitely not a party to the conventions (kind of persona non grata all around from a diplomatic perspective). And the acceptable standards of treatment were certainly made clear.
I am pretty sure that Germany under Hitler was still a party to the convention (as there is no real break between Weimar and Nazi Germany). I don’t think prior to the war any of the states that were party to the treaties would back out for PR reasons - regardless of actual intent . With respect to the Soviet prisoners in German “care” given the USSR’s non-membership and German plans for the Soviet Union and its inhabitants, and their expectations of a very short, very one-sided war, it is certainly no surprise the way they treated their captives. And as always, payback’s a bitch.
I have 2 friends who were japanese POW’s(FYI: neither one ever bought a japanese car).
They were treated so miserably and horribly by the japanese(in actuallity it was nothing like: The Bridge on the River Kwai). I dont even want to remember the many stories that they told me, it makes me too sick to my stomach. Many of their friends and fellow soldiers were killed/murdered. E.g, when they were marched to prison they were not allowed to relieve themselves, if they did they were ordered to eat it, else be shot.
The mistreatement by the japanese was not like the Germans. It was not like an order from the top to exterminate a race and enlisted germans just following orders, rather, it was a general attitude of all japanese officers and enlisted men who cared not at all about the suffering and dying of american soldiers, and who seemed worried at all about being punished by their superiors for mistreating captive american soldiers.
The Japanese culture is not european, their values, history, mores, standards, etc are not the same as ours, obviously. FYI, during the “Rape of Nanking”, even German SS troops complained about the horrors of the Japanese troops. You can just imagine how bad it must have been for even German SS troops to compain about the mistreatment of captives.
What happened to the purpetrators?
Their captors(Japanese officers and guards) were not prosecuted nor punished at all, rather, they are now making very good money selling Toyotas to Americans who forgive and forget about our boys who suffered and died so horribly.
It is certainly true that the Germans despised the Russians as inferior Slavs and that influenced how they treated Soviet prisoners. However, Russia has never adopted the tradition to treat enemy soldiers ‘correctly’, to the extent modern Western Europeans have their rules to make war a nicer pass-time. War has always been brutal there. They were repeatedly accused of ‘dirty’ warfare during WW I and back in 1812, Napoleons soldiers weren’t treated that well either.
Maybe this harshness can even be traced back to the Mongolian occupation but that is just loose speculation. It is nevertheless the Russians that were the first to mistreat POW’s in WWII (AFAIK) with the murder of Polish officers at Katin. Right at the start of Barbarossa there were instances of Soviet troops feigning surrender and then opening fire on the soldiers that came to receive them and one occasion (heavily propagated) where the Germans retook a village, from which they had retreated) and found the multilated corpses of those that had surrendered. Undoubtedly this, together with the concept of partisan warfare, escalated the brutality of war on the Eastern front.
Not to pardon anyone but I feel it does matter who starts this sort of thing. If only to serve as a warning how easily things can escelate in war.
On the whole the Western theatre was reasonably civil but after the Baugnez incident (where ss supposedly murdered US POW’s) became common knowledge, there were a number of occasions where allied troops would rather shoot surrendering waffen-ss than take them prisoner. This only shows that no-one is immune, it is an integral part of war. War is hell and we can only try to put a veneer of decency on it but only with the utmost vigilance. The longer a war takes the more likely things will deteriorate.
Treating POW’s ‘correctly’ is a Western-European cultural phenomenon and by the time of WWII not at all well established in the world.
I’m not disputing this, but I can’t for the life of me think of a nation that didn’t encourage it.
I’m sorry, but can I get a cite on just which executives at Toyota or Honda were war criminals? I somehow doubt that anyone of that age would be in any power now at any company. It has been 58 years, you know…
And by the way, just because I drive a Honda doesn’t mean I don’t have respect for WWII veterans. I know a WWII vet who drives a Camry. And I think a lot of people would take offense at the thought that what they choose to drive in the 21st century means anything with regard to their respect and admiration for those who fought and died for this country.
You can take it any way you want to.
I only said that the 2 american soldiers that I knew who were Japanese POW’s would not buy a japanese car. Neither would any of their children, or close friends who found out what happened to them and their buddy soldiers. I dont know how many other soldiers who got to really got to know the japanese up close by being in their japanese POW camps, and still survived, would really want to buy a japanese car, even now. Perhaps someone else can give us that answer.
I will never buy one, but that is me.
Some people dont know the bad things that really happened to our boys in Japanese POW camps, or what happened to our allies in china.
Others know what happened and dont easily forget nor forgive.
I think it is great that some people can forget and forgive so easily. If any american boys who were japanese POW’s want to buy japanese cars, or if there were any jews who wanted to love and embrace the germans(who elected Hitler) the day after the war ended, then more power to them. Just dont expect me to.
Some people find it real easy to be expected to love the north vietnamese prior to 1965, then kill them from 1965-1975, then to love them again in 1976. To love the germans prior to december 1941, kill them from 1944-1945, then to love them again in late 1945. etc. Some people love and hate whoever our government says to love/trade with or hate/kill on any given day of the week.
There are some who lost a son(perhaps you?) or father in ww2 because some Japanese doctor wanted to show another how to take out the internal organs of a healthy american soldier, and then left that boy to die after the operations minus his organs. Those parents are free to forgive and forget on the evening of V-J day, and if they want to buy Toyotas from that doctor, or his kids or other relatives, then they can buy all the japanese cars they want.
Thank you, Susanann, for letting all the black and indian posters on the SDMB knao that they have your permission to hold you in contempt, based on your parentage.
See, the thing is, the war didn’t end yesterday. It ended, as I said, nearly 58 years ago. And I feel it is wrong to punish Japanese men, women and children for the atrocities committed by some of their ancestors. Not every Japanese citizen tortured and killed American POWs during the war.
Of course, as tomndebb was saying, your logic means that any random black person can regard you with contempt for the fact that you’re white, and white people once owned slaves - even if your ancestors came to America in the 20th century. Is that something you feel is fair? If not, how do you reconcile your feelings regarding the Japanese?
I’m still waiting for evidence of a direct connection between war criminals and executives at major Japanese companies today…
The personnel of Unit 731 largely escaped any justice after the war, due to the US pardoning them in exchange for the data. Many went on to lead highly successful careers after the war. There’s a link here. A couple of examples from the cite:
As I mentioned earlier though, there were upwards of 6,000 defendants in war crimes trials after the war. Unit 731 was the exception to the rule.
When my brother, employed at the time by a Japanese company in the U.S. Midwest, rented an apartment, the landlady said “I still haven’t forgiven them for Pearl Harbor.” To which my brother replied “Well, they haven’t forgiven you for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but that didn’t stop them from opening a company in the area that created 150 local jobs.”
Susanann, your “never to forget, never to forgive” pose may seem moral and proper, but it’s really the kind of thing that keeps the Israelis and the Palestinians going at it. And lumping together every Japanese with those who committed atrocities in WWII is simple bigotry.
Eh, my dad bought a 1982 Toyota Corolla wagon. He hated how reliable it was. Damn Japs, I want another shot at them he’d say. No, actually, he never said that.
When did she say anything about contempt? And you know what? Liberals have been saying that for years. I don’t see you chewing them out.
SanibelMan
She has the right to buy whatever cars she wants for whatever reason she wants. It’s not punishment, it’s just how she feels.
hansel
You’re comparing not buying a car to blowing up a bus of schoolchildren?
You guys seem to feel that no one should ever have any irrational feelings towards any group. Everyone should be evalutated on an individual basis, even if they belong to a group that, acting as group, attacked one’s own group. I find this attitude very insensitive, and I doubt you would so harsh if Susanann were not white (assuming she is). If someone who grew up being terrorized by the KKK as a child now has trouble trusting white people, and avoids patronizing white establishments, would you be so harsh?
I’m comparing not buying a car because of atrocities committed sixty years ago to the endless tit-for-tat that goes on between Israel and the Palestinians. In both cases, the weight of past is standing in the way of rational present actions. How many generations of Susanann’s family should refuse to buy Japanese products?
Susanann mentioned two American soldiers who were tortured in WWII. I would never expect them to “move on”, because of the weight of their emotions regarding their treatment at the hands of the Japanese military. What’s Susanann’s excuse? Deep, deep empathy? What benefit does it serve to not buy Japanese cars? Will it somehow prevent future atrocities? Likewise, I’d be a little more tolerant of someone who was terrorized as a child by the KKK. Bigotry may result from the experience, but it’s so tied up in a mess of trauma that simple tolerance bromides can’t address it.
It’s the bigotry by empathy or imagined association that I find inappropriate. Even the Hatfields and the McCoys made peace.
I think I made it clear that you can buy any car you want to, more power to you, just dont expect me to.
I also said it is great that some people can forgive and forget if they want to even if the criminals express no regret nor give any apologies.
If the relatives of jews who died in the german gas chambers want to love and trust ex-nazis and their families, or if blacks who are decended from someone who was enslaved or lynched or was discriminated against want to now love and trust all ex-KKK, their supporters, and their families now, that is their choice too.
How long should someone be held accountable for the atrocities that they commit? That is up to each individual to decide for themselves.
It also depends on how long it takes for the perpetrators to regret what they did and how long it takes for them to ask forgiveness. Furthermore, it depends on how they raise their children and what attitudes they instill on their children regarding the other race that they committed crimes against.
Just how long after ww2 did the United States “prohibit” Japan from once again having a large army with aircraft carriers, bombs, fighters, bombers, battleships, etc? Did our government trust and allow that country and its people to rearm and rebuild its military the very next day after V-J day? If not the next day, then exactly when did our government place complete trust in the Japanese “people” and allowed them to rearm?
Please give the specific date.
Was there no need to monitor/police the south after the civil war to make sure that blacks down there were truely free and were no longer discriminated against?
Why do you think the japanese who did these things, who tortured amercian boys or who killed our boys on the USS Arizona regret what they did and even want to be forgiven?
What specific cultural changes and family upbringings were intentionally made in Japan by the Japanese to make sure that such behavior and such thoughts were never again to enter into the heads of little Japanese ever again?
How many whites are sorry for exterminating the indian and stealing their land/gold away from them now want to give it back?
If the children and relatives of whites who discriminated and lynched blacks are as repulsed by it as are the blacks and decendents of blacks who were the victims, how are they showing it and making up for it?
Even Jesus Christ first requires that you must sincerely regret what sins you did, and first ask forgiveness before he forgives.
Why not pardon and free the Charlie Manson family immediately after they apologized, and let them repopulate our country with little Charlies?
Why give “life” sentences to any murderer?
Specifically, for the record, my 2 close friends were not approached by any of their captors begging for forgiveness. No, the japanese soldiers did not express any remorse at all for what they did, and still probably dont have any regrets.
Granting forgiveness on my friends part is a moot point since the japanese soldiers never expressed sorrow nor asked them for forgiveness.
Those of you who have enslaved, tortured, lynched, executed, discriminated, murdered, stolen from, bombed, or otherwise harmed innocent people and races, or who have benefited/profited from same, or who are proud of your ancestors who did those things, should not expect EVERYONE to love you and trust you.
Trust is earned.
Wait a minute there. I think that’s a pretty serious false analogy. Buying a car worked on and sold by Japanese men and women who, if they were even born at the time of the war were, by the odds, either grunt soldiers or noncombatants is by no means equivalent to making friends with the ex-KKK and their supporters. What it is equivalent to is making friends with me, whose ancestors owned slaves. Something which I regret but am not exactly responsible for in any way. Are you as willing to support that analogy, or is any black person calling themselves a friend of mine a traitor?