WW2 Japanese Military Brutality Explained

[Music] you are listening to world war ii japanese military brutality explained this is an audio only program for war stories with mark felton wherever japanese soldiers rampaged in world war ii barbaric crimes against humanity were perpetrated japanese troops killed up to according to some estimates 30 million people in world war ii most of them civilians imperial forces also murdered hundreds of prisoners of war on numerous occasions many massacres have entered the national consciousness the countries that were affected while others remained largely unknown the accounts make for sobering reading at paradsulong hundreds of wounded australian and indian troops were shot and in some cases burned alive by japanese imperial guards when a ford aid station in malaya was overrun in early 1942 at the fall of hong kong on christmas day in 1941 captured british army nurses were gang raped and in some cases decapitated at the fall of singapore in february 1942 hundreds of british and australian soldiers were butchered when japanese troops ran amuck inside the alexandra hospital on the day of the surrender even bayonetting wounded in the operating theatre along with the surgeons who were treating them when the bataan peninsula capitulated in march 1942 tens of thousands of american and filipino soldiers were forced onto the infamous death march during which 5 000 u.s troops perished along with many thousands of filipinos in singapore between 10 and 30 000 chinese civilians were brutally machine gunned on the island's beaches during the infamous suking massacre hundreds of american prisoners were burned alive inside rudimentary air raid shelters at puerto princesa camp in the philippines in 1944 when the japanese feared an imminent american invasion thousands more british and australians perished from the death marches from santa can to renault on borneo in february 1945 this is only a random sample of the cruelties committed by emperor hirohito soldiers murder was only one aspect of the experience of the victims of japanese imperialism slavery was another slave labor was forced upon british australian dutch and american prisoners as well as hundreds of thousands of native labourers who perished in vast numbers attempting to construct the infernal railway of death through the steaming thai burma jungle or laboring in mines in japan manchuria and korea survivors like eric lomax who wrote the railwayman were deeply affected and disturbed by their experiences their lives effectively ruined the guards belted the men hourly with bamboos and rifle butts or they kicked them wrote lieutenant colonel j m williams an australian pow on the death railway i've seen them use a five pound hammer and anything they could lay their hands on one man had his jaw broken with a blow from a rifle butt because he bent a spike while driving it into the rail it is often forgotten today that native peoples died in bewilderingly huge numbers as slaves of the japanese thousands of korean and chinese women and a handful of dutch girls were forced to become comfort women a disgusting euphemism for impressed prostitutes caucasian women and children were sexually assaulted at tarakan manado bandung padang and flores ireland in the netherlands east indies in 1942 at blora close to cemerang in java 20 european women and girls were imprisoned in two houses beside a main road over a period of three weeks as japanese units pass by these houses the women and their daughters were brutally and repeatedly raped the japanese even conducted depraved human experiments on asian civilians and allied pows at the infamous unit 731 handed several associated units murdering thousands in cruel biological and chemical warfare tests that rivaled the worst barbarism of ss doctors in the concentration camps in europe to adequately catalogue the japanese military's war crimes would require a veritable library of books but the murders rapes slavery and destruction were an end result but an end result of what it is necessary to ask why these heinous things occurred what was driving such apparent hatred and bloodlust it is simply not adequate to label the japanese military of world war ii barbaric there must be some reasons behind the madness some policy or agenda that made criminals out of young japanese soldiers and tarnished the reputation of a major nation for generations brutality in world war ii was not a solely japanese preserve as any glance at the long list of german and soviet war crime shows but the japanese were the only combatant nation in world war ii that treated all enemies with equal scorn and brutality be they chinese civilians british pows filipino labourers american pilots dutch colonialists or korean comfort women the nazis applied oppression and murder more selectively on the one hand brutally massacring jews and soviet pows in the eastern territories but on the other hand scrupulously abiding by the geneva convention in their treatment of british and american prisoners of war the differences between the death rates and german and japanese pow camps are just one startling fact only four percent of allied prisoners excluding soviets and german hands perished in the war whereas 27 percent of allied prisoners of the japanese died the answers that explain japanese wartime brutality are by no means simple but as the title of this program suggests there was no single reason rather it was a combination of factors occurring at a certain point in history that caused an explosion of japanese military inhumanity a perfect storm there are eight broad threads that help to explain japanese military barbarism in the 1930s and 40s and they are one pre meiji restoration samurai culture 2. post-meiji restoration ultranationalism 3. the influence of prussia upon japanese military philosophy and statism 4. emperor worship five the reaction against democracy capitalism and the western powers in the 1920s and 30s six military training methods and the group ethic seven attitudes to enemy combatants and non-combatants and eight the concept of an honorable death twisted together these historical and philosophical threads created an explosive cord of enormous destructive power japan was almost entirely closed to the outside world from the early 17th century until the mid-1850s for over 200 years one social class the samurai enjoyed the unquestioning obedience of the people the shogun and his military government ran japan with the emperor reduced to a cipher the rigid behavior of the samurai was determined by the bushido code the way of the warrior governed by the seven cardinal virtues of rectitude courage benevolence respect honesty honor and loyalty and the associated virtues of filial payety wisdom and care for the aged the non-samurai japanese majority counted the little in such a society ordinary japanese not even possessing surnames failure to show adequate respect to a samurai of whatever rank usually resulted in the hapless peasant being decapitated on the spot merchants were a despised class the samurai disdaining money and wealth accumulation in return for higher a more honorable military administrative and artistic pursuits they live by a code of behavior that could demand suicide without question or hesitation the samurai daimyo lords were harsh and often brutal in ruling japan and the people that they ruled mostly pliable and respectful but samurai culture would cast a very long shadow of the japanese history and evolve into something far more brutal when it was hijacked by ultra nationalists in the 1920s and 30s the samurai system entered a sudden and unexpected decline and then collapse following the arrival of commodore matthew perry's black ships in edo bay in 1854 japan was forcibly open to the world and to new ideas and technologies that often sat uncomfortably with the old ways from the mid 19th century onwards the japanese realized the threat that the technologically advanced barbarians from across the sea posed to their nation they only had to glance at the rest of asia to see the dominance of the british french dutch and americans japan's inherent military and economic backwardness was exposed after centuries of self-imposed isolation and progressive forces among the samurai moved to remove the shogunate military government and restore the emperor to titular leadership over the nation and as important to begin a program of rapid modernization of industry and the military the japanese had no intention of ending up like qing dynasty china a nation being slowly carved up into european colonies and trading enclaves japanese ultranationalism had its roots among disaffected samurai with the meiji restoration of 1868 quickly lost their social status and economic privileges some of these clans which had backed the change in government attempted later to rise up against the new government in tokyo and resist the changes the saga and satsuma rebellions are the two most famous examples of semi-traditionalist samurai challenging the new status quo when the government with its new western-style army trained by french and prussian instructors easily crushed these rebellions some disgruntled samurai turned instead to politics and militant secret societies like the black dragon and other reactionary groups almost all of japan's leaders during and after the meiji restoration were either samurai or claimed descent from samurai and regardless of their political allegiances they shared common class values and outlook this meant that the ultra-nationalist samurai could find allies even among their more progressive colleagues over time the pre-restoration samurai period and the last desperate stands of resistant samurai during the 1870s began to be romanticized by the japanese and looked upon as an ideal of the ancient concepts that underline japanese society particularly the bushido co-rules of courage honor loyalty and an heroic death and battle the most prominent example was that of saigo takamori leader of the failed satsuma rebellion who died during the last stand with 400 of his remaining followers during the battle of shiroyama in 1877. takamori who may have committed sepku or ritual disembowelment to avoid capture was widely known as the last real samurai there was widespread agreement among japan's political elite during the last quarter of the 19th century that the nation needed to build up a strong military to protect it from the dangerous western powers the resulting fukuku kyohei or enrich the country strengthened the military policy sought to build up the economy and industry with the object of not only modernizing the nation with factories railways and modern communications but primarily to construct a strong modern army and navy advice on how to achieve this had been sought from prussian leader otto von bismarck and prussian influence during this crucial period would be far-reaching and extremely important to the development of japanese nationalism and thirst for empire in 1873 universal conscription was introduced for the first time in the nation's history and in 1882 the imperial rescript to soldiers and sailors was promulgated indoctrinating conscripts from different social backgrounds with military patriotic values and stressing unquestioning obedience to the emperor the document symbolized the personal bond between the emperor and the military in effect making the imperial japanese navy and army his personal troops the rescript stressed proper respect to superiors and concluded with the words quote duty is heavier than a mountain death is lighter than a feather unquote these were to have important ramifications when japan went to war with the western powers ramrod strait 43 year old major clemens jacob mecca his dark blue uniform as immaculate as his large kaiser wilhelm moustache was the one westerner who perhaps did more than most to revolutionize the japanese army mekel was the representative of the nation that above all others strongly influenced japanese militarism and ultra-nationalism during the 19th and early 20th centuries he came from another nation that was rapidly in the ascendant on the other side of the world the kingdom of prussia japanese war minister general aritamo yamagata often called the father of ultranationalism had been responsible for introducing universal conscription in 1873. yamagata was strongly influenced by prussia's recent success in transforming from an agricultural state into a modern industrial and military power prussia's political ideas of authoritarian government at home and military expansion abroad were very attractive to yamagata and many of his colleagues in the higher echelons of the military and government the prussian model devalued the notion of civilian control over the military effectively creating a state within a state this model would be eventually wholeheartedly adopted in japan in 1885 prussia's chief of staff field marshal count helmut von mulker dispatched major mackel to japan as a military advisor in an effort to wean the japanese of french advisors and tactics mekel worked closely with future prime ministers taro katsura and aritamo yamagata as well as army strategist general soroku kawakami mekel's influence upon the imperial japanese army was extraordinary from reorganizing the command structure along prussian lines to increasing its mobility connecting its bases by railways abolishing virtually all exceptions to conscription meaning that practically every young man became a soldier or a sailor to introducing the radical concept of war games perhaps the most striking import was a philosophy that would do much to reinforce ideas of emperor worship among the japanese particularly by linking it with war and success crucially major meccal taught his pupils the prussian battlefield success during the 1870-71 franco-prussian war was due to the officer class's unswerving obedience to its sovereign emperor an ideal popularized by hermann rezler mekel found a willing and receptive audience among japanese officers and this idea was already codified in the meiji constitution aiding its acceptance throughout the military so important was mekel that his bust was cited in front of the japanese army staff college from 1909 until 1945 an extraordinary honour for a barbarian the japanese absorbed klausovitz's theories and bismarck's statism and during his three years in japan mekel trained 60 of the army's highest ranking officers the very men who would shape japan's destiny in modern japanese military history almost all threads tend to lead back to the emperor to understand the wartime japanese soldier and his barbarism it is necessary to understand the place of the emperor in his mind and that of the nation as a whole the evils perpetrated by the japanese armed forces were committed in the emperor's name and it is perhaps surprising to realize how central and powerful was the idea and myth of the emperor in an otherwise outwardly modern and thrusting nation-state the absorption of prussian philosophy played a vital role in the repositioning of the emperor at the heart of the japanese military consciousness war minister yamagata's interest in prussian autocracy helped to reinforce emperor worship as a tool for inculcating obedience among japan's new conscript soldiers the lifting of recruitment restrictions another prussian influence meant that virtually every young japanese male was put through the mill of military training meaning the japanese society was militarized to a massive extent and populated by men inculcated in the military's ways of thinking and behaving japan had become an asian prussia in 1890 the position of the emperor had been formally enshrined in law when he was declared to be divine within the state religion shinto japanese were educated that the emperor was directly descended from the sun goddess amaratasu and this idea was rigorously enforced until 1945. they were told that japan was the world's oldest nation state ruled since the mists of time by an unbroken list of emperors without a single domestic change these ideas were used to generate feelings of racial and national superiority japanese were led to believe that the emperor's divinity justified obeying without question not only him but also his representatives in the government and military who ruled in his name this was kokutai the national body or structure the national polity and basis for the emperor's sovereignty kokutai taught students to put the nation before the self that they were a part of the state and not separated from it they were educated to follow the central precepts of loyalty and filial payety with the emperor as divine father of them all colonel kinguro hashimoto a nationalist army leader who would be instrumental in causing the war in china in the 1930s hijacked kokutai for his ultra-nationalist movement kodo the kingly way quote it is necessary to have politics economics culture national defense and everything else all focused on one being the emperor this system is the strongest and the grandest of all there is no nation that can compare with our national blood solidarity unquote wrote colonel hashimoto the place of the emperor in the minds of japanese soldiers helps to explain how many of these men behaved in ways that went well beyond the bounds of accepted morality and international law for a japanese soldier any order no matter how immoral or repugnant had to be obeyed without question because he had been taught from birth that superiors were always right he was a modernized version of the older samurai tradition of service to one's liege lord his superiors after all took their orders from the infallible emperor of course the level of complicity of wartime emperor hirohito in government policy and war crimes is impossible to know due to the imperial household agency's refusal to open the imperial archives to historical scrutiny but the generals and admirals did act in his name and draw their legal and moral authority from their close proximity to the emperor therefore to question as superior's orders was in effect to question a god and what mere mortal could do that such a simple and direct mindset also relieved the ordinary soldiers of taking individual responsibility for their actions because of the infallibility of one superior officer it didn't matter to us whether women lived or died said anji kaneko in 2007 a japanese veteran the brutal occupation of china when discussing soldiers attitudes to local women we were the emperor's soldiers whether in military brothels or in the villages we raped without reluctance unquote the system seemed to give many japanese soldiers a feeling of invincibility and invulnerability and also complemented the already deeply ingrained group ethic that frowned upon individuality ultra nationalists inside and outside of government and the military drove forward rearmament as well as the quest for natural resources and colonies using as a pretext the perceived threat to japan posed by the western powers this movement gained particular momentum as well as widespread support because of the western powers snubbing of japan at the international level particularly over membership of the imperialist club such slights would engender feelings of hatred for the occidentals and with the opportunity rose to take revenge against them senior japanese officers openly encouraged the maltreatment and murder of allied pows by their men a philosophical revolution occurred in japan an idea developed that japan was at the center of the world and the japanese people were superior to all other races this would eventually lead to kodo shugisha or imperial way a divine mission to bring all nations under one roof the japanese term adopted for their putative empire was the greater east asia co-prosperity sphere demonstrating how those in power attempted to cloak their empire building under the lie that japan was liberating fellow asians from the cruel yoke of occidental such ideas can still be found in japan today as any visit to the yasukuni shrines attached museum in tokyo demonstrates ideas of racial superiority common to the japanese military by the mid-1930s certainly contributed to the barbarism displayed by its forces ironically much of that barbarism was directed against fellow asians making a mockery of japan's claim to be a liberator rather than just another imperialist the worst example is the rape of nang king in 1937 when the japanese occupation force commanded by hirohito's uncle general prince osaka murdered over 300 000 chinese pows and civilians in the then chinese capital one of the major events to push japan much further down the militarist road was the failure of the 1919 treaty of versailles to recognize japan's territorial claims in asia before world war one japan had already started building a small empire gaining taiwan and china's laodong peninsula in 1895 the nation had defeated china in 1895 and russia in 1905 the latter a spectacular coup that made the world sit up and take notice of this grasping little asian power in 1905 korea was added to japan's growing empire before being formally annexed five years later japan had been an ally of britain france and the united states during the great war capturing german colonies in china and the pacific and even sending warships to the mediterranean yet when it came to divide up the spoils japan was effectively snubbed by its own allies many influential japanese probably rightly felt the heavy hand of racism and disparaged the league of nations which existed in the words of leading nationalist thinker shumei okawa quote to reserve the status quo and further the domination of the world by the anglo-saxons unquote in turn orga argued that quote japan would strive to fulfill her predestined role as champion of asia unquote a reference to the imperial way orkawa was one of four very significant philosophers who managed to place militarism and ultra-nationalism into mainstream japanese life between the wars ikikita was another who advocated blending the ultra-nationalist movement with the japanese military he also advocated a coup d'etat to rid japan of its corrupt democratic government kita's plan was for the military to rescind the 1889 meiji constitution ban political parties reform the imperial diet or parliament and nationalize industry then the japanese would embark upon their crusade to free asia from western imperialism that is build their own empire the government banned ikikita's books but they soon became very popular with young army and navy officers who were most susceptible to such radical and nationalist ideas okawa proposed the idea of a clash of civilizations between japan and the west he created an ideology that neatly encapsulated many japanese desire for hegemony which he christened hako ichire literally eight chords one roof which has been interpreted as eight corners of the world under one roof okawa believed that as japan was the world's oldest nation-state it was a divine mission to rule the world racial superiority creating an asian empire and the divinity of the emperor were all strongly highlighted by the media to actively encourage such thinking among the japanese population these ideas again found particularly willing disciples among the japanese military another philosopher sego nakano believed in the rebirth of japan through the old samurai ethics blended with a more modern form of chinese confucianism and a populist nationalism modeled on european fascism nakano was one of the many philosophers to highlight the story of saigo takamori calling his death in 1877 the true spirit of the japanese and again such heroic stories were very popular between the wars general sadal araki whose appointments as education and later army minister gave him a unique platform from which to actually disseminate ultra-nationalist ideas into the mainstream was another prominent driving force behind japan's quest for empire iraqi who had a wide following among junior officers introduced suicide spiritual training into the military and civilian worlds a modified and perverted form of the old samurai bushido code importantly the old compassionate elements of the code were deleted with important ramifications for those captured by the japanese leaving only a pitiless catalogue of martial prowess rigid duty and utter loyalty as the underlying tenets to be absorbed by society war was presented as purifying and death as a duty other events from the 1930s propelled japan towards war the 1930 london naval treaty had been forced on the japanese by britain and america the idea being to put the brakes on japanese naval expansion that threatened the occidentals military superiority in asia and the pacific all it did was confirm in the minds of many japanese the idea that their nation was being prevented from following its preordained destiny and importantly was being held to double standards the occidental countries could do as they please while japan could not simply because her people were orientals the treaty engendered deep-seated hostility and racism towards the western powers particularly the united states in all levels of japanese society it was an opportunity for the more radical elements inside the military to attempt to seize control and push the country towards completing their dream of hako ichie the may 15th incident in 1932 when prime minister tsuyoshi inukai was assassinated by a group of young naval officers and army cadets was viewed by many in japan as a patriotic act further reinforcing the by now widely held view that western-style democracy and party politics were corrupt and useless and actually hindering japan's destiny to rule asia the first stage in making hako ichire a reality was a holy war against china the barbarism of japan's wars in china in 1931-32 and 1937 onwards demonstrated the ingrained racism of the wartime japanese towards their enemies and the success of the spiritual training that the troops had received since schoolboys it also indicated that when japan made war on the occidentals they could expect the same doctrines to be applied to them on the battlefield we never really considered the chinese humans said japanese veteran uno shintaro when you're winning the losers look really miserable we concluded that the japanese race was superior this was a common enough attitude to run a war and not limited to the japanese but the accompanying systematic massacres and their horrific brutality were it is estimated that 10.2 million chinese perished in china proper exclusive of ethnic chinese murdered in western colonies between 1931 and 1945. one of the most notorious murder campaigns outside of the rape of nang king was the infamous jinmetsu-sakosen burn to ash strategy popularized in 1957 as the more ominous sounding sanko sakusen kill all burn all and loot all this scorched earth offensive was conducted by the japanese in eastern china between 1942 and 1945. in response to the december 1940 chinese communists led 100 regiments offensive japanese historian mitsuyoshi himeta estimates that 2.7 million chinese were killed during the three all's policy in 1940 prime minister prince conaway proclaimed the national defense state mobilization was announced as well as the government's complete control over the nation's assets all political parties were abolished and the japanese prepared for total war japanese school textbooks taught children all about japan's divine mission to unite east and west under tokyo's control democracy that western imposition which so frustrated and angered many japanese philosophers and military officers was shouldered aside for a return to military government young japanese military recruits were not only molded into obedient tools of the militarists through propaganda and school textbooks but also through a brutal military training program that employed physical violence to punish even the slightest transgressions recruits were beaten made to perform unnecessarily strenuous tasks and very often were not fed properly one of the explanations for japanese military brutality is the way in which its soldiers were trained as superiors literally beat on inferiors the ordinary japanese soldiers at the bottom of the system were left with little outlet for their frustrations and pent-up anger other than those unfortunates that came into their power usually defenseless civilians and prisoners of war this important point also occurs in the japanese soldier's relationship with his korean and formosan colleagues during the war the japanese impressed thousands of young korean and foremost men as army auxiliaries using them particularly as prison camp guards the germans did the same in the concentration camp system where brutal ukrainian auxiliaries worked under ss supervision japanese officers and soldiers routinely treated korean and formosan soldiers with utter contempt beating and humiliating them even though they were ostensibly allies in turn allied pows consistently noted that korean and formosan guards were among the most brutal of their captors as these humiliated underdogs of the japanese war machine worked off their shame and loss of face on prisoners of war at sandakan one camp on the island of borneo the australian prisoners noticed a dramatic change in the level of brutality once a large party of formosan guards arrived in april 1943. the japanese treated the formosans as their inferiors and the formosans took to delivering mass beatings of pow work details under the flimsiest of pretexts my gang would be working all right and then would suddenly be told to stop the men would then be stood with their arms outstretched horizontally shoulder high facing the sun without hats recalled warrant officer first class bill stickberwich the royal australian army service corps the guards would form themselves into two groups one covering the prisoners with their rifles and the other doing the actual beating they would walk along the back of us and smack us underneath the arms across the ribs and on the back said stikbovic they would give each man a couple of bashes if they whimpered or flinched they would get a little more japanese guards treasured koreans no better than prisoners rides gavin doors imprisoners of the japanese like another breed of mongrel dog to kick one said to an englishman ingar is korean samo all prisoner nippon another said to an australian you me samo but for every one miserable korean who saw life in the camps that way there were all the others hatchet face shadrach the [ __ ] bag and the rest taking out their rage against the japanese on the prisoners samo said the australian with feeling like hell unquote within the paradigm of asian superior inferior relationships the violence and humiliation characteristics of those relationships flowed ever downwards until it found an outlet and that outlet was always those people that the japanese military already considered worthless the racially inferior chinese as they would say or the dishonorable and cowardly allied prisoners of war the ingrained violence of japanese military training and power relationships does not fully explain wartime bestiality but it does suggest the japanese soldier was partially dehumanized by the training that he had received as coupled with the strong influence of the radicalized officer corps it made him more susceptible to blindly following amoral orders through fear of brutal punishment or exclusion from the group the japanese soldier was also laboring under the rigorously and violently enforced concept that superiors were completely infallible and that any order issued by a superior should be treated as an order given by the divine emperor himself the japanese military already had young minds that were more readily prepared to accept such ideas because japanese society itself was hierarchical and highly confusion in design where elders teachers and parents were minor gods to be obeyed without question and where the group ethic was a central unifying concept for the nation for westerners raised on ideas of individuality freedom self-expression and democracy it is difficult to comprehend the entirely different and often opposed mindset of asian peoples the japanese preoccupations with face conformity and the group were powerful inhibitors to any japanese soldier questioning his leaders decisions to refuse an order was to commit social suicide and risk exclusion from the group ultimately there are very few examples of japanese soldiers refusing to carry out patently criminal orders those that do exist are almost exclusively those of senior officers who due to their rank and status within the pyramidal military structure were largely immune from punishment during the early 20th century japanese imperialism was largely held in check through military cooperation and diplomatic agreements with the western powers japan's leaders desperately wanted their nation to be given equal status with the occidental nations and to acquire an equal right to sit at the imperialist table the japanese were frustrated as we have seen because the western powers never viewed the japanese as anything other than a slightly superior form of asian and certainly not as their racial ideological or political equals the insecurity and anger felt by japanese politicians and military leaders at not being fully admitted to the imperialist club and the often subtle racism that their nation suffered contributed enormously to xenophobia towards foreigners that grew rapidly during the 1920s and 30s in japan and to the rise of militarism and even fascism amongst the country's leaders it would be one of the major reasons why european and american prisoners were often humiliated tortured and or murdered during world war ii the japanese rejected the geneva conventions and other such symbols of civilized warfare quote the japanese had torn the geneva convention to pieces white men could go to hell and the japanese would be the ones to send them there unquote wrote gavin doors the hague and geneva conventions had no place within a military society that advocated death in battle or ritual suicide as the greatest expressions of manhood the japanese labeled the conventions the cowards code and they meant it the japanese often tried to impress other asian peoples by parading starving allied prisoners before them it was motivated by a racist pan-asianism and a desire to show former colonial subjects the impotence of their western masters japanese feelings of inferiority transmogrified easily into violence when whites fell under their power a classic example of the boot on the other foot mentality quote the march went on all day under a hot sun with only two halts in the playgrounds of two schools where the children were allowed to come close up to the prisoners to jia and spitted us recall one british pow who was paraded before locals in japanese occupied korea it was those at the pinnacle of military power the generals who decided to brutalize prisoners of war and who made the conditions so deplorable inside the camps more junior officers and other ranks went along with these crimes because they believed the orders to be legal and that the emperor wished them to commit such outrages in some cases they were correct concerning the aforementioned three all's policy in china emperor hirohito personally sanctioned this genocidal campaign the generals who commanded this operation were hanged as war criminals but their ultimate authority the emperor was never placed on the stand for his part in killing millions of innocent people the japanese were also no respecters of bravery in their opponents for they only acknowledged the battlefield superiority of their own men and accordingly treated all pows with the same lack of humanity a malay platoon that had made a particularly valiant stand before singapore city at the end of the conflict in malaya in 1942 was massacred after they ran out of ammunition and surrendered and its young commander lieutenant adnan bin saidi was hung upside down from a tree and bayoneted to death for sport the generals knew that the deeply ingrained respect for authority of the average japanese coupled with the fear of exclusion from the group and the concomitant loss of face meant that very little resistance was encountered among japanese troops ordered to do morally dubious things the whites had been the masters of asia before 1941 and it was they went official japanese military thinking were trying to keep the japanese down and had refused to recognize japan's legitimate right to be a great power now that the boot was on the other foot japanese troops enjoyed stamping on the white man's face it was race war and the levels of barbarity and cruelty indicative of the hatred and loathing and the hidden inferiority complex harbored by many japanese soldiers towards their white foes quote by 1941 they were ready to take on the white world in war and they truly did not care any more what the white man thought of them unquote during japan's blitzkrieg across asia between december 1941 and mid-1942 they captured 320 000 allied soldiers at the fall of singapore in february 1942 the japanese who were outnumbered virtually 2 to 1 were astounded when 70 000 british indian malay and australian troops laid down their arms and marched themselves off to captivity at changi to young and propaganda conditioned japanese soldiers who saw themselves as modern-day samurai surrender was the most dishonorable concept imaginable especially surrender to a numerically inferior opponent better to die than to accept such a humiliating and shameful fate they neither cared for nor understood the occidental's acceptance of surrender under certain circumstances nor the lack of shame attached to saving lives when fighting no longer served any useful military purpose the japanese had already denigrated the geneva convention as the coward's code and the behavior of white soldiers appearing to be another western ideology as morally corrupt and contemplable as democracy or party politics remember your status as prisoners of war you have no rights international law and the geneva convention are dead announce one japanese camp commandant to his prisoners in 1942 if the pows believed they were victims with rights to the japanese they were a sullen disgraced mob who had lost their rights as individuals and were to be treated as such comments christopher bailey and tim harper the japanese herded their prisoners into over 600 camps across asia the common factors that linked these camps together were privation disease torture and murder all deliberately promulgated by the japanese high command and rigorously enforced by camp common dance and their minions one example is what occurred during the construction of the infamous railway of death through the thai burma jungle in one camp we spent five months in a very crowded area where for the first three weeks there was no roof on our building wrote australian survivor lieutenant colonel j m williams i complained to the japanese commander about the accommodation and see he said that they were equally crowded in fact 23 officers and 23 other ranks of my force occupied the same space as three japanese soldiers unquote a british officer major cyril wilde who spoke japanese was at song cray camp on the railway in august 1943. he testified to the tokyo war crimes trial that inside one hut lays 700 pows arranged too deep along each side on shelves all of them were painfully thin and nearly naked down the middle of the hut were around 250 men who were suffering from tropical ulcers these commonly stripped the whole of the flesh from a man's leg from the knee to the ankle wild stated there was an almost overwhelming smell of putrefaction providing their slaves with even basic medical facilities was not on the japanese agenda sickness was endemic among the prisoners cholera roared up and down the railway line killing hundreds each time it struck and the usual pow diseases of malaria dysentery beriberi and typhus carried off hundreds more the japanese cared not one iota in fact issued ridiculous rules that exacerbated already perilous situations further only fifteen percent of the prisoners were allowed to be sick and sick men were only permitted one disease everyone else had to work and work fast on starvation rations the choices forced upon prisoner doctors were terrible one british doctor and his work detail had a private formula take two men one classified as sick the other as sickest send the sick man out to work and he would probably die keep the sickest in camp and he would certainly die but keep the man who was merely sick back in camp and he had a better chance of surviving that was medical ethics under the japanese general hideki tojo leader of the proto-fascist taize yokosunkai or imperial rule assistance association set up by prime minister conaway in 1940 to create a totalitarian one-party state was the japanese prime minister and minister of war for much of world war ii and he was personally responsible for running prisoner of war camps ideology manifested itself practically as tojo ordered common dance quote you must not allow prisoners to lie idle doing nothing but enjoying free meals for even a single day their labor and technical skill should be fully utilized for the replenishment of production and contribution thereby made towards the prosecution of the great east asiatic war for which no effort ought to be spared unquote the feeling among the japanese military towards prisoner welfare was often seen as a cultural rather than a practical difference between east and west in japan we have our own ideology concerning prisoners of war rotojo which should naturally make their treatment more or less different from that in europe and america unquote tojo even instructed camp commandants to harden their hearts quote it is necessary to take care not to be obsessed with the mistaken idea of humanitarianism or swayed by personal feelings unquote this was the manifestation of spiritual training and the corruption of the bushido code japanese soldiers were taught to view death as a glorious release and many accounts suggest that they also viewed murdering prisoners in the same light the often horrific ill treatment of allied pows by the japanese and the suicidal bravery of their soldiers in battle both partly had their roots in the rejection of the idea of surrender as an acceptable military response military honor which had once been the exclusive preserve of the samurai warrior elite had been extended since the late 19th century to all ranks of the army and navy and indeed to the general public through spiritual training achieving common acceptance avoiding the shame of surrender meant that the japanese soldier willingly embraced death even by his own hand the philosophical idea of ritual suicide was called yokosai literally jade shards and it had its origins somewhat ironically considering later history in a 7th century chinese text the book of northern chi where one passage reads a man should rather be a shattered jade than a complete roof tile japanese servicemen were inspired to seek an idealized and romanticized death in battle often making reference to the deaths of samurai heroes like saigo takamuri the japanese government presented war as a purifying experience with death in combat seen as a patriotic duty rather than a personal choice the fact is that innumerable soldiers sailors and pilots were determined to die to become ire that is guardian spirits of the country many japanese felt that to be enshrined at yasukuni was a special honour because the emperor twice a year visited the shrine to pay homage yasukuni is the only shrine deifying common men which the emperor would visit to pay his respects during the 1930s and 40s the japanese soldier was presented with two possible suicide scenarios if the military situation was lost the first was the concept of a glorious death in battle often achieved on mass during so-called banzai charges when entire military units sometimes several thousands strong would launch themselves headlong at the enemy knowing that they stood little or no chance of victory the term banzai charge originated with the u.s military and was derived from what japanese soldiers would scream as they charged their opponents tenor haika banzai long live the emperor the japanese army often used direct frontal assault from various campaigns before the war notably during the boxer rebellion in china in 1900 and from the russia-japanese war this form of assault not then considered a last resort but as an accepted military tactic had worked particularly well in china during the 1930s when the often numerically inferior japanese would fix bayonets and aggressively charge chinese positions head-on japanese soldiers would then close with their chinese opponents hand-to-hand where the japanese preference for edged weapons primarily officers swords and other ranks bayonets would decide the matter the japanese soldier was very aggressive and handled his weapon with skill because bayonet fighting had been practiced obsessively since recruit training japanese troops often used live or recently deceased chinese and later allied pows for bayonet practice in order to desensitize their soldiers for it is one thing to shoot an enemy soldier with a rifle from several hundred yards away but quite another to run him through with a bayonet less than an arm's length away the reason for the tactic's success was because the chinese were armed with slow-firing bolt-action rifles and possessed few automatic weapons during the second world war the banzai charge became more a weapon of last resort than a useful battlefield tactic and if the japanese intended to seek an honorable death they were usually granted one courtesy of british and american machine guns mortars and artillery american forces in particular face down some enormous banzai charges from their island hopping campaigns across the pacific on the 21st of august 1942 on guadalcanal in the british solomon islands colonel kyonai ichiki led 800 of his men in a mass banzai charge against the american defenders of the strategically vital henderson field air base attempting to overwhelm u.s troops by sheer weight of numbers and frenzied bare netting and slashing with swords but instead nearly every japanese soldier was moaned down by american machine guns the largest banzai charge ever mounted occurred on the island of saipan in 1944 when 4 300 japanese troops died assaulting american positions though the japanese were wafted to nirvana in enormous numbers they still managed to kill 650 american troops before expiring colonel ichiki of the guadalcanal banzai charge realizing that his attack at utterly failed resorted to the second honorable suicide option available to japanese soldiers ritual disembowelment sepku or harakiri as it was more commonly known among allied soldiers was another hangover from the old samurai days when a disgraced warrior would plunge short wakazashi's sword into his stomach before being beheaded by another samurai disembowelling with a sword or a bayonet was common during the war and if all else failed many japanese simply held a hand grenade to their heads to achieve the same effect sepaku was popularized in modern japan by the death of a soldier during the shanghai incident in 1932 when japanese forces invaded china's largest city the soldier had been captured by the chinese and after his release he returned to the site of his capture knelt down and disembowelled himself to exorcise his shame it was an action that was widely praised in the japanese media at the time if japanese soldiers were trained to think and act in this way then it comes as no surprise that they should have greeted the mass allied surrenders of 1941-42 with complete mystification and disdain as we have seen surrender in the japanese military mind rendered the combatant soldier a non-entity and non-entities could be treated worse than animals much has been made of the japanese military's rejection the terms of the geneva conventions during world war ii in 1929 the geneva conference was organized and japan along with 40 other nations did sign the human rights agreements though japan had signed the diet never ratified the agreement so as terms regarding the treatment of prisoners of war and civilian internees were not legally binding on the japanese military pows therefore fell under imperial japanese army regulations and not binding international agreements any transgression by a worthless pow was severely punished as one would punish a slave japanese soldiers believe that physical violence was the only proper way to deal with disobedience and violence was liberally used as we have seen violence and humiliation have played an integral part in their own recruit training so it had become an ingrained reflex action in dealing with problems i believed and acted this way because i was convinced of what i was doing said former japanese soldier uno shintaro we carried out our duty as instructed by our masters we did it for the sake of our country from our filial obligation to our ancestors unquote you have to bear in mind that surrender to japanese soldiers was as mystifying as kamikaze pilots banzai charges and harakiri were to american and british troops the mindset gulf between enemies was vast and unbridgeable and became increasingly pronounced as the war dragged on with both sides and the propaganda machines behind them increasingly dehumanizing each other the war in asia was not so much a clash of nations but rather a clash of cultures and expectations it was a race war and the brutal culmination of decades of japanese right-wing philosophy radicalization of the nation and its armed forces and perversion of previously honorable codes of conduct so what conclusion can be drawn from this examination japanese pre-war xenophobia and fear of western domination had undoubtedly been mixed with a desire to be admitted to the caucasians imperial club and anger at not being treated as equals to the anglo-saxons as well as perceived racism by britain and america over arms limitations agreements had coalesced in pre-war japan with more esoteric but nonetheless very attractive nationalistic and racist ideologies racial superiority a holy war against china a belief that japan was destined to rule the world a distorted bushido code a young disaffected officer corps seething with imperial way ideology the powerful message that the emperor was an infallible living god the brutality of military training and the glorification of death above surrender all of these strands made for a very complex court all had a direct bearing on the treatment of the peoples that the japanese conquered and enslaved by themselves none of these strands would have led to the deaths of millions of people but even the binding together of two or three of the causes of japanese military barbarity that were listed at the beginning of this talk could have made brutality more likely the fact that all eight causes coalesced at a certain point in history meant that japanese military brutality became astonishingly cruel yet coldly calculated and extremely well organized these threads ended up concentrated on the blade of a razor-sharp sword that decapitated morality as cleanly as the heads of allied prisoners perception in certain quarters in japan including among some senior politicians and military officers that her former enemies for financial and political reasons have exaggerated the nation's wartime atrocities those japanese who were executed as war criminals by the international military tribunal for the far east are not considered as such by the japanese government today the wartime japanese soldier was such a formidable opponent precisely because he had been dehumanized by his own government and made into a mindless tool of the militarists the japanese plumbed the depths of depravity in their cruel quest for empire the japanese soldier of world war ii stands as a warning to future generations about what can happen when morality humanity and compassion are beaten out of the warrior the basest of human instincts will then be given free reign as japan rearms and seeks a greater regional role once more many remain concerned that a nation that refuses to take full responsibility for its past deeds has the potential to repeat them and that the destructive threats that created the horrors of the 1930s and 40s may not be completely unraveled or severed for a wide range of videos on military history topics visit my other youtube channel mark felton productions you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below you

Channel: War Stories with Mark Felton

Views: 1,187,372

Rating: 4.8491859 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, Japanese War Crimes, Nanking, Bataan, Singapore

Id: kpVgDgKpQS8

Length: 62min 25sec (3745 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/masenkos]

This is great

[u/66GT350Shelby]

It's a long ride, but well worth it. I was already familiar with 99.5% of it, but still picked up a few bits of info on some of the more obscure incidents.

[u/Hindenburg69]

This is going to be a long bathroom session.

[u/gianni98able]

Check out Mark Feltons YT channel! Ha makes amazing videos! Mark Felton