Were the Japanese really more ruthless than the Germans?

Ask American prisoners of German concentration camps if they thought that the treatment was better.

Their treatment of Chinese during the war people rivaled German atrocities, so it's a toss up .

The Germans treated non Jewish western Europeans quite gently in comparison to their ruthless treatment of eastern Europeans, the Slavs were to die after the Jews.

Yes, OP, but not as ruthless as the Spaniards in Mexico. And twice as ruthless as the Crusaders in Jerusalem. And six and a half times less ruthless than the Belgians in the Congo...

Bataan Death March! Even the Nazis didn't think this one up.

I just watched Unbroken. The Japanese camp commander was absolutely horrible to the star, Louie, played by Jack O'Connell. I don't know if Nazis would have been any nicer. I found myself wondering whether Jack O'Connell's is as dongful as Josh O'Connor, particularly during the shirtless and nude (ass only) scenes.

Another thread chock full of historical ignorance and bigotry by the Dead is Dead morons.

[quote]Even the Nazis didn't think this one up.

Learn something R5.

To POWS, yes the Japanese were far worse.

Read about the rape of Nanking, OP.

This is anecdotal evidence but my grandfather served in the Pacific theater had his Navy sea chest in the attic from WWII. As a kid, I loved to rummage through it and once found a photo of two Japanese soldiers smiling next to what looked to be two white men’s heads stuck on poles stuck in the ground. The decapitated heads had severed penises stuffed into their mouths. I confronted my grandfather with the picture and he would not say anything other than to curse the Japanese and take the picture away from me. I don’t know the story behind it but it was undoubtedly the most gruesome thing I’ve ever seen and the image is still burned into my brain.

To add to R9's comment...

Japan has done a disturbingly good job in undermining/omitting how awful they have been historically and their attempts at genocide. If I hadn't lived in Korea briefly I would've never heard about things like comfort women (which the Japanese refuse to acknowledge, nevermind apologize for) or seen the torture prison camps that are still up in SK.

Now, I don't want to compare evils but at least Germany took accountability and has some shame for the holocaust. Japan just pretends nothing ever happened and has swept most things under the rug.

It's human nature. The Jap military did not have food for themselves. Stalin cleared mine fields with his own men.

The main difference seems to be that the Germans actually acknowledged the Nazi horrors, feel bad about it, and have tried to atone for it.

The Japanese are in complete denial and right wing parties will protest loudly if they think the government is about to admit any sort of guilt over WW2.

Exactly r3. R1 seems to miss that Germany behaved completely different on the Western front than the Eastern front.

Americans/Brits/French got decent treatment, the Slavic people on the Eastern front got barbaric treatment.

Yes - they were worse than the Germans.

Worse than the Germans on the western front*. That would be correct to say.

I just read the 3 "Crazy Rich Asians" novels. Amusing, light summer reading but the dark thread that runs thru all of them is the horrible treatment the Chinese received from the Japanese during WWII. All the elder-Asian characters in the novels were very much affected by it and express their hatred of the Japanese openly. I'm guessing that won't be depicted in the movie which comes out in August.

Yes, Japan is still widely hated in China and Korea.

R2 Not rivial it exceeded the level of cruelty exhibited by the Germans. Just read any literature on the Rape of Nanking or Unit 731. This isn’t to say the Germans were the paragon of humane treatment because their atrocities are stomach turning enough. But all active participants in the Japanese Imperial Armies atrocities should have been rounded up and had their own personal atomic bomb dropped on their heads.

Nut was Nanking rape -rape? Seems more like excessive mayhem to me.

"Americans/Brits/French got decent treatment,"

You might want to read up about the Malmedy massacre, or the accounts American prisoners of war about their treatment in Nazi concentration camps before you make such an asinine statement.

The Janjaweed were no picnic but their name is kinda cool.

No one wants to be a prisoner of war, but compared to the atrocities happening elsewhere r23, yes the Western front was comparatively decent. Maybe you don't realize just how horrific conditions were in other theaters.

[quote]I just watched Unbroken. The Japanese camp commander was absolutely horrible to the star, Louie, played by Jack O'Connell. I don't know if Nazis would have been any nicer.

You do realize that the MOVIE was a dramatization, right? It wasn't a documentary, no matter whether it was "inspired by real life events" or not.

That anyone would quote a fictionalized movie as a source for information is mindboggling. Based on real life incidents is still FICTIONAL.

R23, Malmedy is terrible but that happened to hundreds of villages in Poland and the Soviet union.

Though large, deaths amongst the western allies were tiny compared to those of the Polish and Soviet.

[quote]In 1968 US soldiers murdered several hundred Vietnamese civilians in the single most infamous incident of the Vietnam War. The My Lai massacre is often held to have been an aberration, but war crimes were committed by the US military (occurred) on a far bigger scale.

War brings out the worst in its participants. No country, no matter what it says during peace time is immune to committing horrible acts. No country nor its people are more or less inclined to commit heinous acts. The idea that some countries are morally superior in that regard is demonstrably false.

[quote]The main difference seems to be that the Germans actually acknowledged the Nazi horrors, feel bad about it, and have tried to atone for it.

The US has not acknowledged the extent of war time atrocities from Vietnam, let alone the past 15 years of wars in Afghanistan. So, if admitting guilt is a criterion for atonement...

My point is not to bash the US. Rather, the notion of comparative evil during war. Combatants do horrible things to both civilians and other combatants.

It is a symptom of war, not nationality.

They were equally horrible, really.

Part of it was this whole "new man" way of seeing the world. The fascist states (and I include Japan in that) saw the old failings that led to the collapse of the Old Order in 1918 as the unwillingness of states to do whatever they needed to in order to expand and dominate. The old fashioned notions of humanity and care for civilians, human rights, etc. This was seen as quaint and bourgeois and the new man was going to strive to better his glorious nation without regard for such sentimental notions.

Of course this was just a gloss put on crude sadism, which is always there, lurking under the surface of civilization, waiting to poke its leering face out. For a good current example, look at Trump's new best friends, the North Koreans, and the way the prison guards treat the countless thousands of slaves kept in their massive concentration camp complex. The savagery is unbelievable.

[quote] The idea that some countries are morally superior in that regard is demonstrably false.

No it isn't. Sure every country has done horrible things in war, but some countries were far more barbaric on a far more widespread level than others. It is silly to say "they both did bad things so they are the same!".

unit 731

R30 is right. Italy actively rescued Jews during the Holocaust in direct defiance of their own allies, Germany and France. And I'm talking about the Italian ARMY and GOVERNMENT, not common Italian citizens. They literally faced down their own allies with drawn weapons. No other country did anything remotely like this during WW2.

[quote]No it isn't. Sure every country has done horrible things in war, but some countries were far more barbaric on a far more widespread level than others. It is silly to say "they both did bad things so they are the same!".

There is a wide difference between saying "they're the same" (which frankly lacks sufficient specificity as to be meaningless) and to say that it's ridiculous to suggest that one country is morally superior to another.

We can dance around semantics, but something is either "evil" or it's not. Like "perfect" and "round" something cannot be more evil, more perfect, or more round.

[quote] but some countries were far more barbaric on a far more widespread level than others

Please share you scale of barbarism. Is killing civilians more barbaric than killing combatants? Is killing 20 people less barbaric than torturing 2 people? Is killing 2 civilians worse than waterboarding 1 enemy soldier?

This isn't a case of arguing moral equivalency. I'm merely pointing out that it's impossible to argue moral superiority - a very different point.

We all know that countries do terrible things to each other, and more than occasionally they do it to their own people.

And if your arm has been blown off because some foreign country invaded yours, your arm's still off whether it was the nice Americans invading to remove your dictator, or the nasty ISIS thugs invading to put your under some horrible gay-murdering theocracy.

That said, there are definitely degrees of barbarity. When we invaded Iraq, there was death and violence on a horrible scale, but we didn't start rounding people up for liquidation. We did not collect civilians to conduct fiendish experiments on them. We did not drive them off their land so our people could "settle" it. We did not force them to follow our religion.

Germany had two centuries of enlightenment and western philosophy backed up with age of industrialization middle class power, Japan didn’t.

Japan’s crimes are heinous, but that a major European power after two centuries of growth and increasing human rights expansion would do what they did is unparalleled in history.

[QUOTE]Japan has done a disturbingly good job in undermining/omitting how awful they have been historically and their attempts at genocide. If I hadn't lived in Korea briefly I would've never heard about things like comfort women (which the Japanese refuse to acknowledge, nevermind apologize for) or seen the torture prison camps that are still up in SK.

You can thank Fat Man and Little Boy for that.

I think there's a certain degree of awareness of Japanese cruelty in WWII, especially the torture, murder and humiliation of prisoners.

The systematic bureaucratic mass murder of ethnicities and other minority groups under the Nazis has a place all its own though. Even the Soviet purges were carried out largely due to paranoia and power-greed, rather than a simple wish that an entire group of people no longer exist.

[quote]The systematic bureaucratic mass murder of ethnicities and other minority groups under the Nazis has a place all its own though. Even the Soviet purges were carried out largely due to paranoia and power-greed, rather than a simple wish that an entire group of people no longer exist.

So, the fact that the Soviet purges killed millions more people is less heinous because they were equal opportunity murders?

[quote]I think there's a certain degree of awareness of Japanese cruelty in WWII, especially the torture, murder and humiliation of prisoners.

And the majority of people have been kept ignorant of atrocities committed by the US in Vietnam, so awareness is the arbiter of moral rectitude?

Individual bias will always play a part in perception of such things. But, you'll never be able to outline a sufficient guide to assess moral superiority that isn't so rife with biases as to be meaningless.

I'm not saying unbreakable rules, but there has to be some basis upon which to identify what is more or less barbaric, more or less heinous, or morally superior.

[quote]So, the fact that the Soviet purges killed millions more people is less heinous because they were equal opportunity murders?

Yes, that's right. the Soviets were not attempting to exterminate the Russian people, but ... no, it's not because they were "equal opportunity murders."

[quote]And the majority of people have been kept ignorant of atrocities committed by the US in Vietnam, so awareness is the arbiter of moral rectitude?

Who said it was?

[quote]I'm not saying unbreakable rules, but there has to be some basis upon which to identify what is more or less barbaric, more or less heinous, or morally superior.

And you've been provided with one above, yet you're keen to disregard it.

[quote]And you've been provided with one above, yet you're keen to disregard it.

I'm not disregarding it I am calling it flawed and lacking any merit.

In general, discussions regarding Ethics usually follow a more rigorous approach by outlining a series of "rules" that are applied to various situations to test both the applicability of such a "rule" itself and the outcomes that derive from applying it.

Qualitative judgments on what is better or worse are left to less subjective application and outcomes. So, your "rule" that it's less heinous that the Soviets murdered more people because it wasn't attempting genocide fails to incorporate a broadly applicable rule, as well as fails to consider a wide variety of situations. Ultimately, your point fails because it doesn't take into consideration outcomes. You'd have to be able to say that genocide of 10 people is worse than murdering 1000 - which is not reductio ad absurdum, but an application of your actual stated rule.

The North Korean military hates America's military because, it claims, Americans created great atrocities to the Korean soldiers.

I saw a documentary in which they interviewed Korean soldiers about their experiences. It didn't seem like they were lying.

Speaking of genocide, let's ask American Indians about their experiences.

When the Allied soldiers freed the people from the concentration camps, they left the gays in prison.

American imperialism has caused the death of millions of people worldwide. That's not even taking into account the genocide and internal repression of Native Americans, Blacks and People of Color.

U.S. WAR CRIMES IN THE PHILIPPINES

The overall cost in human lives of American actions in the Philippines was horrific. One scholar has concluded concerning the American occupation that "In the fifteen years that followed the defeat of the Spanish in Manila Bay in 1898, more Filipinos were killed by U.S. forces than by the Spanish in 300 years of colonization. Over 1.5 million died out of a total population of 6 million."

"The Men Behind the Sun" is a HK movie based on documentation of what went on in Unit 731. It's hard to watch. Real human bodies were used in tortures scenes, as were live animals.

"Roofless"... Some Chinese will never forgive the Japanese. The Korean people seem more worshipful of them.

[quote]American imperialism has caused the death of millions of people worldwide. That's not even taking into account the genocide and internal repression of Native Americans, Blacks and People of Color.

Flawed logic.

By this rationale, England, France, Portugal, and Spain are the worst countries to have ever existed.

[quote]The transatlantic slave trade began during the 15th century when Portugal, and subsequently other European kingdoms, were finally able to expand overseas and reach Africa. The Portuguese first began to kidnap people from the west coast of Africa.

[quote]"The Men Behind the Sun" is a HK movie based on documentation of what went on in Unit 731. It's hard to watch. Real human bodies were used in tortures scenes, as were live animals.

Movies are not documentaries. They are dramatizations, no matter what "documentation" or ripped from the headlines sound bites they include. I'm not defending anyone or anything. But, it's ridiculous to draw any conclusions from a fictionalized account of history.

LOL R32

France was on our side, the not Germans.

And I vaguely remember seeing the movie you are referring to (DLers tend to confuse movies and reality) -- someone will know the title, but it was about a bunch of nuns who hid Jewish kids and when the Nazis caught them and told the Italian troops to execute the nuns in a firing squad, the Italian soldiers shot the Nazis instead.

But it was a scripted drama and possibly wartime propaganda. Not a documentary.

Though if you are interested in history R35, read up on how the Danes saved their Jews. (Danes are people from Denmark)

Watched a documentary about the Japanese treatment of the Chinese and one Nazi officer’s letters to his superiors back home were featured. He was appalled and horrified by the Japanese cruelty. Nazis were killing too but they were efficient and orderly. The sheer sadistic brutality shocked even the Nazis.

The nazis should have known better

Read about the rape of Nanking.

Both countries were tried for war crimes and genocide.

Also, of course Stalin killed Russians. He killed by classes of people not by ethnicity (Stalin was Georgian not Russian BTW).

Alert the "But you can't talk about MOOOOvies" queen. Stop reading, "But you can't talk about MOOOOvies" queen.

I woke up in the middle of the night years ago, and turned on the TV. There was a movie about Americans in a Japanese concentration or POW camp. They tied this hot, hot, hot guy to the branches of a tree and flogged his chest. Much more brutal, it seemed to me than a Nazi flogging, which was usually on the back.

I don't remember the name of the movie. I went back to sleep (after I jerked off, of course).

The Nazis brutalized those they saw as subhuman-Jews, Slavs, Russians, gays.

The Japanese brutalized those they saw as subhuman- everyone. The treatment of Dutch, British etc, by Japanese wasn't better or worse. I'll guess and say it's your perception as a white guy that makes it seem worse.

I wonder if Republicans will ever atone for Trump?

r12 A Japanese soldier interviewed for the "World at War" series is one of the few people I've actually seen or heard talk about the comfort girls. (He felt no sympathy for them). There were also women in concentration camps forced into prostitution not only for German soldiers, but also for prisoners who earned the special reward of using them. Nobody involved likes to talk about them, either.

Why this "Mirror, mirror on the wall who's been the worse of them all" stuff. Man's inhumanity to man is the real question all homo sapiens should be asking. We should make attempts to evolve away from this this tendency and as we spin around on this mud sphere in space.

R36

Japan had it coming to them Fat Man and Little Boy saves millions of lives. Japan was not surrending and honestly they didn’t really give up a fuck how many lives it would have cost.

I think we as Americans have a different perspective and are mostly far removed from war. The last full scale war fought on American soil everyone that ever lived during that time period is long dead. We’ve never seen the implications of modern warfare in our country. We’ve never lived during a period where the constant threat of enemy invasion, or bombs being dropped on your head was apart of our everyday conscious. This on top of lack of basic living necessities like food. How many people engaged in Cannablism during WW2? How many people murdered their own children as way to prevent them from being alive when invaders arrived in their town? I think after country experiences these types of circumstances your perspective on human life is changed and this is passed on to later generations. That’s why many Russians still revere Stalin, or why Japanese refuse to acknowledge their war crimes. Their belief is that war is total hell and everyone is expendable. The enemy wherther its elderly man, woman, young boy they are all the enemy. We don’t understand just how cheap human life can become when placed in truly desperate circumstances and war.

There are no good people in war. The yanks killed civilians with atomic bombs. What could be worse?

The Japanese were far worse. In fact there is A nazi named Rabe who is sort of revered in China bc he saved so many Chinese from the Japanese. Some of the graphic details in the book the Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang are truly unimaginable. MANY older Chinese and Koreans will never forgive the Japanese.

Is it worse than institutionalized slavery?

[quote]Alert the "But you can't talk about MOOOOvies" queen. Stop reading, "But you can't talk about MOOOOvies" queen.

I never said you couldn't talk about movies. I said it was ridiculous to draw any conclusions from fiction.

But, go ahead. I'm sure movies are the absolutely closest thing you've come to learning about anything since you graduated from high school (whether you went to college or not).

You know, there's a great biography about a women named Auntie Mame that's a really good documentary about living in the south.

according to the Post, Mao wins with 45 million.

R63, it's not about the numbers. Germans killed far more Jews than the Japanese did to the Chinese. We are talking brutality.

Fuck the Germans. The Japanese are the most wonderful people on this earth and they always have been. It would have been an honor to have died in one of their POW camps.

I don't know if it is still the case, when I was in college donkey years ago, I met many nice Japanese foreign students they told me that they weren't taught what the Japanese did in WW2, the torture etc in history classes or in textbooks. Is this still the case?

R66, not sure but the Japanese I've encountered all have a bit of an inferiority complex. They like to tell everyone who will listen how they are superior to all Asians.

What is "college donkey"?

What exactly did the Japanese do that was more brutal than the germans? No one is elaborating.

It's all about self control and not losing face, they are philosophically and mentally miles away from westerners.

They starve themselves to self-mummification.

Kids don't learn anything about Japan's brutal history in school. Their pride is bigger than their conscience.

r12, Japan has apologised to Korea AND given reparations numerous times. But because the Korean sheep are so bonded together by their hatred (jealousy) of the Japanese every new political party that gains power brings up the issue (and shit like Dokdo) to stir the pot again and win political points.

I have lived in both Japan and Korea.

Both countries have their good and bad points. But Koreans need to GET. THE. FUCK over it.

I was teaching in Korea when the earthquake hit Japan in 2011 and all the kids in the school (right down to the littlest) were let out of class to run around and celebrate. That ain't healthy.

R72 Imagine Germany issuing a "Sorry that happened to you and that we were somewhat..kinda.. in a way.. involved (allegedly)" basic apology for their crimes against humanity. Or offering condition-based reparations ie 'silence all criticism against Germany in regards to the holocaust, take down your memorials that implicate Germany in the holocaust, GET THE FUCK OVER THE HOLOCAUST... and we will finally give you some money to give to your victims'

which is basically what the Japanese 'apology' and reparations was. And oh please at that blatant exaggeration, no one was let out of school/celebrating, only rightwing koreans did poor taste jokes about it and they by no means represent the entire population.

The most ruthless regimes of the 20th Century were those of Stalin, Mao and Hitler in no particular order.

Mao and Stalin were more murderous than Hitler who was actually kind to his inner circle. The other two had everyone and anyone killed- of their own countrymen in the 10s of millions if you include their purpuseful famines.

List of wars by death toll

I just looked up the 'comfort girl' system and it sounds awful. These women, some very young, we're kept in camps and raped and beaten daily. This is more than just brutalising pows. This hints at deeper cultural aspects of the Japanese nation.

R74 You really are going to leave Imperialist Japan off your list? There is absolutely no question they belong on the list of the most brutal and murderous regimes of the 20th Century.

It's worthwhile for everyone to take a look at R75's post on death tolls by war. Absolutely shocking.

Japanese soldiers were expected to commit suicide rather than surrendering, so they viewed POWs as subhuman and unworthy of medicine or food or life. A lot of this was Japanese racism.

US POWs captured by the Germans we're treated better because most were white, too. Jewish Americans captured, however, were often sent to concentration camps. Those best treated (not great, but better) were the Army Air Force guys because they were under the protection of that fat Nazi Air Force guy who respected other flyers.

Japan is superior to most Asians, they have one of the biggest economy in Asia

Jewish American POWs were send to concentration camps? Never heard that. And don't believe it. Source? link?

R69, I'll recount two particular accounts from The Rape of Nanking that I remember. Japanese soldiers tying Chinese women up to poles in public and gang raping them until they hemorrhaged and bled to death out in the open. Another account from a girl who hid under a blanket when Japanese soldiers broke into their house and made their father rape his daughter and the son rape his mother only to execute them all. I believe two of the daughters survived by hiding under a blanket. Those are just two of the accounts from survivors. The German Nazi Rabe had witnessed a lot of the sadistic torture and was shocked at the depravity...which is saying a lot since he was a Nazi. I also remember reading that soldiers would bayonet pregnant Chinese woman.

Google US POWs Berga concentration camp

Also Google Roddie Edmunds, now Righteous among the gentiles

OH R80, money makes you superior. Come the revolution

So many japs apologists

R82 How does a woman being raped numerous times cause her to hemmorage and die?

Cruel race.

He Japanese were one of the most savage armies in the war no question. My grandad had a book about British POWS and there were pics of men that had been castrated by soldiers. Those pics will haunt me forever. Their culture is very brutal. You only have to read up on it.

Any culture that has things like Geisha girls, and treats women like that has problems if you ask me. Never mind political correctness, culture can be cruel and not automatically deserving of respect.

Japanese soldiers cut babies out of the mothers wombs and played a game of tossing the fetus around and skewering them with their bayonets in the air. They literally raped girls to death. Even Germans didn’t do that shit.

The other thing to remember is that the Japanese would rather kill themselves then be captured. Captured soldiers are considered scum just because the didn’t commit suicide.

They were all psychotic!

Yes, the set up 'comfort' women' camps and raped thousands of Chinese women

The 2nd World War has lots of horror stories. Even the allies, like British and Americans are said to have committed rape on parisean women at the time of liberation.I'm sure all sides committed terrible acts. War brings out our most base and senseless urges, destructive human impulses come to the fore.

My father was a POW in Nazi Germany for a year. He was only 20 years old but an officer. His first camp was the one where the Great Escape happened. But conditions changed when the Gestapo took over. So, Depending on who had responsibility for running the camp or moving the POW's further into to Germany during a blizzard - how they were treated became worse and worse. From the Luftwaffe to the Gestapo to the SS at the end. He had horrific experiences and saw fellow POW's murdered for simply falling in the snow. But later - when he saw some documentary on the Japanese and their Bataan march, he said my hat is off to them. They were even worse than the Nazi's.

My mother was a teenage girl in the Philippines when the Japanese occupied her small village in Leyte. She said the Japanese soldiers forced everyone to wake up early and go to the town center to exercise everyday. Other than that, they didn't bother her family too much except when they started waterboarding a couple of townspeople. After that, the family ran into the hills. What's fascinating was while she was in the hills, she would watch the Japanese and American airplanes fighting in the sky almost daily until the Americans forced the Japanese off the island.

When the Americans came, all she remembered was that they weren't forced to wake up early and exercise and a few American soldiers visited her family because they had a crush on her.

Japanese. The bastards dropped nuclear bombs on defenseless Los Angeles and San Francisco killing 200,000 civilians without warning. Now that's ruthless.

The Japanese are at heart a deceitful and bloodthirsty people. Always were and still are. Don’t let the bowing fool you. They’d all gladly slit an Amerucan’s throat if they could get away with it. No joke.

R98, while the Japanese are sadistic and cruel, you should get your facts straight. The Japanese did not drop nuclear bombs on anyone. They didn't have nuclear bombs.

Highly recommend this documentary "Victory in the Pacific" - PBS "American Experience" series. Excellent.

Some points:

Japanese society prior to WWII was highly militaristic, even children.

When 4 Japanese aircraft carriers were sunk at the Battle of Midway (June 4-7, 1942), the story of this huge defeat was never told to the people of Japan and reporters were held incommunicado for a time to prevent the news from spreading.

Contains detailed stories from different points of view in interviews as the end of the war gets closer: the build up of Japanese forces at the place they knew the Allies would invade, the decision to use the bomb, the diplomatic moves, the point of view by Japanese militarists that if they could assure that there was a huge casualty rate (both Japanese and Americans), that the hope was the Allies would drop their demand for Unconditional Surrender.

Very, very well done.

I remember reading that during the island to island fighting in the Pacific, Japanese snipers would take particular aim at soldiers who were blond or light haired.

Also, atrocities were committed on American marines and soldiers who were captured during the island fighting. Finding your buddy's tortured dead body with his penis stuck in his mouth sometimes meant that captured Japanese soldiers didn't live long.

The closer the Allied forces got to the Japanese mainland, the more fiercely the Japanese soldiers fought.

My father (white, Christian) was a German POW in WWII. He was captured in the fall of 1944 and rescued in March 1945. By that time, the Germans themselves were starving to death, as the Russians were bleeding the Germans in the East. He was nearly starved to death, but he said that he believed the German soldiers were trying to keep the Americans alive -- they knew the end was near & didn't want to be standing over a mass American grave when the US Army came rolling in. He said the guards weren't nice, but there wasn't torture or forced labor like Japan.

When Jimmy Carter failed to rescue the Iranian hostages, he said that he would give them each $1,000 for every day they were in captivity. That was 438 days, so $438K -- in 1980 dollars! The Americans Vets who survived the Bataan Death March hit the roof. So 40 yrs after his ordeal, my father starting getting a check for $10K/yr .

r73 The anti-Japan hatred is instilled in even very young children. it's a way of building blind nationalism. Robert Kelly - the guy whose kids bust in on him during that interview - has written a nice piece about it.

Bascially beating up on Japan is great solution. It:

1) bolsters South Korea as defender of the minjok and therefore its ‘state-ness’ as an awkward half-country, 2) sidesteps a brutal head-to-head nationalist competition with the North which might provoke open Northern sympathies in the south, and 3) ignores the long-term need to shift South Korean political legitimacy from race (and the inevitable racism it provokes) toward democracy, which in turn would require a desperately needed clean-up of Korean politics at the expense of today’s entrenched elites, most notably the chaebol (monopolies).

All in all, anti-Japanism is a pretty good strategy for managing South Korea’s many tensions, and so long as the Americans are around, there are no geopolitical consequences to it either. What’s not to like? If South Korea cannot be the anti-North Korea, then it can be the anti-Japan.

I also beckon you to read the essay by Seoul professor Lee Young-Hoon, who has researched Korean comfort women and has some interesting conclusions about them:

"I have spoken here about how this issue has developed against the historical background and within the environment of the system of licensed prostitution. I have also shown that, objectively speaking, there are many problems with the numerical estimates and with the extremist view that the comfort women were sex slaves."

R104, guess you next post will be how the Rape of Nanking didn't really happen or was just an exaggeration. Nice try though. You are either Japanese or "japanofile." Face it and accept it....the Japanese were nothing short of sadistic monsters. It wasn't just the brutality against Asians...it went beyond that...Americans and Australians. To a certain extent their mindset is not much different than it was decades ago.

R87, you do realize there's a difference between two people having sex and violent gang rape, right?

R104 you can't be serious with that post.

Um, r106, clearly that poster has no idea of that difference. So! My guess is a 23 year old white midwestern virgin as that posters identity. Wanna take a guess too?

R100 Millennial who flunked sarcasm 101.

R106 well it doesn't make much sense especially with the small appendages the japs have.

There were ramifications for the Japanese at Nanking, but most were personal. Many could not take what the other soldiers were doing to the Chinese, but they had protest drained out if them through culture and training, so many just turned over and died.

The Japanese medics called it "Nanking disease."

Oh DEAR at r100.

Conditions in Japanese prisoner of war camps were worse for a few reasons:

1) The camps were located overseas and were cut off early from supplies from the naichi (Japanese home islands). The Japanese did not have adequate supplies for their own troops, so the privations for the pows were much worse than they might have otherwise been-- compare to the Japanese treatment of Russian pows during the Russo-Japanese War, when Japan was hailed as a model of modernity.

2) The Japanese military ensured compliance from its troops with brutal practices. Enlisted men knew that if they disobeyed orders they would be severely punished or killed by commanding officers. So there was a trickle-down effect. The lowest men on the totem pole were ones tasked with caring for pows, and they treated the pows as they themselves were treated. Often the men caring for POWs were from Japan's colonies, and were not in much better shape than their wards.

3) There was brutality on both sides. American GIs were guilty of a lot of the same ghoulish practices of the Japanese. Ears and skulls were collected by GIs and sent home as trophies, for instance. See the link below.

A good even-handed treatment of perceptions of the US and Japan in WWII is "War without Mercy" by John Dower.

R113, evenhanded!?! Those damn dirty Japs attacked us and started it!

I hope china nukes japan 😍

R112, sorry but the educational level of most DLers is GED so not necessarily buying the sarcasm argument.

Yes R99 you're right. The Japanese are at heart a deceitful and bloodthirsty people. They’d all gladly slit an Amerucan’s throat if they could get away with it.

And they will never forgive America for casting Mickey Rooney in 'Breakfast At Tiffany'.

R116 most DL’ers are smart. The trolls are the stupid ones.

What could be more ruthless than the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan ? They paid enough, there’s no need for anymore apologies.