Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: timtom

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ORIGINAL: Ursa MAior

What I meant is that the Day of Infamy was the main, and IMHO only, reason why the society wanted to carry on till the end, no matter the cost. France and Italy surrendered, although they still had some chance to resist, because their will was broken.

This presumes that US policy towards Japan was directly a desire for vengeance rather than longterm, geopolitical interests.

Rather, the US viewed the Pacific as their sphere of influence. Japan was the only nation contest this in a serious way - potentially or otherwise - and once the war was a reality, logic would dictate that the US administration should want to totally remove the competition. Half defeating Japan only meant that the war might have to be refought later. Anyway, it's not straightforward for governments operating within the constraints of democracy to get into wars, so strike while the iron is hot. The total disproportion in relative strength made the outcome a given, which is in turn made continued war a given -ie there was no risk involved in continuing it.

Of course the US had a breaking point, but it was beyond Japan to bring the US to this breaking point. This, in a nutshell, was Japan's problem - Japan had no way of making war less desirable than peace to the US.

Art by the amazing Dixie

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whether you want history or fiction to dictate the parameters of the game

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Japan has been playing its dirty games in China since 37. IMHO FDR saw the opportunity in the war in Europe and started provocating Japan, but most of the US society (or at least significant part) was isolationist. Were Japan not "sneak attacked', this breaking point could not have been reached. My basis for this assumption is Yamamoto, although he clearly failed to predict US motives in Midway, I think he made good calculation before the war regarding the US 's will to fight in a war running paralel with a european one or one with heavy losses right at the beginning.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl


Almost none of that is correct and it illustrates a lack of depth of knowledge of the history of US-Japanese relations. Where to begin?
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There were no provocations of Japan however. The claim that Japan was provoked somehow is merely a straw man argument to excuse Japan's horrific conduct both leading up to the war and in the conduct of the war itself. Japan was a hyper aggressive expansionist imperial power. In response to Japanese expansionism and documented atrocities, the US cut trade opportunities, much the same way that the UN and international community sometimes do in the present day, when faced with a hyperaggressive rogue state. Throughout, the US attempted to negotiate with Japan, holding out more normal trade relations with the US as carrot to bring Japan to reason in its expansionist policies. Japan made pretext of negotiating while planning for war.

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its funny that you claim to know more than others regarding the subject,

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but fail to see the situation from the japanese point of view.

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open your mind for a bit.

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England and the United States both pursued very aggressive empire building campaigns long before Japan ever started to or are you saying that land was simply handed over to these countries out of the goodness of the original owners hearts?

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the problem was that the Japanese didn't start their land grabbing at the same time that the western powers did. if they had, then china would be japanese right now and everything would have been fine.

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also its very narrow minded to label Japans conduct of the war as horrific and yet don't label the US actions of firebombing non-strategis targets as horrific!

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to you, the attack on Pearl harbor is the ultimate in sins because of formal diplomatic protocol.

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yet the senseless slaughter of civilians is OK?

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amazing

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ORIGINAL: Feinder

Much of the "perspective" of Japanese civilians on WW2 is that they were simply victims of the Allied powers. They were liberating the Chinese. They "had" to attack PH and the SRA because the West had cut them off from their supplies of oil. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Be wary of comparing "perspectives" of between Japan and Allies. Certainly, Japanese civilians felt that they were "victims". That doesn't mean it was even remotely accurate.

Big difference (among many) between Japan and the United States in the 30s is freedom of the press. Japanese powers-that-be held tight control over what it's civilians knew, and thus controlled their perception of world events for many years. And while the press in the US has many warts, it is/was not so tightly controlled as that of Japan.

Everyone is entitled to their perception. But that doesn't mean it's correct.

-F-

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Which is probably accurate and China could probably use some of the same today for that matter.

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I've given it alot of thought over the years and in the end can only conclude that in fact he who cuts first holds the lion's share of the blame for all that logically follows, morally speaking. And, I also hold that since Japan was both genocidal and the aggressor, the ends (Japan's surrender) completely justified the means. From my point of view, if a few million civilians are going to die, it were better that they be Japanese civilians (because Japan started the war) rather than Chinese civilians (who had not in any way warranted the brutality meted out on them by the IJA).

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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Which is probably accurate and China could probably use some of the same today for that matter.

It's pure bullsh*t. When you modernize a conquered nation one of the things you do is give it a viable industry. Japan was in Manchuria for two decades. Name one factory, other than a chemical reagent factory (whose involuntary test subjects were Manchurians) Japan built in Manchuria.

The problem for Japanese civilians was that they did not entirely believe the evidence in their own newspapers about the treatment of Chinese civilians by the Japanese Army ore else they did not care. The lead Japanese newspaper of the day *boasted* of a beheading contest between a couple of low ranking Japanese officers. There were photographs. And that was a small fraction of the conduct that occurred in China.

Here's a clue. These faces are Chinese civilians in a photo taken in 1936. Their heads did not fall off on their own.

And there's far more ugliness available here:

http://www.fatherryan.org/holocaust/holocaust77/pic1.htm

Now tell me again how Japan was treated unfairly during WW2 if you dare.

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I suppose I could dig up pictures of american indian scalps that the US leaders encouraged neighboring indian tribes to attack each other for.

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war isn't pretty and I'm not saying that japan didn't commit atrocities, what I'm saying is that the western powers have committed almost as many crimes, only they did their more in the 18 & 19th centuries.

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That's the same sort of crap we found when looking in Wikipedia the other day for the Susie bomber: a long diatribe about Japanese atrocities in China and how the aircraft was used against civilians.

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Aboard the U.S.S. Oahu at Shanghai, Dec. 17.

Through wholesale atrocities and vandalism at Nanking the Japanese Army has thrown away a rare opportunity to gain the respect and confidence of the Chinese inhabitants and of foreign opinion there....

The killing of civilians was widespread. Foreigners who traveled widely through the city Wednesday found civilian dead on every street. Some of the victims were aged men, women and children.

Policemen and firemen were special objects of attack. Many victims were bayoneted and some of the wounds were barbarously cruel.

Any person who ran because of fear or excitement was likely to be killed on the spot as was any one caught by roving patrols in streets or alleys after dark. Many slayings were witnessed by foreigners.

The Japanese looting amounted almost to plundering of the entire city. Nearly every building was entered by Japanese soldiers, often under the eyes of their officers, and the men took whatever they wanted. The Japanese soldiers often impressed Chinese to carry their loot....

The mass executions of war prisoners added to the horrors the Japanese brought to Nanking. After killing the Chinese soldiers who threw down their arms and surrendered, the Japanese combed the city for men in civilian garb who were suspected of being former soldiers.

In one building in the refugee zone 400 men were seized. They were marched off, tied in batches of fifty, between lines of riflemen and machine gunners, to the execution ground.

Just before boarding the ship for Shanghai the writer watched the execution of 200 men on the Bund [dike]. The killings took ten minutes. The men were lined against a wall and shot. Then a number of Japanese, armed with pistols, trod nonchalantly around the crumpled bodies, pumping bullets into any that were still kicking.

The army men performing the gruesome job had invited navy men from the warships anchored off the Bund to view the scene. A large group of military spectators apparently greatly enjoyed the spectacle.

When the first column of Japanese troops marched from the South Gate up Chungshan Road toward the city's Big Circle, small knots of Chinese civilians broke into scattering cheers, so great was their relief that the siege was over and so high were their hopes that the Japanese would restore peace and order. There are no cheers in Nanking now for the Japanese.

By despoiling the city and population the Japanese have driven deeper into the Chinese a repressed hatred that will smolder through tears as forms of the anti­Japanism that Tokyo professes to be fighting to eradicate from China.

The capture of Nanking was the most overwhelming defeat suffered by the Chinese and one of the most tragic military debacles in the history of modern warfare. In attempting to defend Nanking the Chinese allowed themselves to be surrounded and then systematically slaughtered....

The flight of the many Chinese soldiers was possible by only a few exits. Instead of sticking by their men to hold the invaders at bay with a few strategically placed units while the others withdrew, many army leaders deserted, causing panic among the rank and file.

Those who failed to escape through the gate leading to Hsiakwan and from there across the Yangtze were caught and executed....

When theJapanese captured Hsiakwan gate they cut off all exit from the city while at least a third of the Chinese Army still was within the walls.

Because of the disorganization of the Chinese a number of units continued fighting Tuesday noon, many of these not realizing the Japanese had surrounded them and that their cause was hopeless. Japanese tank patrols systematically eliminated these.

Tuesday morning, while attempting to motor to Hsiakwan, I encountered a desperate group of about twenty­five Chinese soldiers who were still holding the Ningpo Guild Building on Chungahan Road. They later surrendered.

Thousands of prisoners were executed by the Japanese. Most of the Chinese soldiers who had been interned in the safety zone were shot in masses. The city was combed in a systematic house­to­house search for men having knapsack marks on their shoulders or other signs of having been soldiers. They were herded together and executed.

Many were killed where they were found, including men innocent of any army connection and many wounded soldiers and civilians. I witnessed three mass executions of prisoners within a few hours Wednesday. In one slaughter a tank gun was turned on a group of more than 100 soldiers at a bomb shelter near the Ministry of Communications.

A favorite method of execution was to herd groups of a dozen men at entrances of dugout and to shoot them so the bodies toppled inside. Dirt then was shoveled in and the men buried.

Since the beginning of the Japanese assault on Nanking the city presented a frightful appearance. The Chinese facilities for the care of army wounded were tragically inadequate, so as early as a week ago injured men were seen often on the streets, some hobbling, others crawling along seeking treatment.

Civilian casualties also were heavy, amounting to thousands. The only hospital open was the American managed University Hospital and its facilities were inadequate for even a fraction of those hurt.

Nanking's streets were littered with dead. Sometimes bodies had to be moved before automobiles could pass.

The capture of Hsiakwan Gate by the Japanese was accompanied by the mass killing of the defenders, who were piled up among the sandbags, forming a mound six feet high. Late Wednesday the Japanese had not removed the dead, and two days of heavy military traffic had been passing through, grinding over the remains of men, dogs and horses.

The Japanese appear to want the horrors to remain as long as possible, to impress on the Chinese the terrible results of resisting Japan.

Chungahan Road was a long avenue of filth and discarded uniforms, rifles, pistols, machine guns, fieldpieces, knives and knapsacks. In some places the Japanese had to hitch tanks to debris to clear the road.

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And what the hell has that got to do with anything???

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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And what the hell has that got to do with anything???

If you're Aletoledo it has everything to do with your previous post. If you're not but you're reading Aletoledo's posts and have any interest in the subject then it ought to interest you. Aletoledo has tried to argue that there is some sort of "moral equivalence" between US conduct, umm, *somewhere* (he hasn't been too specific outside of the firebombings in Japan proper) and Japan's conduct as a colonial power. He's wrong.

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The point is, and this IS the point, you can't find in American occupation policy anything that rivals Japanese conduct in the 20thC esp WW2 and in China, German conduct during WW2, British conduct in the 18th-19thC pretty much everywhere, Spanish conduct in the 16th-18thC, Dutch Conduct in the Netherlands East Indies, French conduct (in central and northwest Africa or Indo-China), or Italian conduct in Ethiopia. The U.S. never held entire colonial civil populations to be collectively responsible nor did we make a policy of rounding up lots of people and killing them, much less for pure brutal sport as did the Germans and Japanese.

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I'm wrong for saying that the japanese behaved similair to other western powers at one time or another?

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fine, if you want to argue that the US government has never harmed an innocent person in its exspansion, you'll listed quite enough examples of others who have.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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I'm wrong for saying that the japanese behaved similair to other western powers at one time or another?

No. You are wrong for saying that the *US* behaved similarly to Japan and other western powers. Your original comment upbraided me for my lack of willingness to see "it" from the "Japanese point of view," for not accounting US firebombing raids in discussing the *origins* of WW2, and for generally being too provincial to see the big picture. All of which are incorrect.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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I'm wrong for saying that the japanese behaved similair to other western powers at one time or another?

No. You are wrong for saying that the *US* behaved similarly to Japan and other western powers. Your original comment upbraided me for my lack of willingness to see "it" from the "Japanese point of view," for not accounting US firebombing raids in discussing the *origins* of WW2, and for generally being too provincial to see the big picture. All of which are incorrect.

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fine, if you want to argue that the US government has never harmed an innocent person in its exspansion, you'll listed quite enough examples of others who have.

I don't wish to argue that nor have I. So, umm, yeah, you missed the point. There is a huge degree of difference between the conduct (and scale of consequence) of individuals or small groups vs. the official policy of nations. Japan's conduct in Nanking* wasn't a matter of harming "AN innocent person." Japan slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocents as a matter of official policy. Even with the UK's (much more chequered than the US) rocky record of *official* policy one is pressed to find clear cut examples of massive, deliberate, systematic, government sanctioned brutality. I don't know their Indian (asia) record too well, but there's Britain's conduct in Natal Province.

* And much of the rest of China. And in the Solomons Islands vis the native Melanesians there. And in Korea vis women forced into sex-slavery. And in the Philippines in Manila (where Japan's conduct repeated in smaller scale their conduct in Nanking), and at Wake Island (where American civilian contracters captured with that Island in Dec 1941 were beheaded), and again in the PI (where IJA HQ had ordered that all US POWs in captivity in the PI were to be executed rather than allowed to fall into US hands). You can't call that a big coincidence, the act of a few individuals, random acts, or the usual casual low level brutality that comes with warfare.

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ORIGINAL: pasternakski

Can this thread be locked now so that posters can go read some history and (if we who read this tripe are lucky) inform their odd pronouncements with some grounding in scholarship and fact?

I prefer games that are grounded in scholarship and fact (a paean to what I understand to have been the actual subject of this thread). I guess that makes me a "history fanboy."

Mdiehl, old scout, you have gone around and around on these forums far more times than I have trying to talk sense, but you're going to get nowhere coming to the defense of anything America has ever done among this lot. Thanks for bothering to know some stuff and for caring about whether historical revisionism will eat us alive - unfortunately, I think it already has, and we're about to get squirted out the other end as a substance quite similar to what flows from the mouths of many.