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Role in Japanese war machine made Hiroshima, Nagasaki A-bomb targets

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Question are these reasons make it legitimate to use an atomic bomb against city full of civilian ?

8 ( +20 / -12 )

They were going to bomb Nagoya coz of the Mitsubishi factory near Nagoya Dome.

It is never ok to bomb civilians and never ok to use nuclear bombs on them.

USA should be ashamed of itself.

5 ( +21 / -16 )

Niigata was also on the list of targets.

So was Kyoto initially but it was vetoed by Truman.

4 ( +9 / -5 )

Unfortunately WWII was a war in which carpet bombing of entire cities was the norm. What the Allies did in Germany and Japan would not be acceptable to us today. LeMay himself has said that if we lost the war he'd be tried as a war criminal.

But we are watching Russia bombing civilians today. Some countries have not learned any lesson from the past.

3 ( +16 / -13 )

Japan loves to play the "victim" in the war because of the atomic bombings if Hiroshima and Nagasaki,, but lest we forget they were the aggressors during the war. This gets drowned out by the whitewashing of the war in history books.

Japan did not deserve to be nuked, but they certainly played a huge role in the decision.

-5 ( +23 / -28 )

The deep sense of guilt over targeting and killing civilians can be seen in the unjustifiable excuses given of trying to end the war. Every strike on civilian targets in Ukraine are also done to bring about an end to war with fewer casualties.

2 ( +13 / -11 )

That time of year again?

The annual “Look at us poor, innocent Japanese, bombed by the nasty Americans”.

If the Japanese had gotten the bomb first, they would not have hesitated to drop it on any enemies they considered racially inferior to themselves (i.e. anyone).

Yes, innocent people died. Just like they did at the hands of the Japanese.

This “monopoly on suffering” which the Japanese seem to wallow in gets very tiring.

-8 ( +24 / -32 )

It's easy to judge in hindsight about the targeting methods used in WWII but you must consider the events of that time period including those of WWI. Nearly every major city in Europe was targeted and heavily bombed in WWII not to mention by the Japanese in the Pacific theater. London, Paris, Dresden and Hamburg, Stalingrad and Leningrad, Antwerp, Warsaw, Rotterdam, Milan and Turin just to name just a few. Tokyo and so many cities across Japan and elsewhere across Asia. It was a military strategy employed by every side, EVERY side. So to be clear, I am not condoning what happened or these methods, I am simply pointing out that this was not the exception but common practice of the times.

3 ( +14 / -11 )

Hiroshima possibly; Nagasaki? Not necessary. But then those two cities shouldn't be mentioned in a vacuum, don't forget Nanking, or Dresden. The world went mad during those years, some have atoned and learned, Japan hasn't yet. There will be another pilgrimage by the LDP and the ultra-right uyoku to Yasukuni on 15 Aug.

-6 ( +11 / -17 )

The night of March 9, 1945 is undoubtedly one of the bloodiest and most brutal in Japanese history..

The nightmare for the inhabitants of the city of Tokyo began at ten o'clock that Friday night, when 334 US Boeing-29 planes began dropping 1,700 tons of M69 napalm incendiary bombs on the center of the Japanese capital..

This made it the attack with the highest number of immediate casualties in history, surpassing even Hiroshima and Nagasaki (approximately 80,000 and 70,000, respectively)..

More than 200 Japanese cities were bombed, but the US did not find enough deaths and destruction caused by them and decided to launch their atomic bombs..

Nothing, absolutely nothing in the world justifies evaporating two cities full of innocent people, women, the elderly, children...

That has always been the pretext of the square-minded war loving losers..

One way or another Karma does not forgive..

World will see it..

Japan loves to play the "victim" in the war because of the atomic bombings if Hiroshima and Nagasaki,, but lest we forget they were the aggressors during the war. This gets drowned out by the whitewashing of the war in history books.

Japan did not deserve to be nuked, but they certainly played a huge role in the decision.

Imagine if an atomic bomb drops on your city where you live and annihilates all your family, neighbours

and friends, even the cat and dog, and erases your entire city, without you being guilty of participating in the war. Wouldn't you also end up "playing the victim"??..

Why civilians always innocently pay for the brutality of the military on both sides, they should eliminate each other and leave those who want to live in peace outside of all their barbarism and warlike terrors..

3 ( +19 / -16 )

When all the men were off protecting their country (misguided), the Americans deliberately incinerated women and children, just like the Nazis did to gays, Slavs, Roma, blacks and Jews. Whoever wins the war, writes the history. Tokyo firebombing is purported to have burnt 500,000 civilians alive, but nobody talks about it. There is also the Burma Railway. Many bad things.

we need to hide the facts in space capsules so future generations can find the truth.

0 ( +21 / -21 )

As part of your policy for balanced coverage, are you going to be including a piece on Japanese war atrocities? for example, could we debate whether it was humane for Japanese soldiers to grab Filipino children by their ankles and swing them around until their head made contact with a tree? Maybe younger readers would be appreciative of stories about Japanese soldiers bayoneting Chinese babies that they had tossed into the air.

-4 ( +17 / -21 )

@traffic cone.

I agree 100%. It is better to share recipes, dance, laugh together, than kill people. I was bombed by Israel, I am not Lebanese, just wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunately a nice innocent old man who I had drunk coffee with had his legs blown off. This was a few years ago so I don’t know if he is still alive.

peace. And reconciliation.

2 ( +11 / -9 )

Wow! I learnt most of this back at the school library in the 1970s. Are the Japanese only know being told?

-14 ( +5 / -19 )

Nagasaki was targeted "probably because it had prospered as a military port.”

Except that the military port wasn’t damaged.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

”War is hell.” . . . William T. Sherman

Will we ever really know the true reason? Perhaps not.

Maybe Harry S. Truman said once quite clearly to an A-Bomb protester, something like: “When you go into a gunfight, you use the biggest gun you’ve got!”

1 ( +4 / -3 )

The big problem with the annual observations of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan is that they leave out the historical context. We see innocent Japanese school children getting up in the morning, getting their bentos from their mothers and going off to school. Then, they are annihilated. No mention is made of the Chinese schoolchildren who died in Chongqing, Wuhan or Shanghai. Or Nanjing.

If the Japanese military had possessed the atomic bomb, I doubt that humanitarian considerations would have stopped them from using it. All of northern China would have been radioactive.

-6 ( +10 / -16 )

Let’s just hope it never ever happens again because what’s going on around the world it seems to be inching closer .

4 ( +7 / -3 )

Endless justifications, rationalizations, excuses, oh-but-theys, and hardly a single thought as to the absolute psychopathy of the entire enterprise of war whatever 'side'. If these two cities had truly been strategic targets, they would not have been 'saved' in pristine condition for the TESTS as 'official' U.S. documents attest they were. Of the cities in Japan bombed by the U.S., according to Robert S. McNamara in the documentary "Fog of War", he states that, before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that is, had greater priority than the two TEST cities, the U.S. NAPALMED the following cities and the percentage of the city destroyed (With Thanks to Andrew Chrucky):

Yokohama 58%

Tokyo 51%

Toyama 99%

Nagoya 40%

Osaka 35.1%

Nishinomiya 11.9%

Siumonoseki 37.6%

Kure 41.9%

Kobe 55.7%

Omuta 35.8%

Wakayama 50%

Kawasaki 36.2%

Okayama 68.9%

Yawata 21.2%

Kagoshima 63.4%

Amagasaki 18.9%

Sasebo 41.4%

Moh 23.3%

Miyakonoio 26.5%

Nobeoka 25.2%

Miyazaki 26.1%

Hbe 20.7%

Saga 44.2%

Imabari 63.9%

Matsuyama 64%

Fukui 86%

Tokushima 85.2%

Sakai 48.2%

Hachioji 65%

Kumamoto 31.2%

Isezaki 56.7%

Takamatsu 67.5%

Akashi 50.2%

Fukuyama 80.9%

Aomori 30%

Okazaki 32.2%

Oita 28.2%

Hiratsuka 48.4%

Tokuyama 48.3%

Yokkichi 33.6%

Uhyamada 41.3%

Ogaki 39.5%

Gifu 63.6%

Shizuoka 66.1%

Himeji 49.4%

Fukuoka 24.1%

Kochi 55.2%

Shimizu 42%

Omura 33.1%

Chiba 41%

Ichinomiya 56.3%

Nara 69.3%

Tsu 69.3%

Kuwana 75%

Toyohashi 61.9%

Numazu 42.3%

Chosi 44.2%

Kofu 78.6%

Utsunomiya 43.7%

Mito 68.9%

Sendai 21.9%

Tsuruga 65.1%

Nagaoka 64.9%

Hitachi 72%

Kumagaya 55.1%

Hamamatsu 60.3%

Maebashi 64.2%

2 ( +10 / -8 )

But we are watching Russia bombing civilians today. Some countries have not learned any lesson from the past.

The article points out that these cities were being used as military installations and as we saw then the government decided to hide their military inside the civilian population in a vain hope the enemy would hesitate to bomb the location.

And as you pointed out Russia like the USA and Allies in WW2 decided to bomb those military targets hidden in civilian locations.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20220805_38/amp.html

Amnesty international report:

The international human rights group on Thursday released the findings of their investigations conducted between April and July, which included the regions of Kharkiv and Donbas. It said Ukraine's tactics violate international humanitarian law.

The report said researchers found evidence of Ukrainian forces launching strikes from within populated residential areas and basing themselves in civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages. It said they were using schools and hospitals as de facto military bases.

So obviously governments have learned it pays in sympathy votes to make civilians targets.

The one thing repeated over and over after Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the "civilian" factor and played down the military bases, factories and other facilities. And today we see the same in most wars as it was a successful tactic used by Japan to make it the victim despite being the cause and aggressor in WW2

-16 ( +4 / -20 )

William Bjornson

Today 10:48 am JST

Now would you be so kind as to list the Chinese cities fire bombed, cluster bombed, chemical bombed, biological bombed, massacred ( like Nanjing) by the Japanese military,

Or lets not limit to Chinese cities.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_massacre

Deaths between 100,000 and 500,000

Let me remind people

Hiroshima "140,000 people dead by the end of that year."

Nagasaki: "74,000 people dead by the end of that year."

Manila alone 100,000 minimum.

Oh I guess because they died more " conventional " ways like bullets, raped, Bayonet, sword, etc.. it was less of a crime?

-11 ( +7 / -18 )

In London and the UK during WW2, many munitions factories were built in residential areas and hidden to look like residential properties. It did not stop the Nazi's Blitzkrieg with their rockets.

Atomic bombs must never be used again.

7 ( +9 / -2 )

The thing that most amazes me is that in 30 plus years, I have only ever met one person that said they were in the war, and one family that said their father/grandfather war in the war.

Nearly everyone else I have ever asked claimed no one in their family went to war, no one supported the war all their families were against the war.

Isn't that amazing!

-10 ( +4 / -14 )

Antiquesaving

Not really no.

I know many Japanese who have told me their grandfather etc were in the war.

9 ( +11 / -2 )

My Japanese wife's family was in the war as were millions of others.

6 ( +9 / -3 )

Nearly everyone else I have ever asked claimed no one in their family went to war, no one supported the war all their families were against the war.

Culturally it is shameful to have been on the losing side of a war. That would explain generational reluctance to admit to being involved (which pretty much all Japanese men of age were). My guess is this is the same for many other cultures too.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

We can look at this in a different light.

It has been over 80 years since the last full-scale major war.

Prior to that we had 2 world war killing near hundred of million by someone estimates ( we may never know the full count). And countless major wars.

Now With all sides worried about total annihilation everyone has tiptoed around puppet mastering proxy conflicts but avoiding full on war.

Would that be happening now if Atomic bombs didn't exist and if we hadn't seen the actual destructive capabilities.

And no a "demonstration" wouldn't be enough, humans are not that smart especially politicians and military.

Remember after Hiroshima, Japan still refused to unconditionally surender, sending " term" for its surrender.

Never underestimate the stupidity of nationalism and the military.

-10 ( +3 / -13 )

Because of the pacifist constitution, Japan is the only G7 country to have been at peace for 75 years.

4 ( +9 / -5 )

Both Germany and Japan were working on creating atom bombs. In fact, a German U-boat was transporting weapon grade uranium to Japan when captain learned that Germany had surrendered. The practical complied. The two Japanese scientists committed suicide (poison). There was a story that the Japanese had tested a primitive atomic bomb in Manchuria (?) but that proved to be spurious.

The first hibakusha were Americans. They came too near the White Sands epicenter. No one knew about radiation's impact on the human body. A lot of people at Los Alamos got thyroid cancer, including a few of my late friends.

For many years no one understood the full impact nuclear tests.

-2 ( +6 / -8 )

wallace

Today 11:27 am JST

My Japanese wife's family was in the war as were millions of others.

My wife's father is from Nagasaki, and I know for a fact plenty of the family members were in the war.

Now try getting any of them to admit publicly their father or grandfather war in the war.

It would be easier to pull all their teeth than to get that open admission.

-10 ( +2 / -12 )

as a Chinese. I don't think the US should use nuclear bombs. The use of nuclear weapons by the United States is inherently racially discriminatory. Because America will not use it against white nations. Many crimes of the past are magnified and people cannot understand the real history. The CCP plays with the public, and the CCP uses the public as a cover, which is why the atrocities started. Japan has lost the war, however, and nuclear bombs will only increase unnecessary casualties. Although Japan is the country that started the war, the atrocities in Japan are magnified and no one really cares about the actual situation. Most people are fooled by the propaganda. Just like the CCP deceives the Chinese people, the CCP says that natural disasters have claimed tens of millions of lives. Politics and war are places full of lies, where most people don't care what's going on and are controlled by propaganda hatred. I am not a pacifist, man can never completely avoid war, because man himself cannot avoid corruption, interests, politics, competition. But I think it is wrong to kill civilians with retaliatory weapons. The United States established diplomatic relations with the CCP in order to counteract the Soviet Union. Countries around the world acquiesce to the atrocities of the ccp for cheap labor, and people are persecuted in concentration camps every day.

-6 ( +0 / -6 )

wallace

Today 11:39 am JST

Because of the pacifist constitution, Japan is the only G7 country to have been at peace for 75 years

Yes in a hypothetical way.

Remember during the Korean and Vietnam wars, Japan served as a supply base,

Oh it in theory wasn't in the war but in reality it was fully supportive.

-6 ( +3 / -9 )

William BjornsonToday  10:48 am JST

And to think none of that would have happened if the japanese hadn't started the war.

-6 ( +7 / -13 )

Antiquesaving

wallace

My Japanese wife's family was in the war as were millions of others.

My wife's father is from Nagasaki, and I know for a fact plenty of the family members were in the war.

Now try getting any of them to admit publicly their father or grandfather war in the war.

It would be easier to pull all their teeth than to get that open admission.

That is your personal opinion but in our family and circle of friends, we have discussed the war and more importantly the need to prevent wars from happening anywhere.

My own family and community were in both the European and Pacific Wars.

We also have Nagasaki and Hiroshima survivor friends who told me their stories.

3 ( +8 / -5 )

Antiquesaving

wallace

Today 11:39 am JST

Because of the pacifist constitution, Japan is the only G7 country to have been at peace for 75 years

Yes in a hypothetical way.

Remember during the Korean and Vietnam wars, Japan served as a supply base,

Oh it in theory wasn't in the war but in reality it was fully supportive.

When the Korean War began Japan was under American occupation.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

https://www.cnas.org/publications/commentary/terrible-but-justified-the-u-s-a-bomb-attacks-on-hiroshima-and-nagasaki

Here is a well thought out writing on that moment in history.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

Randy Johnson

Today 11:49 am JST

William BjornsonToday 10:48 am JST

And to think none of that would have happened if the japanese hadn't started the war.

Now now now, not fair pointing out a fact like that.

Look at the comments, look at the voting.

It is clear that most here need to believe in the fantasy of innocence Japan.

Nanjing, Manilla, unit 731, etc...

This was all done by this mysterious "Imperial Japanese military" and not by Japanese and the Japanese are innocent victims of everything.

But we are regularly told that everything else is different and to not look at the war only Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a vacuum!

Nanjing 200,000 to 300,000 killed

Manila 100,000 to 500,000 killed

Slowly, by bombs bullets Rape, bayonet and swords.

Even the lowest estimates if the death in these 2 places is higher than both Hiroshima and Nagasaki tolls put together.

I wonder who suffered more the woman in Hiroshima vaporized instantly or the woman raped, and bayonetted afterwards in Nanjing and Manila.

-6 ( +6 / -12 )

The name of war is killing the others, fighting to survive and conquer other nations, in any way, using any method, even in this 21st century, due to Putin.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Ketsu Go.

I have been saying this for years.

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/there-are-no-civilians-japan

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

While I understand what Japan did to others. The sad thing is that the u.s. would have let Japan massacre east Asia and wouldn't have batted an eye Japan they hadn't attack Pearl Harbor.

The u.s. military are not humanitarians, they attacked Japan out of malice and spite, with the soul purpose of gaining power. this is why they will not apologize because the u.s. government doesn't care about the destruction it caused, it just holds tight to the fear it instills.

I don't try and justify war, I'm not justifying revenge. I do sympathize with those who seek peace and those who want to let the dead to rest.

But if you come to Japan to live and say they deserved to be nuked and bombed, maybe you should leave or think of more about the people around you.

3 ( +7 / -4 )

as a Chinese. I don't think the US should use nuclear bombs. The use of nuclear weapons by the United States is inherently racially discriminatory. Because America will not use it against white nations.

Well, as an American, I don’t think the US should use nuclear bombs. Then again, neither should the PRC or anyone else.

I think your post suffers a grammar problem - I hope.

I understand that the Allies were itching to use an atomic bomb on the Nazis in Berlin. Only their surrender on May 7 saved them. I further understand that the Nazi Party didn’t allow blacks, South Asians, East Asians and certain Caucasians, i.e. Jews, to join making them a party of … ummm … what’s word? … ahhh … Oh, yes! WHITE people.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

While I understand what Japan did to others. The sad thing is that the u.s. would have let Japan massacre east Asia and wouldn't have batted an eye Japan they hadn't attack Pearl Harbor.

Wow talk about pure revisionist history.

I guess the USA blockade of the invasion of China etc... Was not batting an eyelash, I guess the USA not only supplying the Chinese but also sending pilots to fight for and train the Chinese was also not batting an eyelash.

The u.s. military are not humanitarians, they attacked Japan out of malice and spite, with the soul purpose of gaining power.

I guess all the history books are wrong and The USA attacked Japan and not the other way around, thank you for letting us all know the real facts based on totally nothing factual other than false information and feelings.

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

The authorship of this article is so out of touch with reality it’s almost painful to read it. What makes it even more sad is the brainwashing of Japanese people.

Trying to justify the unjustifiable because it makes you sleep better at night is inexcusable.

The US is responsible for one of the worst acts in the history of mankind. It will forever be a stain in American history.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

"Randy JohnsonToday 11:49 am JST

William BjornsonToday  10:48 am JST

And to think none of that would have happened if the japanese hadn't started the war."

What would Americas do if, hmmm, say, Russia were to use their navy to completely embargo, cut off ALL oil shipments to the U.S.? Would it take the U.S. six months to respond? Ya see, Randy, HISTORY has a sneaky way of containing DETAILS that are conveniently left out by the guilty when teaching their children the local BS. Corrupt Roosevelt II in 1939-40 was under severe pressure by American/Euro BANKS and Corporate (just as the blackmailed Wilson had been) to get a HIGHLY reluctant America into yet another European WAR just 20 years after 116,516 DEAD and 320,000 sick and wounded was America's reward for WWI. What to do? An avid Bridge player, the 'finesse' was no stranger to Frank. In JUNE of 1941, he unilaterally cut off Japan's oil supply with a naval blockade, a CLEAR ACT OF WAR.

But no shots were fired until 0530 on the morning of 07December1941 when a U.S. destroyer the USS Ward observed, fired upon, and SANK a short range Japanese miniature submarine in international waters outside of Pearl Harbor. Oddly, absolutely NO ALERT was transmitted to the base from the Ward to tell ANYONE that America had just started a war with Japan. Everyone slept soundly that Sunday morning until the retaliating Japanese aircraft sounded Reveille at 0745 with machine guns and bombs. Frank immediately LIED and claimed it was a SURPRISE despite the fact that the Japanese Ambassador carrying a Declaration of War had been kept waiting in Frank's outer office for seven hours until word of the expected attack was telegraphed to Washington. This allowed Frank to immediately declare war on Germany to satisfy his sponsors.

Yes, the Japanese were attempting to build their own empire in the style that America and Europe had been using for a hundred years (nothing the Japanese did ever surpassed the murderousness of the 'British Empire but we don't talk about those things, do we?). But Britain and America probably killed more Chinese smuggling Opium into China with force than Japan did during their invasion. No one would argue that the Samurai mentality is akin to the mentality of rabid dogs given the 1500 years of blood soaked Japanese history but the tribes of Europe were no better and the garbage they sent to the New World even worse. It is NOT a particular people, it is the monsters who dominate ALL peoples and use those people to try to destroy the other monsters in a "There can be only One" competition of blind and insane WANT OF EVERYTHING. That's US, Randy, Humanity. And the game is actually quite detailed but those details must be learned from History and not from grammar school lessons of how grand your own country is and how degenerate everyone else.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

Redstorm

Today 02:15 pm JST

When Japan openly admits to the facts of unity 731, when it openly admits to the facts of Nanjing, Manilla, etc.. then maybe it can complain about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but up to now Japan refuses to even accept the most basic and minimum internationally recognised facts on these and other war crimes.

Thi attitude of "don't look at the war" Hiroshima and Nagasaki are special " is totally bovine excrement!

This is what Japan has done since the end of the war deny or try and say that and that are not related.

Why do the neighbours of Germany now trust them and forgive them but not Japan's neighbours?

Could it be because Germany accepted it was at fault, because Germany didn't keep try to say "yes we did this or that, BUT, But but (add a false reason)".

2 countries one accepted it was responsible, the other has spent 80 plus years playing the victim.

Guess which is which.

-9 ( +2 / -11 )

They can play victim, but the Chinese know the truth.

-12 ( +2 / -14 )

Interesting to see all the history revisionist are here, next they will say Nanjing, Manilla massacres are fake, the Holocaust is fake, 731 fake it is all fake, right.

It is stomach turning to watch people ignore facts, to try and whitewash history to try and pretend that one way of killing is worse because the people killed were yours or ones you place more value on.

Between Nanjing and Manila 300,000 to 500,0000 were brutally and painfully killed by the Japanese, not by some unknown people, the Japanese military systematically raped and killed these people, but here we are August again and tje myth of the Atomic bombs was worse is here again.

-9 ( +2 / -11 )

When Japan openly admits to the facts of unity 731, when it openly admits to the facts of Nanjing, Manilla, etc.. then maybe it can complain about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but up to now Japan refuses to even accept the most basic and minimum internationally recognised facts on these and other war crimes.

Nah the fact is Nanjin and unit731 are still highly disputable and whatever experience your relatives had in Hong Kong wouldn't change this fact.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

It's estimated that the Japanese expansion of Asia during the showa era claimed the lives of 30 million people or more !

That's more than the Nazi.

Just a comparison to think about.

-6 ( +4 / -10 )

During World War II, Japan's attitude toward Jews persecuted by Nazi Germany, its Axis partner, resulted in the rescue of 18,000 German, Austrian, and Polish Jewish.

I stopped reading this stomach turning stuff at the above point.

Seriously trying to pretend that Japan was good!

You forgot to mention the the men that did this were doing so against the orders of the Japanese government, These men in some cases were prosecuted for doing so, all were forced to resign.

Yes a few individuals did something good, not the Japanese government!

-4 ( +5 / -9 )

Whatever makes the Japanese historians happy. The reason those cities were chosen was to ensure Japan still had a government after the surrender. It was a forgone convulsion that dropping the bombs would end Japan’s lunacy of trying to take over Asia. If they did not surrender there were more bombs coming to other major cities.

-7 ( +2 / -9 )

August is a time to reflect on all the terrible events by the JIA and the events of WW2.

No that would be a different date in August but in Japan it is whitewash time.

Helped the Jews! I can't believe people would stoop that low

-6 ( +4 / -10 )

We killed between 100,000 and 500,000 Filipino in manila alone and between 200,000 and 300,000 Chinese in Nanjing alone.

But give Japan and the Japanese credit for the acts of a few diplomats that broke the rules and laws to save 18,000 Jews!

During World War II, Japan's attitude toward Jews persecuted by Nazi Germany, its Axis partner, resulted in the rescue of 18,000 German, Austrian, and Polish Jewish.

No you and Japan do not get credit for the acts of a few individuals!

Thousands of Japanese soldiers killed those 300,000 to 800,000 Chinese and Filipino, 18,000 saved Jews makes zero difference.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

William BjornsonToday  02:22 pm JST

"Randy JohnsonToday 11:49 am JST

William BjornsonToday  10:48 am JST

And to think none of that would have happened if the japanese hadn't started the war.

Yes, studying complete history is essential. I suggest you get started instead swallowing japanese revisionisist 'history'.

Japan broke The Nine-Power Treaty by attacking china which was stipulated in the Nine-Power Treaty that if any of the nine powers started hostilities with the chinese embargoes would be placed on said hostile nation. In this case it was japan. Japan knew it but went ahead and staged a fake incident on marco polo bridge. And as they say, the rest is history.

Clearly japan brought this on itself.

And, going by your logic, japan has often placed embargoes on NK, so going by your logic NK should attack japan because that is what you are insinuating.

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

When the japanese govt implemented the Ketsu Go decision.

Japanese don't like to openly talk about these harsh truths.

The Iron Student Corp. Boys typically aged 14-17 but some reports of boys as young as 9 years old to roll uder allied tanks with a loaded backpack of dynamite. Suicide bombers in other words.

The Japanese employed civilians to fight and as human shields, launched huge numbers of kamikaze attacks and fought until the bitter end. Difficulties in distinguishing civilians from soldiers meant US forces often fired on civilians unknowingly. By the time the battle was over, only half of Okinawa’s pre-war civilian population of 300,000 was left. Those who remained suffered from starvation, as Japanese forces claimed their food for themselves.

To help fight the Americans, the Japanese ordered almost 1,800 schoolboys aged 14 to 17 into combat. Many of them were used as suicide bombers and only around half survived the battle.

So, the two bombs literally saved japan and the japanese from total destruction because Ketsu Go was a real thing and the japanese were literally going to fight to the last japanese.

-5 ( +3 / -8 )

During World War II, Japan's attitude toward Jews persecuted by Nazi Germany, its Axis partner, resulted in the rescue of 18,000 German, Austrian, and Polish Jewish.

John Heinrich Detlef Rabe

A Nazi party member, the German government representatives in Nanjing. Established The Nanking Safety Zone, which, sheltered approximately 250,000 Chinese people from being killed.

So under the thinking of some here do we credit Germany and ignore the concentration camps, the invasion of it's neighbours, the killing of 12 million civilians in camps?

No it makes zero difference.

Japan started the war, Japan killed millions, Japan suffered to consequences of it's actions,

The atomic bomb was no better or worse than rape , shooting, bayonetting hundreds of thousands all over Asia.

And the constant attempt by some to play the victim is why Japan unlike Germany still has poor relations with it neighbours.

-4 ( +4 / -8 )

Redstorm

Today 04:14 pm JST

typo

> The past can not be changed only the future

Try this one instead.

"If we don't learn from the past we are doomed to repeat it."

Now go ask any Japanese on the street, in schools about the war and see the look of devoid of knowledge on their faces.

German's know their war history and past, the Japanese don't.

-5 ( +4 / -9 )

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