Posted: 5/30/2011 6:56:30 AM EDT
So recently I got to work with this guy who grew up in Japan. He's in his 30's similar to me. We were at the gunshow looking at some WWII items. We ran into this old war horse that was selling some of his stuff he collected while island hopping. Guy was in his 80's with some of his (VFW buddies). We got to talking and I found out that my grandfather and his were both in WWII in the Pacific around the sametime. Only difference was his grandfather and mine were on opposite sides of the battlefield. So the guys were telling him about the conditions they were fighting in and some of the atrocities they discovered. My friend who has a grad degree in electrical engineering claims it wasn't as bad as they were describing it. That's when I gave him the   look. They were polite with him but told him either he slept in history class or just misinformed. I chimed in and said the letters my grandmother kept from my grandfather described most of what these guys said. My grandfather was a translator and liaison between the US Army and the Chinese Army who later fled to Taiwan. I said heck, even the freaking history channel has retold most of these stories. He claimed that they never taught this type of stuff in his schools in Japan. He explained that in school they taught that the Chinese invited the Japanese Imperial Army to liberate them from their Monarch because they were corrupt. As for Pearl Harbor, it was because it was a defensive move to prevent the USN from attacking Japan which explains why there was no follow up invasion of the mainland. I was giving this guy the big WTF. My grandmother would have smacked this guy upside the head if she ever heard that. The guys behind the table were getting a little heated at that comment so I thanked them for their service and their time and took my friend out before they jumped the table and kicked his @ss. So was this guy really that smart to be stupid or did the Japanese Education System whitewash the entire incident? eta: I'm not sure this guy is coming over for dinner anymore, my wife show him her grandfather's flag and purple heart that her grandmother gave us because he never made it back. He managed to mutter sorry for your lost but fighting in a war that ended with a nuke being dropped over innocent people was a war crime commited by the President Truman. |
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The Japanese history textbook I saw in 1990 only spent 4-5 pages on WW2, and one of those was a full page color image of the Hiroshima mushroom cloud with a short caption.
By contrast, the World History textbook used by AISD covers WW2 in roughly 40 pages. Go figure. |
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have you not heard that they're teaching American kids the Founding Fathers were a bunch of hate mongering old fat guys just seperatin from the King to set up their own kingdom..
(lot more than that actually but I dont feel like typiing it all, I have to assume if we have a cover up and history dismantling here on the founding of one of the greatest countries ever, what do you think the Losers are teaching their kids?) |
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Quoted: Say what? have you not heard that they're teaching American kids the Founding Fathers were a bunch of hate mongering old fat guys just seperatin from the King to set up their own kingdom.. (lot more than that actually but I dont feel like typiing it all, I have to assume if we have a cover up and history dismantling here on the founding of one of the greatest countries ever, what do you think the Losers are teaching their kids?)   |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I've seen German history textbooks that barely mention World War II I was wondering how they were going to explain Auschwitz. a summer camp for Hebrew children..destroyed by Evil Americans when the rampaged Europe in the 40's And the Allies were just there to conquer Western Europe and let the Russian have Eastern?  |
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This isn't exactly a shocker (I was stationed in Japan 3 years). How else do you think a country that starts, commits multiple atrocities and then loses a world war reacts in its aftermath? If it makes you feel any better Germany, Italy and Japan are still occupied countries with second rate militarys that have difficulty projecting force outside their own borders.
Three words for your Japanese buddy. Rape of Nanking. People should know when they are conquered. |
| This is not surprising. The Japanese have never owned up to their atrocities and continue to cover up some very horrible acts. Skinning pilots alive and experiments on living humans come immediately to mind. Pisses me off and I shouldn't be thinking about this on Memorial Day. |
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Quoted: What got me was Pearl was attacked as a defensive measure from the USN, from invading but never understanding the "WHY". It wasn't for the scenic views the Marines were going for when they went island hopping.The Japanese are still in major denial over what they had done in the war. Can't admit to honorable great grandpappy being a sadistic butcher you know. He pointed out the USN is still in Japan as occupiers. |
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What got me was Pearl was attacked as a defensive measure from the USN, from invading but never understanding the "WHY". It wasn't for the scenic views the Marines were going for when they went island hopping.
The Japanese are still in major denial over what they had done in the war. Can't admit to honorable great grandpappy being a sadistic butcher you know. He pointed out the USN is still in Japan as occupiers. Yes because his people are WEAK and CONQUERED. Please don't forget there are also Army, Marine and Airforces bases on the sacred soil of the home islands that his pathetic ancestors were too weak to defend. |
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Quoted: This is not surprising. The Japanese have never owned up to their atrocities and continue to cover up some very horrible acts. Skinning pilots alive and experiments on living humans come immediately to mind. Pisses me off and I shouldn't be thinking about this on Memorial Day. Memorial Day is our day to recognize our HEROES and sacrifices that were made. All gave some and some gave all.   Don't worry about an uneducated person's education. I'll dig out some of my college history books for him. |
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Contest to Kill 100 people with a sword
The contest to kill 100 people using a sword (百人斬り競争 hyakunin-giri kyōsō?) is a wartime account of a "contest" between two Japanese Army officers during the Japanese invasion of China over which of them would first kill 100 people with his sword. Two officers were later executed on war crimes charges for their involvement.[1] Since that time, the historicity of the event has been hotly contested, often by Japanese nationalist or revisionist historians seeking to invalidate the historiography of the Nanjing Massacre.[2] |
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Quoted: This isn't exactly a shocker (I was stationed in Japan 3 years). How else do you think a country that starts, commits multiple atrocities and then loses a world war reacts in its aftermath? If it makes you feel any better Germany, Italy and Japan are still occupied countries with second rate militarys that have difficulty projecting force outside their own borders. Three words for your Japanese buddy. Rape of Nanking. People should know when they are conquered. Let's just say if my family were around, i.e. grandparents / parents and their generation, the Nanjing Massacre would have gotten a lot of blood boiling. Not a good topic to bring up in a Chinese household. They were immigrants who came through Ellis Island because their parents sent most of them away before things got too bad for them. Most of the able body men were either fighting as members of the US Armed Forces or Chinese Nationalist. The ones that got here got to be US citizens because of their time in the service. |
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What do you make of these harvard guys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osami_Nagano |
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Quoted: What do you make of these harvard guys. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osami_Nagano "Although he was a proponent of the Nanshin-ron, he was against war with the United States; he concluded that if Japan were able to take over British and Dutch colonies in Asia without directly attacking the United States, the isolationist factions with the American government would prevent the United States from declaring war against Japan." That's right we did educate them. Similar to us educating some of the middle east who hate our guts but loved living here when they were here. |
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Quoted: I've seen German history textbooks that barely mention World War II Being that I went through the German school system to 10th grade, I can say this is definitely false. The entire 10th grade year in history deals with modern history, with half a year spent on the Third Reich. |
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Quoted: They don't they simply ignore it. I guess they think it'll just go away  This, or so it seems. The Germans don't like to mention the war much at all, even aside from all the deathcamp stuff. At least here in Britain, my history classes on Northern Ireland taught us about things like the Guildford Four and Bloody Sunday. Our classes on the British Empire in India even looked at the things we did there. We don't however, spend much time on the American Revolutionary War. Bugger all, in fact. |
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There have been several reports about the Japanese whitewashing of history. One was about the fact that there are popular Japanese comic books written from the perspective of Japan WINNING WW2 and being the dominant superpower. [ETA] Something like that would be completely unthinkable in Germany. I see part of the problem being that Japan's defeat came at a time when a lot of people considered the war to be over with, or at least they really wanted it to be over with. In Germany, you had the Nuremberg trial. After Japan's defeat, hardly anyone cared about prosecuting the Japanese war criminals. Sure, a few were executed, but they even let the butchers of Unit 731 off the hook so we could get our hands on their research data. |
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In '45 Japan was prostrate. Their transportation system was destroyed. Their daily caloric intake was at starvation levels. They were eating grass and other vegetation.
Ask your friend who fed their asses until they recovered. Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (Frank) covers this aspect in some detail. Buy him a copy as a present for Obon. 
eta: history is best learned outside of the public education system, regardless of the country. |
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Quoted: Quoted: They don't they simply ignore it. I guess they think it'll just go away This, or so it seems. The Germans don't like to mention the war much at all, even aside from all the deathcamp stuff. Well - think of it this way: If you're on the winning side, you went through a horrible ordeal, but at least you had the satisfaction of fighting for the winning team on the side of righteousness. If you're a German soldier, you went through the same thing, but you have the shame of knowing that you did it all for a lie. Nobody wants to rehash that. It doesn't mean that the war is forgotten or that it's being glossed over. |
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Quoted: I certainly wouldn't want to try and and tar them with the same brush as I would dedicated and enthusiastic members of the SS and the like, and I do see your point. Well - think of it this way: If you're on the winning side, you went through a horrible ordeal, but at least you had the satisfaction of fighting for the winning team on the side of righteousness. If you're a German soldier, you went through the same thing, but you have the shame of knowing that you did it all for a lie. Nobody wants to rehash that. It doesn't mean that the war is forgotten or that it's being glossed over.  |
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Quoted: Quoted: Well - think of it this way: If you're on the winning side, you went through a horrible ordeal, but at least you had the satisfaction of fighting for the winning team on the side of righteousness. If you're a German soldier, you went through the same thing, but you have the shame of knowing that you did it all for a lie. Nobody wants to rehash that. It doesn't mean that the war is forgotten or that it's being glossed over. I certainly wouldn't want to try and and tar them with the same brush as I would dedicated and enthusiastic members of the SS and the like, and I do see your point. Yeah - I'm just talking about the average Joe here... |
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Quoted: Our history books tend to not focus on our mistakes. Nothing wrong with a little whitewashing. It builds better citizens. I don't think self hating Japanese kids helps Japan, China or any country. Hey for someone who went to the public school system, it was pretty decent considering we spend a lot of time on the Civil War and the motives, lies, heroism, and crimes committed on both sides. The problem is it doesn't build better citizens. It gives them a false sense and allows them to possibly repeat history if we don't learn from it. |
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When I was in college twenty years ago I had several Japanese classmates that I was on good terms with. I tutored several in English for a little spending money. At some point I asked them how much history is taught in their schools and found out that practically nothing is even mentioned about any war involving Japan. If there is a war involved, doesn't matter when, it's not taught. There will just be a mention as to when it happened and that's pretty much it. I suspect it's just an example of the "war is bad" thinking taken to a higher degree. They don't want to glamorize anything, so they put blinders on. That said, they did know about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But it was such a mystery to them why such a thing would have been done. Didn't hate Americans for it, just didn't understand. |
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I've seen German history textbooks that barely mention World War II I was wondering how they were going to explain Auschwitz. They don't they simply ignore it. I guess they think it'll just go away Oh no, I have a friend in Bavaria that's in his mid 20's and he says the holocaust is drilled into their heads from a pretty early age. The gist of the lessons is to put shame and the fact it was every German's fault for it, and their descendents are still guilty. Most Germans won't talk about it because it's shameful. Sort like getting Americans to own up that we had our own concentration camps, or that our government made deals with top Nazi and Japanese war criminals in exchange for service. Lookup Unit 731. |
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What do you make of these harvard guys. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osami_Nagano "Although he was a proponent of the Nanshin-ron, he was against war with the United States; he concluded that if Japan were able to take over British and Dutch colonies in Asia without directly attacking the United States, the isolationist factions with the American government would prevent the United States from declaring war against Japan." That's right we did educate them. Similar to us educating some of the middle east who hate our guts but loved living here when they were here. I've always heard stories of US companies supporting both sides also. |
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The Japanese are still in major denial over what they had done in the war. Can't admit to honorable great grandpappy being a sadistic butcher you know. For Japan this is the absolute truth of it. I think that the Japanese people are aware, if for no other reason than through western pop culture, that Japan's role in WWII was bad, but they don't really know exactly why or how. In the culture of Japan family heritage and honor is very important, as is national heritage and honor, and for them to accept that they were aggressors, brutal, and villainous would be to accept that an entire generation, a generation who is in a small part still alive, and is very much still a part of their living memory was dishonorable. I know how we feel about our "greatest generation", we have given them a form of hero worship, mostly for the deeds of a small number of them. Japan feels the same way, they prefer to believe that it was the fault of the Emperor and a few corrupt generals and admirals that Japan did anything wrong, they choose to believe that the vast majority of the Japanese Army was good, and refused to take part in the atrocities, that they were true Samurai Warrior who acted honorably under all circumstances. |
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Quoted: Quoted: The Japanese are still in major denial over what they had done in the war. Can't admit to honorable great grandpappy being a sadistic butcher you know. For Japan this is the absolute truth of it. I think that the Japanese people are aware, if for no other reason than through western pop culture, that Japan's role in WWII was bad, but they don't really know exactly why or how. In the culture of Japan family heritage and honor is very important, as is national heritage and honor, and for them to accept that they were aggressors, brutal, and villainous would be to accept that an entire generation, a generation who is in a small part still alive, and is very much still a part of their living memory was dishonorable. I know how we feel about our "greatest generation", we have given them a form of hero worship, mostly for the deeds of a small number of them. Japan feels the same way, they prefer to believe that it was the fault of the Emperor and a few corrupt generals and admirals that Japan did anything wrong, they choose to believe that the vast majority of the Japanese Army was good, and refused to take part in the atrocities, that they were true Samurai Warrior who acted honorably under all circumstances. Middle age and Gen X (Ouch, I guess we are middle age now) Japan knows about it still because they were related to it and knew "grandpa". Anything younger than that got the history school version. It's hard to blame kids raised entirely in the dark when they don't know the difference between the shiny sun and a flame thrower. I'm not excusing it, but there is no easy answer around it. The folks speaking their version of the truth won the war and dropped a few nukes. I wouldn't trust their version without further proof either. |
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Quoted: Quoted: I've seen German history textbooks that barely mention World War II I was wondering how they were going to explain Auschwitz. They don't they simply ignore it. I guess they think it'll just go away Oh no, I have a friend in Bavaria that's in his mid 20's and he says the holocaust is drilled into their heads from a pretty early age. The gist of the lessons is to put shame and the fact it was every German's fault for it, and their descendents are still guilty. Most Germans won't talk about it because it's shameful. Sort like getting Americans to own up that we had our own concentration camps, or that our government made deals with top Nazi and Japanese war criminals in exchange for service. Lookup Unit 731. You couldn't turn on German TV on the weekend without at least one documentation detailing the atrocities the Nazis comitted. The German and Austrian left uses then as a convinient excuse for their so called moral superiority over our right wing parties. Basically childeren get indoctrinated into Anti-Fascism. The whole court system is messed up too: Some f..ing animal rapes an 11 year old girl: 3 years on probation.. Some Neonazi asshole will get several years of actual prison for the crime of painting swasticas or saying 88
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There is a lot of revisionist history coming into play, even in American schools. I have several young cousins, who visit often, and they seem to have zero knowledge of most of the things that took place in this country from the late 20's to the late 60's. It seems the history they have been taught largely glosses over this time frame. |
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Pat Buchannan has written a few books with good info on the Japanese theater, as have some others. The Japanese were a deceived and brainwashed society, and the "religion" of Shintoism was unbelievable.
From what I understand, before the U.S could even begin changing what had been done to the people by the government the emperor had to publicly acknowledge that he was not a god. Sounds like your friend can FOAD, the Japanese were a sick twisted people, and I dont believe for one second that dropping the two bombs was a mistake. I was not alive at the time, but if what I have read and understood about the situation and the Japanese is true. . . . I would have done it myself. |
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The Japanese are still in major denial over what they had done in the war. Can't admit to honorable great grandpappy being a sadistic butcher you know. Yep, and if you were taught since you were 5 that the US was a great liberator of people, went to help X, Y and Z country, etc, etc, then one day somebody told you different, wouldn't you have a hard time believing it? I would. Like he said above, the Japs have a hard time admitting what they did. |
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So recently I got to work with this guy who grew up in Japan. He's in his 30's similar to me. We were at the gunshow looking at some WWII items. We ran into this old war horse that was selling some of his stuff he collected while island hopping. Guy was in his 80's with some of his (VFW buddies). We got to talking and I found out that my grandfather and his were both in WWII in the Pacific around the sametime. Only difference was his grandfather and mine were on opposite sides of the battlefield. So the guys were telling him about the conditions they were fighting in and some of the atrocities they discovered. My friend who has a grad degree in electrical engineering claims it wasn't as bad as they were describing it. That's when I gave him the look. They were polite with him but told him either he slept in history class or just misinformed. I chimed in and said the letters my grandmother kept from my grandfather described most of what these guys said. My grandfather was a translator and liaison between the US Army and the Chinese Army who later fled to Taiwan.
I said heck, even the freaking history channel has retold most of these stories. He claimed that they never taught this type of stuff in his schools in Japan. He explained that in school they taught that the Chinese invited the Japanese Imperial Army to liberate them from their Monarch because they were corrupt. As for Pearl Harbor, it was because it was a defensive move to prevent the USN from attacking Japan which explains why there was no follow up invasion of the mainland. I was giving this guy the big WTF. My grandmother would have smacked this guy upside the head if she ever heard that. The guys behind the table were getting a little heated at that comment so I thanked them for their service and their time and took my friend out before they jumped the table and kicked his @ss. So was this guy really that smart to be stupid or did the Japanese Education System whitewash the entire incident? eta: I'm not sure this guy is coming over for dinner anymore, my wife show him her grandfather's flag and purple heart that her grandmother gave us because he never made it back. He managed to mutter sorry for your lost but fighting in a war that ended with a nuke being dropped over innocent people was a war crime commited by the President Truman. My Dad fought in the Pacific in WWII. 85 YO and still active. Send your friend over and I'm pretty sure Pops will reeducate him. 
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We don't however, spend much time on the American Revolutionary War. Bugger all, in fact. [img]http://www.ar15.com/images/smilies/smiley_abused.gif Well, that does make sense. While a major event for us it wasn't really a major event for you. Especially considering a single sugar producing Caribbean island could be worth more than the entire 13 colonies. |
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I have heard stories of a full-on government military movement of a large indigenous population in a country, relocating them from their home land and moving them as much as a thousand miles away in a end-run to take their land. These men, women, and children were marched at gun-point and many perished along the way.
We now know it as the "Trail of Tears" Our country has done horrible things and white-washed it as well. |
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I've seen German history textbooks that barely mention World War II I was wondering how they were going to explain Auschwitz. They don't they simply ignore it. I guess they think it'll just go away Oh no, I have a friend in Bavaria that's in his mid 20's and he says the holocaust is drilled into their heads from a pretty early age. The gist of the lessons is to put shame and the fact it was every German's fault for it, and their descendents are still guilty. Most Germans won't talk about it because it's shameful. Sort like getting Americans to own up that we had our own concentration camps, or that our government made deals with top Nazi and Japanese war criminals in exchange for service. Lookup Unit 731. I don't know where you live, but we didn't have concentration camps. Nobody was shot or raped by guard dogs at Manzanar. No ovens. No work gangs. No burial trenches. Also those Axis scientists you mention weren't treated as pals and invited over for sunday supper. They were damn lucky they weren't back home starving in the ruins and knew it. Our friends they were not. |
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Quoted: Contest to Kill 100 people with a sword The contest to kill 100 people using a sword (百人斬り競争 hyakunin-giri kyōsō?) is a wartime account of a "contest" between two Japanese Army officers during the Japanese invasion of China over which of them would first kill 100 people with his sword. Two officers were later executed on war crimes charges for their involvement.[1] Since that time, the historicity of the event has been hotly contested, often by Japanese nationalist or revisionist historians seeking to invalidate the historiography of the Nanjing Massacre.[2] Third place prize going to British Commando Lt. Col. 'Mad Jack' Churchill  |
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I have heard stories of a full-on government military movement of a large indigenous population in a country, relocating them from their home land and moving them as much as a thousand miles away in a end-run to take their land. These men, women, and children were marched at gun-point and many perished along the way. We now know it as the "Trail of Tears" Our country has done horrible things and white-washed it as well. Wrong. I was taught about it in school, back in the 1970s. But were you taugh anything about the torture/slaughter of white settlers, as well as Indians from other tribes, by the many of the Indian tribes? Not all the happy, peaceful, at one with The Great Spirit, and all is cool stoic folks many think. Hell, some of their practices would shock many horror movie fans. |
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A highschool friend joined the Marines and was stationed at MCAS Iwakune. He said most of the Japanese didn't really know what happened in the war. They didn't really know why we dropped the bombs on 'em. At the museum in Hiroshima, they glossed over a lot of the history.
It's a big stain on their nation and their pride, so I don't blame them much for not wanting to go into a lot of detail. |