British Tabloid Attacks Japanese WWII Navy Atrocities

[Mulboyne]

Daily Mail: Alive and safe, the brutal Japanese soldiers who butchered 20,000 Allied seamen in cold blood
The perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities of the Second World War remain alive and unpunished in Japan, according to a damning new book. Painstaking research by British historian Mark Felton reveals that the wartime behaviour of the Japanese Navy was far worse than their counterparts in Hitler's Kriegsmarine. According to Felton, officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered the deliberately sadistic murders of more than 20,000 Allied seamen and countless civilians in cold-blooded defiance of the Geneva Convention. Felton has compiled a chilling list of atrocities. He said: "The Japanese Navy sank Allied merchant and Red Cross vessels, then murdered survivors floating in the sea or in lifeboats. "Allied air crew were rescued from the ocean and then tortured to death on the decks of ships. "Naval landing parties rounded up civilians then raped and massacred them. Some were taken out to sea and fed to sharks. Others were killed by sledge-hammer, bayonet, beheading, hanging, drowning, burying alive, burning or crucifixion. "I also unearthed details of medical experiments by naval doctors, with prisoners being dissected while still alive"...more...

[DrP]

[Oradea]

Blah blah blah, war is brutal, get over it.

Why does nobody write a book about the attrocities commited by the allied soldiers? Or were they innocent of Brutal behaviour.

[Choeki]

They should be careful who they point the finger at. I'm sure someone could cook up an excuse of some kind to cover up all kinds of atrocities by one side or the other:

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/thi...icle167339.ece

n some of the final hostilities of the Second World War, almost 10,000 survivors of German concentration camps were killed by the Royal Air Force, whose pilots believed they were attacking senior Nazi officers.

In some of the final hostilities of the Second World War, almost 10,000 survivors of German concentration camps were killed by the Royal Air Force, whose pilots believed they were attacking senior Nazi officers.

A Typhoon squadron that attacked four ships in the Bay of Lübeck - strafing survivors struggling in the water - had been told the ships contained escaping SS troops. After a number of incidents in which captured Typhoon pilots had been executed by the Nazi élite corps, the pilots were in no mood to show them any mercy.

But in one of the most cruel episodes of the war, the ships contained up to 10,000 survivors, predominantly Jewish, of the concentration camps, and it was their bodies that would wash ashore on Germany's north-eastern coastline. The country's surrender was only four days away.

Details of the little-known event have been uncovered by documentary makers, whose television programme will be shown later today. They found that many of the RAF pilots involved were unable to put the events behind them, although the deaths were soon forgotten in the ensuing victory celebrations of VE Day.

The abandoning of Battleship Bismark survivors in the Atlantic by the Royal Navy using a false U-Boat sighting as an excuse is another example ofthis sort of controversy.

[L S]

There are always attrocities in war time, no doubt. The question is whether it is military doctrine/accepted behavior or isolated command failures. From my readings on WW2, Japanese attrocities seems to derive from the former. That is how it is different and worth pointing out historically.

[kurohinge1]

Originally Posted by L S

There are always attrocities in war time, no doubt. The question is whether it is military doctrine/accepted behavior or isolated command failures. From my readings on WW2, Japanese attrocities seems to derive from the former. That is how it is different and worth pointing out historically.

Well put & I agree.

Originally Posted by Choeki

The abandoning of Battleship Bismark survivors in the Atlantic by the Royal Navy using a false U-Boat sighting as an excuse is another example ofthis sort of controversy.

It's reported that 2 allied ships picked up about 110 before the U-boat sighting. Where is it established that the U-boat sighting was false or that the British Captain knew that?

Also, do you realise that the Bismark was scuttled by her own crew?

However, even if Choeki's claim was true, L S's comment would apply.

See also: War Crimes Committed by the Imperial Japanese Navy

. . . The order to murder survivors of merchant ships extended beyond the submarine service to Japanese surface warships. Following a sortie by the heavy cruisers Aoba, Chikuma and Tone into the Indian Ocean in February 1944 for the purpose of disrupting Allied merchant shipping, seventy-two merchant seamen were taken aboard Tone from MV Behar and murdered by command of Vice Admiral Sakonju. Sakonju was executed as a war criminal in 1947 for this atrocity. Vice-Admiral Sakonju pleaded in vain that the order to murder survivors of merchant ships had come from the highest level of the Imperial Japanese Navy . . . more

So, IF the British command had issued orders to kill survivors and IF the 110 Kriegsmarine survivors that were picked up had in fact been murdered afterwards (neither of which was the case), then Choeki's claim might be comparable but, as it stands, it is not even close.

[Greji]

Originally Posted by Oradea

Why does nobody write a book about the attrocities commited by the allied soldiers?

'Cause they won...

[Ganma]

'Japanese WWII Navy Atrocities'

A favorite Eikaiwa topic.