The Diary of a Japanese POW in Russia

[Charles]

[SIZE="3"]The Notes of Japanese soldier in USSR
Kiuchi Nobuo, retired Air Corps[/SIZE]



Diary entries from a Japanese POW in Russia, illustrated with watercolor paintings.

Via the ever-informative Metafilter.

[Greji]

[SIZE="3"]The Notes of Japanese soldier in USSR
Kiuchi Nobuo, retired Air Corps[/SIZE]

Chas, another great find! Not to shabby for a Hawkeye!

[Buraku]

Funny cartoon

but my philosophy on Japanese POWs is Boo fucking Hoo

I know Soviet re-education camps were brutal but I've still got sweet fuck all sympathy for the Japanese who went there

because compared to the depraved shit the Japanese Imperial army did to the Koreans, British, Americans, Chinese....the Soviet camps were a holiday picnic.

[Charles]

Funny cartoon

but my philosophy on Japanese POWs is Boo fucking Hoo

I know Soviet re-education camps were brutal but I've still got sweet fuck all sympathy for the Japanese who went there

because compared to the depraved shit the Japanese Imperial army did to the Koreans, British, Americans, Chinese....the Soviet camps were a holiday picnic.

The diary isn't a sob story, or a plea for sympathy. Why don't you read it before making an ASSumption about what it contains? You might be surprised.

[hundefar]

Funny cartoon

but my philosophy on Japanese POWs is Boo fucking Hoo

I know Soviet re-education camps were brutal but I've still got sweet fuck all sympathy for the Japanese who went there

because compared to the depraved shit the Japanese Imperial army did to the Koreans, British, Americans, Chinese....the Soviet camps were a holiday picnic.

Wouldn't it just be easier to say that you have no sympathy for soldiers at all? I mean, since all armies commit atrocities in war.

[Bucky]

My wife's uncle was a POW in Russia and perished there. His remains were finally returned to Japan in the mid '90's.

[Buraku]

Wouldn't it just be easier to say that you have no sympathy for soldiers at all? I mean, since all armies commit atrocities in war.

My outlook on armies of the world bascially boils down to the mindset of the people, volunteers in the country at the time of war. The US is basically a good guy, but often acts like a redneck schoolboy who hasn't a fucking clue and ever since WW2 the US thinks its destiny has been to police the world. Of course there are few rotten apples in the US army, US marine corps etc and when they screw up they embarrass the country but the biggest problem is failed guidance from the people on top. The American soldier is most often the good guy, a misguided patriot who will put his life on the line to fight in a foreign country he can't even locate on a fucking map.

The Japanese army on the other hand was filled with rotten apples during world war 2, their mindset was depraved and when I read about karma payback they got in some Soviet camp I've no sympathy. Basically all the current hatred from some old Taiwanese or Korean babas came because the Japanese army raped, murdered and looted around Asia while it claimed to be modernizing and liberating the place. On the other hand the Japanese Navy conducted themselves with a much better level of dignity, although they were still responsible for some atrocities overall I think they tried to fight a clean war and the Airforce was somewhere in between the two.

I might have jumped to conclusions about the cartoon

but my opinion on the Japanese Army still stands

[Charles]

I might have jumped to conclusions about the cartoon

but my opinion on the Japanese Army still stands

based on your extensive personal experiences during WWII, right?

[hundefar]

My outlook on armies of the world bascially boils down to the mindset of the people, volunteers in the country at the time of war. The US is basically a good guy, but often acts like a redneck schoolboy who hasn't a fucking clue and ever since WW2 the US thinks its destiny has been to police the world. Of course there are few rotten apples in the US army, US marine corps etc and when they screw up they embarrass the country but the biggest problem is failed guidance from the people on top. The American soldier is most often the good guy, a misguided patriot who will put his life on the line to fight in a foreign country he can't even locate on a fucking map.

The Japanese army on the other hand was filled with rotten apples during world war 2, their mindset was depraved and when I read about karma payback they got in some Soviet camp I've no sympathy. Basically all the current hatred from some old Taiwanese or Korean babas came because the Japanese army raped, murdered and looted around Asia while it claimed to be modernizing and liberating the place. On the other hand the Japanese Navy conducted themselves with a much better level of dignity, although they were still responsible for some atrocities overall I think they tried to fight a clean war and the Airforce was somewhere in between the two.

So stuff like firebombing and nuking civilians is just great and a clean war, while what the Japanese did was just wrong. Sorry, its is hard for me to follow that logic. I think I would have to say that both things were wrong.

[Greji]

The American soldier is most often the good guy, a misguided patriot who will put his life on the line to fight in a foreign country he can't even locate on a fucking map.

Buraku, I did 23 years as as one of your "misguided patriots", not able to read a map. There are a few more vets and at least two active duty people on the board here also, so I too, would like to know what you base your extensive knowledge of us on?

If it weren't for the fact that you were looking after the dog, I would be seriously tempted to tell you to go take a flying fuck and a rolling donut!

[Greji]

So stuff like firebombing and nuking civilians is just great and a clean war

Well.... Nobody's perfect! In an operation this big, youse gotta expect a few losses....

[Buraku]

So stuff like firebombing and nuking civilians is just great and a clean war, while what the Japanese did was just wrong. Sorry, its is hard for me to follow that logic. I think I would have to say that both things were wrong.

Hiroshima was a dirty business, thousands of innocents were killed but it had to be done, and it saved lives not just American but Japanese lives too. The thing about the dirty part of the war was America was not the first to start it, Japan was the first to start hitting below the belt with its use of chemical weapons on civilians, disregard of the geneva convention etc Hitler and Japan started it, America finished it
(with a little help from friends)

Buraku, I did 23 years as as one of your "misguided patriots", not able to read a map. There are a few more vets and at least two active duty people on the board here also, so I too, would like to know what you base your extensive knowledge of us on?

If it weren't for the fact that you were looking after the dog, I would be seriously tempted to tell you to go take a flying fuck and a rolling donut!

Tell me how many Navy dudes or Army dudes knew shit about Kabul or Asscrackistan before 911 ? How many of them even heard of the mujaheddin or knew the Carter and Reagan gov were backing a bunch of radical Islamic thugs so they could blow up the commies. I respect what you've done, I respect your long years of service but my opinion ain't gonna change. I admire anyone who put on a uniform but after all these years of America's best young and their great misguided patriotism tell me why the US is now so hated around the world...and don't give me that 'they hate our freedom' I just don't buy those bullshit slogans anymore.
The US troops have put themselves at risk to protect America's liberty, they believed in their country, the young men helping protect the country dodging IEDS these guys are heroes were the star and stripes. Of course everone does service for different reasons. But the country they believed in ain't what it used to be. What would the founding father say to a nation where Rumsfeld was selling Nuke reactors to North Korea in 1999, what would Washington and Lincoln say to a U.S.-backed Russian institute which is helping Iran Build Reactor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/washington/07nuke.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=world&adxnnlx=1202378474-4DqAOY714UjaEor1fQO0Tg
back in the days of old these corrupt goons would have been charged with treason or hung

[halfnip]

Tell me how many Navy dudes or Army dudes knew shit about Kabul or Asscrackistan before 911 ? How many of them even heard of the mujaheddin or knew the Carter and Reagan gov were backing a bunch of radical Islamic thugs so they could blow up the commies. I respect what you've done, I respect your long years of service but my opinion ain't gonna change. I admire anyone who put on a uniform but after all these years of America's best young and their great misguided patriotism tell me why the US is now so hated around the world...and don't give me that 'they hate our freedom' I just don't buy those bullshit slogans anymore.
The US troops have put themselves at risk to protect America's liberty, they believed in their country, the young men helping protect the country dodging IEDS these guys are heroes were the star and stripes. Of course everone does service for different reasons. But the country they believed in ain't what it used to be. What would the founding father say to a nation where Rumsfeld was selling Nuke reactors to North Korea in 1999, what would Washington and Lincoln say to a U.S.-backed Russian institute which is helping Iran Build Reactor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/washington/07nuke.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=world&adxnnlx=1202378474-4DqAOY714UjaEor1fQO0Tg

I think you can say that for a good share of Americans, better yet the world in regards to who knew what was going on before 911. Adults, students, etc. This does not only apply to the military.. I think this can go both ways, but when you're faced with a situation where it's *VERY* difficult to get people enlisted these days, you're bound to see a drop in overall "intellect" or whatever you might label it. I mean face it, do you really think people are dying to join the military these days? Uh.. I think not. You've got kids joining the military because they think it's a free ride or have nowhere else to go. Not all, I'm saying you've got those in there along with the people who truly believe they are helping their country and you've got the smartsies straight out of the academy that will most likely be the ones leading the charge in the future..

My pop was in the military, but I am by no means pro-war or pro-military, but I do not believe for a second that they should be required to know every little freakin detail about what goes on politic wise in the good ole' U S of A.

Just my Y.02.

[blackcat]

"but my philosophy on Japanese POWs is Boo fucking Hoo"

LOL

Yeah I gotta agree, I do feel sorry for people mistreated.... anyone, the Japanese only feel sorry for themselves tho....so yeah Fuck em!

[hundefar]

Hiroshima was a dirty business, thousands of innocents were killed but it had to be done, and it saved lives not just American but Japanese lives too. The thing about the dirty part of the war was America was not the first to start it, Japan was the first to start hitting below the belt with its use of chemical weapons on civilians, disregard of the geneva convention etc Hitler and Japan started it, America finished it
(with a little help from friends)

It had to be done? It saved lives? Oh really? I beg to differ and so do many others. However I am sure you are familiar with the academic discussion on the matter. If not, I recommend Hasegawas "Racing the Enemy" as one of the latest and best publications in that discussion.

Your "they started it" argument sounds like kindergarden. We are talking massmurder here. I fail to see how a 5 year old child in Tokyo, for instance, can deserve to be firebombed to death because of something some other individuals have done. But hey, thats just me.

We agree that Japanese soldiers commited terrible atrocities, but I really hate when people point fingers at others while defending murder on innocent people at the same time. It seems hypocritical to me.

[ttjereth]

It had to be done? It saved lives? Oh really? I beg to differ and so do many others. However I am sure you are familiar with the academic discussion on the matter. If not, I recommend Hasegawas "Racing the Enemy" as one of the latest and best publications in that discussion.

Your "they started it" argument sounds like kindergarden. We are talking massmurder here. I fail to see how a 5 year old child in Tokyo, for instance, can deserve to be firebombed to death because of something some other individuals have done. But hey, thats just me.

We agree that Japanese soldiers commited terrible atrocities, but I really hate when people point fingers at others while defending murder on innocent people at the same time. It seems hypocritical to me.

So by your arguement the nazis were no worse than any other side in the war?

[hundefar]

So by your arguement the nazis were no worse than any other side in the war?

No, and I can't really see how you can get that out of what I wrote. But maybe I wasn't making myself clear.

My point is that just because country X did something bad, it does not follow it is acceptable or good for country Y to do something bad or to slaughter their civilian citizens.

[ttjereth]

No, and I can't really see how you can get that out of what I wrote. But maybe I wasn't making myself clear.

My point is that just because country X did something bad, it does not follow it is acceptable or good for country Y to do something bad or to slaughter their civilian citizens.

I got it, because it sounded like you were saying "everybody did bad things so everybody was just as bad".

I understand what you are saying now and agree, but I still think there are definitely degrees of fault and, elementary school arguement or not, since Japan started the war, they have very little room to complain about what they suffered during it, especially considering the many planned, organized and sanctioned atrocities they commited during a war they themselves started.

If they hadn't started the war, their civilians wouldn't have been firebombed or nuked. Was it bad that civilians suffered for their leaders bad decisions, certainly, but ultimately that blame lies with those leaders, not with the military which was only in the war because they were attacked.

Bring it down to a smaller scale, if you pick a fight with someone by walking up and punching them in the face, do you think you have a right to complain about how badly they kick your ass afterwards?

[amdg]

Bring it down to a smaller scale, if you pick a fight with someone by walking up and punching them in the face, do you think you have a right to complain about how badly they kick your ass afterwards?

In Japan, Yes you do.

If the puncher is Japanese and the ass kicker is a foreigner. I think we all know this to be true.

[hundefar]

I got it, because it sounded like you were saying "everybody did bad things so everybody was just as bad".

I understand what you are saying now and agree, but I still think there are definitely degrees of fault and, elementary school arguement or not, since Japan started the war, they have very little room to complain about what they suffered during it, especially considering the many planned, organized and sanctioned atrocities they commited during a war they themselves started.

If they hadn't started the war, their civilians wouldn't have been firebombed or nuked. Was it bad that civilians suffered for their leaders bad decisions, certainly, but ultimately that blame lies with those leaders, not with the military which was only in the war because they were attacked.

Bring it down to a smaller scale, if you pick a fight with someone by walking up and punching them in the face, do you think you have a right to complain about how badly they kick your ass afterwards?

In my opinion the blame for the bad decisions made before and during the war lies with the leades as you say, but I would have to say that it also lies with the American leaders. It was not a Japanese decision to firebomb Tokyo for example. No matter what other atrocities were carried out by Japanese, and we know there plenty to choose from, it does not exempt the Americans from guilt. I guess I just like things to be a little more complex than the black and white "they were the bad guys, and we were the good guys" that one so often hear.

The interesting thing in that connection is that Americans originally started reacting against Japan, because of what they were doing in China. The Americans were shocked that Japan were using military weapons against civilians. In the end this reaction led to USA killing more civilians in air raids than has ever been done. Kind of ironic....Ronald H. Spector has a good account of this in that book, "Empire against the Sun" (I think its called).

Your last remark doesn't really work as a metaphor for the situation. Maybe it is because I see it on a more individual level. I don't really think you can blame every single American, Japanese or German or whatever for every decision made by their government. For instance I cannot see the legitimacy of killing children in Tokyo no matter what their goverment did. I do not believe in collective guilt.

[ttjereth]

In my opinion the blame for the bad decisions made before and during the war lies with the leades as you say, but I would have to say that it also lies with the American leaders. It was not a Japanese decision to firebomb Tokyo for example. No matter what other atrocities were carried out by Japanese, and we know there plenty to choose from, it does not exempt the Americans from guilt. I guess I just like things to be a little more complex than the black and white "they were the bad guys, and we were the good guys" that one so often hear.

The interesting thing in that connection is that Americans originally started reacting against Japan, because of what they were doing in China. The Americans were shocked that Japan were using military weapons against civilians. In the end this reaction led to USA killing more civilians in air raids than has ever been done. Kind of ironic....Ronald H. Spector has a good account of this in that book, "Empire against the Sun" (I think its called).

Your last remark doesn't really work as a metaphor for the situation. Maybe it is because I see it on a more individual level. I don't really think you can blame every single American, Japanese or German or whatever for every decision made by their government. For instance I cannot see the legitimacy of killing children in Tokyo no matter what their goverment did. I do not believe in collective guilt.

I think philosophically we are fairly close in opinions, however even if you don't believe in collective guilt, doing what is necessary to win a war often doesn't necessarily allow you to be so careful in picking and choosing targets, and the enemy is certainly not going to let you fly straight at the military targets if you promise to leave the civilians alone, so easier to hit targets get picked in order to better conserve the resources (lives and material) of the attacker.

It's not pretty, and it's not a good thing, but the fact remains had Japan (government yes) not started the war, it wouldn't have happened. Once you are attacked, you do what you can to protect yourself and your own and there is very little time to worry about the other side. It's fine and good for us now to say "well they should have taken a different approach or done things differently" but hindsight is always 20/20 and you aren't necessarily going to try and fight the cleanest fight possible when you are attacked.

From wikipedia:

Damage to Tokyo's heavy industry was slight until firebombing destroyed much of the light industry that was used as an integral source for small machine parts and time-intensive processes. Firebombing also killed and made homeless many workers who had been taking part in war industry. Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods]Hirohito[/URL]'s viewing of the destroyed areas of Tokyo in March, 1945, is said to have been the beginning of his personal involvement in the peace process, culminating in Japan's surrender five months later.[3]
After the war, Tokyo would struggle to rebuild, seeing slow improvement until American involvement in the Korean War brought an influx of foreign investment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_in_World_War_II

[hundefar]

Well, one can say that being a decent human being can be impractical. The problem about claims about how an atrocity was "necessary" or "right" is that any part in a conflict can claim that. The worst atrocities in modern history was commited exactly because some people viewed them as necessary.

One could also say that if America hadn't started pressuring Japan and supported the Chinese, then Pearl Habor wouldn't have happened or one could point to other events or decisions. So in that way many people were involved in the process and the decisions that lead to different atrocities during the war. I don't really think that it relieves any one guilty of commiting these acts of responsibility. In my mind both the Japanese and the American leadership are to blame.


Regarding the claim put forth in Wikipedia article, the source cited for the claim is from an obscure book by a former gunner from the American Air Force, and the book is mainly about the Air Force missions. The author does not seem to have any particular reason to be able to set such a claim forth. Hell, he doesn't even seem to speak Japanese.

For details on the peace process and the Emperor, I once again recommend Hasegawa's excellent book. I still haven't seen anything better than that one and I have read a lot about this area. Hasegawa's use of both Russian, Japanese and American sources are brilliant, and he did elevate the whole field of research to a new level with that book.

[Charles]

[Blah Pete]

Japan lowered the bar as they were the first country in WWII to bomb civilian areas of cities (Shanghai, Nanking, Singapore, etc.). By taking this step they gave up any morally superiority of complaining abouth civilian targets in Japan.
War is good when you are winning but kind of sucks when you are losing.
Actually, it always sucks because the losers are always women, children, and old people.

[hundefar]

[Mike Oxlong]

[Adhesive]

[Yokohammer]

Something I posted elsewhere, but is relevant to this discussion so I'll re-post it here:

Editing History (Again)

A lot happened in August 1945. The atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan surrendered on August 15. That last date is known as V-J day (Victory over Japan day) in the west, and simply as "memorial day for the end of the war" in Japan.

As usual there has been plenty of war-related TV programming in Japan over the past couple of weeks, and since I sometimes sit in front of the TV, I watched some of it. What struck me this year, I think more than in the past, was that almost all the programming focused on the suffering of the A-bomb victims and war displaced. Lots of remembering, lots of teary eyes ... but I don't remember there being any coverage of how or why the war started. It was a horrific ending to a horrific war, to be sure, and a great deal of suffering was involved, but this year's war-remembrance carnival appeared to me to be very one-sided and somewhat revisionist. Revisionist by omission. There was much talk about keeping the memories alive so future generations would know what happened, but those memories, as presented by the Japanese media, seemed to be highly edited. All victim and no aggression or responsibility.

How disappointing.