Why Were The Japanese So Cruel To Their Prisoners In World War Two?

[Songbirdy]

I know that in a war situation no side is blameless. But how the Japanese, who seem such a calm, respectful people, were capable of such appalling actions seems incomprehensible.

[tonyav]

Ah I see, thanks mikey.

[jourdain2]

Others have answered this question in a more than adequate way. I remember the 'game show' to which andy-hughes refers. I watched it once and could not comprehend how the torture they inflicted could be seen as in any way amusing. I had the same reaction in Germany, mid-1960s, when on a school exchange. I looked at a comic which had reduced the younger bothers of my 'exchange' to helpless laughter - the story was horribly cruel.

So all I will add is that when I lived in France I knew, fairly well, a chap who had been serving in Singapore when it fell. His descriptions of the fear of the Japanese and of some of the things which happened were horrific. If all he had had to hand was a golf club if he saw a Japanese - he would have wielded it with lethal intent. Went to his 90th birthday party, don't know if he's still with us, email didn't answer.

[douglas9401]

The late husband of a relative had to sleep in a separate room from her as his nightly, vivid and violent dreams of his time in the camps made it too dangerous for her to be beside him.

Golf clubs schmolfclubs.

[Peter Pedant]

London and Covernty werent fire bombed
whether or not they tried

the allies after Hamburg spent lots on how to start a fire storm and couldnt really ( at will)
they concluded that it depended on incendiaries and explosive but the city lay out and material used were also determinants that could not be controlled.

Tokyo on 9 Mar 1945 got 1-2 kilotons
and this I thought exceeded all the bombs dropped on London during the blitz.
20 sq mi razed and up to 100 000 dead

[tonyav]

or the Russian for their barbarism when they took Berlin.


He seems to have forgotten ( bainbrig )about the German barbarism has they marched through Russia as well for some reason.

[tonyav]

Strange that, pp. I thought incendiary bombs were designed and built to cause fire and destruction.

[Peter Pedant]

yes tony
technical terms which may not have their normal meaning

Hamburg the nature of the fires sucked oxygen out of the area and the population in cellars suffocated, and winds reached 60 mph. wooden structures burst into flames ( heat radiation I would have thought ) -
which as you can imagine wasnt caused by one fire bomb

not every incendiary causes a firestorm altho erm it may cause a fire.....

[tonyav]

Ah well a blitz for a blitz imo, pp.

[bainbrig]

No, tony, I haven’t forgotten anything.

But, to repeat, I think we should be more interested in the prevention of this country drifting to the far right than in compiling league tables of barbarism from past conflicts.

[bainbrig]

Andy. You wrote “I think there is a genetic propensity towards what we regard as 'cruelty is the Japanese psyche.”

What’s happened to you?

Your answers have always been moderate, reasonable, thoughtful, and yet here you are apparently plugging a racist line.

What next? War-mongering Germans? Simple Irish?

Utter rubbish, Andy, and shame on you.

[andy-hughes]

bainbrig - // Andy. You wrote “I think there is a genetic propensity towards what we regard as 'cruelty is the Japanese psyche.”

What’s happened to you?

Your answers have always been moderate, reasonable, thoughtful, and yet here you are apparently plugging a racist line.

What next? War-mongering Germans? Simple Irish?

Utter rubbish, Andy, and shame on you. //

I am sorry to read that my post upsets you so much.

I am certainly no racist, and I do not think that attributing character traits to nationalities qualifies me as one.

I have given examples to underpin my view, and I stand by it, and I do not feel any shame for it.

If you think I should, then we must agree to differ.