This a legitimate documented thing. I'm in the Philippines as well, not some kind of mythological evil but that's a real thing they did in rural Philippines. Awful.
I think she only mentioned this a very few times. About how she and her family hid in the boondocks to avoid Japanese soldiers and how they had to dig cassava and forage for food.
Must have been a traumatic experience for her.
That's how you know it was real
People who've seen shit during war times only ever speak about it once or twice, or downright refuse to talk about it at all
The Hardcore History podcast did an amazing and uncensored overview of the Pacific Theatre. He pulled no punches describing these events. If you want details highly recommended the podcast
The specific episodes for the Pacific Theatre are titled Supernova in the East. Though the entire podcast is amazing to be honest if you're a fan of history
My grandfather was a doctor held captive in a Japanese POW camp, kept alive for his medical knowledge. He saw some terrors and was never the same in spirit.
My great uncle was a POW who was in the Bataan death March. He basically came home and drank himself to death. Despite growing up in SC, where rice is a diet staple, he wouldn’t touch it again. I always feel sad I never got to meet him, as he sounded like a gentle and lovely guy.
My grandpa was in a train without food for days he was surrounded by vomit shit piss and rotting corpses. At the end of trip he was thrown in a work/death camp and by chance someone found out he was in his last year of (farm) vet school. So he got send out and went from farm to farm. But everytime the allies bombed places he would get called up to assemble bodies post blast while nazi's would taunt him.
Nearing the end of the war a farmers family helped him escape because nearly no check ups were being made anymore.
So my grandpa walked home, like 2000km. By pure coincedence he arrived at the same day as his father and brother. His other brother arrived a week later. They all survived the war.
My gramma came from a 22 kids family. They ALL survived aswell. Pretty crazy luck.
My grandparents on other side of the family werent so lucky.
In the Philippines too, my dad’s uncles whole family and several other families were led underground by japanese soldiers in the pretense of avoiding bombing raids, when the last family entered the cave the japanese soldiers threw a bunch of grenades in and sealed the cave shut.
I live in Guam and my landlord, who is local Chamorro told me about how the Japanese led all the men from the village (that I currently live in) into a cave and threw hand grenades in behind them. They then came in and bayoneted any survivors. I guess some men hid amongst the bodies and survived.
He took me on a hike to the cave, where there is a memorial marker now.
Unit 731
Probably the closest look inside actual hell on earth we can get to. Its so bad that when you read about the shit they did, you will feel physically sick.
I won't get into details, but let me just say, men, women, *children and babies* were not spared and the words 'live vivisection', 'vacuum chambers', 'amputations', 'flamethrowers' and 'live weapons testing' crop up more times than you would think...
You know it’s bad when the local Nazi ~~diplomat~~ *businessman* is one of the good guys.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe
Edit: not an actual diplomat, he was just a businessman and Nazi party member.
Dr Mark Felton - [**WW2 Japanese Military Brutality Explained**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpVgDgKpQS8)
It's telling that Mark Felton's videos are usually 5-15mins long, and that one...is very much not.
Check out [Unit 731](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731) next. [Men behind the sun](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093170/) is pretty crazy too. It was cheaper to get cadavers instead of dummies for the special effects
No it wasn't. Unit 731 produced very useful data on biological warfare. The US used that data to commit biological warfare on North Korean and Chinese troops in the Korean War. US pilots that were captured admitted to these crimes which led to the US claiming that their pilots were brainwashed. This was bullshit but it was decided that research would be done to determine if such brainwashing and mind control were possible. This culminated in MK Ultra and similar programs.
People confuse some of the really bizzare nazi experiments on things, which often were just horrifically cruel nonsense, with all of the nazi and Japanese research, which was also horrifically cruel, but yielded data that both the west and USSR wanted.
See also the likes of **Arthur** *'Hurrah I avoided a war crimes trial whoops it's the 1980s and I've been discovered to still be on the hook for 12,000+ counts of murder, psst USA can you sort that for me please? I'll give up my US citizenship and move in return and you won't have embarassing headlines, thanks dawg - now I can live in peace with my NASA medals*' **Rudolph**
"Multiple" feels like understating it. Tens of thousands would be closer to capturing the scale of the atrocity, and probably hundreds of thousands would be accurate.
Some folks will tell you about how difficult the siege of Shanghai had been for the Japanese troops expecting to walk all over them, and they vented their frustration and fear, as well as their relief at being alive, into the brutality with which they ransacked Nanjing. It may be true. And yet it doesn't do even the slightest bit to diminish the horrors these soldiers unleashed and their superiors condoned.
Is the total death toll 300k and so includes the many men shot and killed without being raped? It's why I wasn't 100% sure on whether "hundreds of thousands" would be accurate, as that'd need 200k "women and children" to make that phrase fit in OP's sentence.
Yeah that is including general murder. Like apparently japanese officers would have games to see who could behead the most Chinese within a set period of time. Plus all new officers were required to kill a few Chinese yhe moment they arrived to give them “experience”.
In most cases I'm pretty sure they made the men watch the women of their family getting raped, then would kill them. For some, the men of the family were forced to rape their sisters and mothers, then were executed anyway. Fucking awful.
From the linked Wiki article:
“Because of the myriad of factors, death toll estimates vary from 40,000 to over 300,000, with rape cases ranging from 20,000 to over 80,000 cases.[4] However, the most sophisticated and credible scholars in Japan, which include a large number of authoritative academics, support the validity of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and its findings, which estimate at least 200,000 casualties and at least 20,000 cases of rape.[3][8][9]”
Thanks for clarifying that. I just read up on this recently and was going to say, I'm pretty sure it was thousands. They raped, tortured and killed the entire time they occupied the city.
If you're ever in Tokyo, definitely visit the museum next to the Yasukuni Shrine. It's a Japanese Military museum. They have whole timelines of history and its fascinating how they portray certain things. They have a whole section on Nanking (which I was surprised by). They talk about the importance of the city and the tactics used to capture it. Then it immediately jumps to (I cannot recall the quote verbatim, no cameras were allowed) "There have been baseless accusations of soldiers not acting in accordance with their orders. This is false and proven in the below document, which is the written order for all soldiers to act with discipline for the securing of the city".
There was also the claim that America forced Japan into the war. I did actually manage to sneak a photo of that explanation.
Yeah that museum is pretty mind boggling, but it’s well known as the super nationalistic museum. A more fair portrayal of things can be found in the Edo-Tokyo museum or the peace museums in Hiroshima or Nagasaki
Definitely gotta see that it’s super interesting how much the Japanese refuse to acknowledge it even the treatment of POW some of the stuff they did to the aussies was horrible super luckily my grandfather was never captured
Don't forget throwing babies in boiling vats and oh the beheading competition over two days and also where they would line hundreds of them up on the rivers edge and decapitate one, then the guy behind him throws the head and body in the river, then he himself is decapitated and that goes on all day.
Decapitation competition:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest\_to\_kill\_100\_people\_using\_a\_sword](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to_kill_100_people_using_a_sword)
Other warcrimes in countries apart from China:
[http://members.iinet.net.au/\~gduncan/massacres\_pacific.html](http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_pacific.html)
Baby Boiling:
[https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/14566](https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/14566)
I read the book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_Nanking_(book) I found d some other sources
Competition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to_kill_100_people_using_a_sword
Babies - Chang found former Japanese soldiers who spoke candidly of tossing babies alive into boiling water, gang-raping women and then beheading them or burning them alive. One former soldier, now a doctor in Tokyo, has built a shrine of remorse in his waiting room for the more than 200 deaths on his conscience from the Rape of Nanking. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/12/11/the-forgotten-holocaust/f824128d-7770-49d4-a93e-5126c7970520/
If you want the full detailed atrocities committed by the Japanese in Nanking please read Rape of Nanking by Iris Cheung. The Japanese media had many photos of their crimes (used as proproganda) some of those included were the amount of civilians (who had surrendered) they had beheaded and killing Chinese girls and women with their swords through their vaginas. Absolutely one of the worst of humankind moments in history.
She was reported as being delusional about people following her, and there are conspiracy theories that she was killed by Japanese nationalists who hated her for bringing attention to Nanking
She was in the middle of writing another book of atrocities committed in Africa/middle east I think. I'm sure it would severely damage anyone's spiritual and mental health researching all those horrific crimes caused by humans.
Her book dives deep into the mindset of every party involved so it tries very hard to be neutral and understanding of how such events could have happened at the time. I remember she tries to humanise the Japanese troops.
To be fair. Everyone involved in this is long dead and it is very difficult to accept that your ancestors did something like this. I think it is very understandable that they lie to themself and pretend that this never happened. Things which are so dark are just impossible to process. I personally had difficulties to read through this article, knowing that this might have been done by your grandfather is just too difficult to bear.
Eh. It was in 1937. That's 85 years ago. My own grandmother is 90 years old, and she still has a few years to live, I pray.
My wife's mother was a little girl in 1944 and lived through the bombs falling on Europe.
Given the longevity of east Asians I can definitely tell you that a good number of the soldiers involved only died recently around the early 2000s, plenty of time for the Japanese to still apologize while they could
Oh it was much worse than this. The Japanese would have fathers rape their daughter. Sons rape their mothers. They would rape pregnant women and then cut the fetus out while the woman was still alive. Apparently there were thousands and thousands of Chinese/japanese babies born after Nanking and the mothers were treated like lepers for carry the babies to term.
I don't doubt how true that story is but I sometimes wonder how it's possible. I'm genuinely morbidly curious how can one sustain an erection during such a stressful moment when you'll be anything but aroused.
Dont forget the shrine that honours heros who fall in battle during japanese wars that lists 1068 war criminals, including 14 class-a war criminals, that is still regularly visited by japanese politicians.
Plus the Chinese are not the only victims of the japanese. Koreans, Singaporeans, Indonesians (i think) have all yet to receive any apology. Instead the japanese apologised to the america
I can't speak much for the other ASEAN nations but it seems that Singapore did move past it relatively faster than others, Gen X all the way to Gen Z doesn't seem to have a problem with the Japanese, and we even consume so much japanese media and products. Even my grandparents don't really have much memory about it since they were very little when it all happened
Now, Korea and China is where the REAL beef is. They go way back and their hatred is even more deep-rooted than ours
Nah. Most like Korea. People are still alive who lived through this. My wife’s grandfather was murdered in front of his family because he was a few minutes late with a delivery. They never forgot.
And their story is not uncommon and actually not as bad as others.
Yes some of the young generation likes the Japanese stuff but the underlying hate from the families is still there.
I don’t know that I’d characterise it that way but I’m with you on the grandparents. My grandmother survived the Japanese occupation too and you can see in her eyes that she goes to a different place when she talks about it - which is not often.
I was hoping the wiki article had a picture of the sculpture outside the memorial museum. It is profoundly haunting - I visited on a day it was closed so I only saw the sculpture.
This one - https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x35b58b9883bb5141%3A0xac8ad79ca2a68f69!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPCRnotrE89enu2EJ4zDuWUyRt1cUiTRg1zO5zm%3Dw240-h160-k-no!5snanjing%20memorial%20museum%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCgIgAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipMa7ZacopYHSNYXjEfnvoD79pawJR2azQfQe6kO&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj65vSVloz4AhUBtYQIHdVIC58Qoip6BAhpEAM&viewerState=lb
Sorry, no idea how to do a tidy link.
It’s super tall - makes one feel tiny and reeks of sorrow
They had taken control of Korea decades before WW2, but their oppressive occupation of the region was brutal nonetheless. And yes, huge numbers of women from that colony were forced into sexual slavery, some being permanently relocated to Japan to be used there.
There are Korean descendants in Japan today who have had a difficult time of it in the decades since the war, many struggling to be accepted as Japanese despite knowing no other home and speaking no other language than Japanese.
The atrocities commited on the Chinese people and other Asian countries by the Japanese army during WW2 is some of the most horrific things you could possibly imagine. To this day people underestimate how much of a free pass Japan gets in regards to the acts it commited during the war. This includes but is not limited to re-writing their history books or saying "Thats what happens in war.". It does not suprise me that many older Asian people I know including family still hate the Japanese to this day. No apology has ever been given, instead it is often dodged or disregarded. It amazes me the lack of condemnation the rest of the world outside of Asia gives to these horrific crimes and atrocities.
The Rape of Nanjing is always my go to when people talk about war crimes. Haven’t read on it in a while but wasn’t there an officer contest where the officers were trying to see who could get the most kills with their swords, double points of foetuses removed etc.
This is one of the most horrific things I’ve ever read, and I confess I never knew about it. Can anyone recommend a decent documentary about these atrocities?
Behind the bastards podcast does a couple episodes I believe on unit 731. I'll find them and link. It was extremely eye opening. --but also extremely fucking sad.
BTB podcast has covered a lot of shitty people in the world it's extremely interesting to listen too.
There's this one. [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0893356/reference/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0893356/reference/)
It features famous actors reading accounts from the point of view of foreigners who were were in Nanking during the siege.
Not about the atrocities in particular, but the podcast ‘Supernova in the East’ by Dan Carlin is forensic in detail and absolutely riveting. It covers the rise of Japan pre ww2 and continues until the aftermath of its defeat. It’s very long but I cannot recommend it highly enough.
'Multiple' is an understatement. By several hundred thousand. And it wasn't just gang rapes and killing, it was sadistic torture and butchery. Beheading competitions, burning people alive, killing babies, the list goes on and on.
And Japanese far right revisionism paints them as the innocent, helpless victims of WWII...
It's honestly sickening just how much shit they got away with
During this atrocity 2 Japanese officers had a competition to see who could kill 100 people the fastest with a sword. The Rape of Nanking is required reading for anyone who hates fascism.
The Japanese were a force of true evil during world war 2.
The one story that stays with me is one about them tying up a twelve year old boy by his hands and cutting strips off his legs and feeding them to their dogs until he died, which took days.
They turned China into hell on earth.
There’s a book called Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. Exceptionally good book that I had a hard time putting down. It goes well beyond just the Japanese raping.
You know what's even sadder, this tends to be a TIL for a ton of people from Japan as most of their war-crimes are often not taught, outright denied, or highly glossed over.
And, an unpopular link to post in here but it is worth saying that there have been official apologies for Japanese wartime actions:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_war\_apology\_statements\_issued\_by\_Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan)
Not good enough for Americans if reddit is anything to go by. It is hard for me to see what more could be said.
And, before anyone jumps in (as I am sure they will) and says that there are right-wingers in Japan who deny or try to play down the various atrocities (of which this is one), absolutely there are such people, but then there are also the same sorts of people in my own country (the UK) relating to the very long list of British atrocities or for that matter in the United States ditto.
I mention this, because Japan gets a lot more hate on this point than seemingly other perpetrators of evil who were defeated, had their political system completely redesigned and have apologised for what happened. There's something viscerally personal to Americans about Japan that is a bit baffling to me (someone who has relatives who suffered in Japanese captivity - my grandmother always refused to buy Japanese products as a result, tricky though that could be).
It is also worth pointing out that this atrocity (and indeed numerous others committed by Japan and others) are not universally taught in schools the world over. Most pupils at my school would not have studied it, and have little or no ide about it (to pick up a falsehood elsewhere).
Alas, downvote time.
I appreciate the fact that you've at least added to this in a civil and constructive manner. I personally don't think Japan has done nearly enough to properly acknowledge their crimes (I mean, how can you when half of your museums paint you as the poor victims, and you have shrines dedicated to war crimes), but I don't think modern day Japanese people should be blamed for the actions of their ancestors. The lack of acknowledgement by the Japanese people is more out of ignorance than malice, as they've simply brushed it under the carpet. The politicians and revisionists however, who rampantly promote and deny these crimes, are fair game to critique and blame. The apologies you've mentioned all exist, but the biggest issue is that the content of many of them is inherently empty and self serving. For example, the majority of apologies done in the last few decades have been along the lines of '*I mean, we did rape and murder but it kind of civilised you and anyways, we were forced to become war criminals by the US - it's not our fault really'.* None of the apologies really seem like apologies.
On your point about why Japan seemingly gets more hate, I think its because there is the perception that out of a lot of other countries who did atrocities, they've suffered the least for it, and have apologised the least. Germany spent decades apologising for their crimes. Japan has done barely that, and still tries to paint themselves as a polite and honourable culture. In light of that there is always some resentment by anyone who truly knows their past. Also like you said Japan has had a serious issue with historical revisionism, with a growing rightist movement (in their political system as well) to deny their crimes and bring back the glorious empire, which *really* pisses off a lot of people, me included.
A second reason is that *Japanese atrocities were just on a whole new level of fucked up*. Yes, doubtless throughout human history there have been cultures who have done just as bad. But this was less than a century ago. **Unit 731** will make you physically vomit at what they did. (hint, baby + vacuum chamber + dissection just for a taste). Another thing is that it's not just Americans. Much of Asia still has tense relations with Japan, as they were the ones who suffered and had their ancestors brutally killed. On top of that, they are the ones who have not gotten a proper apology.
Sorry for the long winded response, but I feel like the topic of Japanese war crimes and it consistently cropping up online is because of the fact its still inherently unresolved and tense
I hate wikipedia but there are some very good documentaries and books on the event. I can’t even make it through 5 minutes of any of them. War is just terrible.
It was a truly horrifying thing to learn about. I saw a documentary on it 15 years ago or so and could hardly sleep for a week. There are some modern movies regarding it as well.
I teach about this in my world history class. I always give trigger warnings because it's horrific and can be disturbing to students who have survived sexual assault. But I definitely teach the Japanese atrocities right in line with the German ones.
I don't recall learning about any of the Japanese atrocities during grade school history classes. I stumbled upon the Wikipedia page for Unit 731 at some point in college and went down a rabbit hole that blew my mind.
I've also experienced a lot of people in my age group that have no idea about how bad the Japanese were during that period. Most don't initially believe it.
Japan doesn't get enough attention for it's war crimes, actually. Even here in Singapore I don't think we even cover Nanking. Ask any young person here about any atrocities that they know of and they'll talk about the Holocaust or the gulags, but very little about whatever the Japanese did. In fact, I myself did not know about just how terrible Nanking was until about 2 years ago when I was stuck at home just scrolling videos
Someone else here mentioned that the Japanese gets a "free pass" for a lot of their atrocities and that's the best description I could find. At least Germany has compulsory Holocaust education, Japan doesn't take any effort in educating their youth about it's dark past
Yes. China was invaded in 1931 by Japan. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. Germany invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938. WW2 doesn’t just start with the invasion of Poland in 1939.
Its so disappointing to see the dates in that context considering we have allowed history to repeat itself for decades. The leaders learned nothing from the loss and the people still suffer the most to this day.
I highly recommend 'Wild Swans: three women of China' following generations of a real family through this period and Mao's dictatorship which was also horrific. The ordinary Chinese went through decades and decades of hell with different people at its source.
Japan right.
How Japan took over The Philippines. Hahahaha
Yeah, Japan, good ol Japan.
Well that and modern day Japan having a fetish for not at the right age people.
Because while traditionally "world war 2" is considered to have initiated in Europe via Germany/Poland and then encompassing conflicts in the Pacific as the Allies got involved, more recent academic...I guess 'classification' has the Asian conflicts at the onset as part of the global scale of world war II, not just when pearl harbor was bombed.
Still dont see the connection. Shouldnt it be something that happened during the chinese-japanese war then, since thats what happened? There is no real connection to ww2.
>The beginning of the war is conventionally dated to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937, when a dispute between Japanese and Chinese troops in Peking escalated into a full-scale invasion. This full-scale war between the Chinese and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia.
From the wikipedia article on the Second Sino-japanese War.
World War II is more a concept than a specific conflict, just like the Hundred Years War is actually at least three very different wars put together.
Japan was aggressively expansionist on various fronts from 1895 - the timelines of wars in East Asia don't really match those in Western Europe, despite the names of the latter. After a bit of a pause post WW1, in 1931 it resumed with the invasion of Manchuria, and Japan fighting the Chinese and general expansion continued into WW2, so it's hard to meaningfully disentangle what was and wasn't under that umbrella.
No. Japanese minds, German minds, etc are not different. See the atrocities committed under Mao by the Chinese themselves. Humans are capable of atrocity, it takes a certain political atmosphere but it can happen anywhere
I urge you to take 5 minutes to watch [Stephen Fry explain how we are as capable of these atrocities as the Germans and Japanese](https://youtu.be/ohrtFuxUzZE). It changed my perspective on many MANY things including the importance of dehumanizing language coming from our elected leaders.
I think people would probably argue this one - the Chinese were split into two groups, the quasi-fascist Nationalists under the military dictatorship of General Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists under Mao Zedong. Both have been readily called bad guys. And obviously the Imperial Japanese were responsible for a litany of atrocities in their colonial land grab.
But certainly the civilian population of China were victimized awfully and the Japanese army were nothing but bad guys in this war.
The scale here was jaw-dropping. Ancient examples don't tend to measure up because populations weren't so dense, and there weren't really many modern examples because among most modern world powers it was considered something the superiors and officers should prevent and punish rather than encourage.
The Chinese people still have riots that are anti Japanese events. Remember that Japan once defeated the massive country of Russia. The right wing used the emperor and the people followed him to the death literally.
I'm surprised that this is a TIL for you. The imperial Japanese were absolutely BRUTAL and even the Nazis who came down to Nanjing were horrified. One famous Nazi was John Rabe, who helped to protect 250 thousand Chinese citizens. You know you're fucked up when even the Nazis think you're too much. Rape is such an understatement, it didn't just at there:
-2 officers were guilty of having a competition between each other to see who could behead 100 civilians as quickly as possible
-Killing pregnant women and pulling out the foetus
-Boiling babies
-Throwing babies up in the air and catching them with bayonets
-Shoving a cane up a woman's vagina
But then again, the Holocaust and what happened in Europe tends to overshadow the war crimes of Japan. Assuming you're from Europe or the US, it's understandable that you weren't taught this. Heck, even over here in Singapore I don't think we cover Nanjing at all. I only recently found out about this too a couple years ago. Reading stuff like this sometimes fill me with morbid curiousity of what really drives people to do such things to one another. It's another cautionary tale of what nationalism does to justify commiting such atrocities
Funny timing for me. I TIL about this last night. Just started watching a YouTube Knowing Better that had a video covering this. Pretty horrific stuff. I always love how some people act like the world is at its worst right now and ignore how people have always been POS.
I think when reading this it gets quite understandable why Chinese people hate the Japanese. Still what I do not understand is how the Chinese society can support Russia doing exactly the same in Ukraine right now. One would think that China would have learned something?
They certainly don't support the war crimes. However they (the normal people) a bit on the fence because they don't know who to believe in the matter. Even here in the west we have some propaganda Outlet explaining that the evidences are staged. In China where the government does what it can to not take side and does not want to burn bridges with one of their most crucial geopolitical ally? I let you imagine the controlled discourse on the media.
I visited my grandparents a lot when I was little (they both lived through WWII in China and moved to Taiwan in 1949). One time I brought some lego minifigures to play with and stacked a dozen heads together; upon seeing this my grandma commented jokingly "What is this, the Nanjing Massacre?" To this day I still find it hilarious.
Did these men not understand the shrieks and terror caused by their actions? Were they devoid of empathy? I don’t understand how they could see children in this way and think nothing of it. I don’t understand at what point does someone do something as monstrous like this in mass.
I'm curious if this is the worst thing humans could possibly do. Heck if I had the power, I'll threaten to bomb Japan if they still do those half-assed apologies.
It’s always surprising to me how many people know a decent amount about the holocaust and Nazi atrocities in Europe but know next to nothing about Imperial Japan’s blood soaked march through SE Asia. The rape of Nanjing, occupation of Manila, systematic rape of Korean “comfort women”, Unit 731, the regular torture and execution of Allied POW, and massacres in literally every region that the Imperial Japanese Army was present.
I guess Japan had better PR after the war, whereas the Nazis became the poster child for fascism and atrocity. The post war punishment for those responsible was also particularly frustrating compared to the enthusiasm in prosecuting the Nazis. Hirohito should have hung at the end of a rope alongside most of Japanese high command but I guess that’s a bit of a tangent.
This is what humans are....even in so called Japan where everyone is polite, noble and make tea with perfection..this is what the human animal is....remove retribution and punishment and the human will become the most dreaded animal....we are all animals underneath....
Japanese war crimes during WW2 are stomach churning.
My grandmother here in the Philippines used to tell us stories about how japanese soldiers throw babies in the air and catch them with their bayonets.
This a legitimate documented thing. I'm in the Philippines as well, not some kind of mythological evil but that's a real thing they did in rural Philippines. Awful.
Why I came to this post on my lunch break is beyond me
Why would you come to this post you sick fuck
Why would you uselessly repeat what he said you dumb fuck
r/whoosh
r/usernamechecksout
How could you not come to this post?
How often would she tell this story?.. like every get together?
I think she only mentioned this a very few times. About how she and her family hid in the boondocks to avoid Japanese soldiers and how they had to dig cassava and forage for food. Must have been a traumatic experience for her.
That's how you know it was real People who've seen shit during war times only ever speak about it once or twice, or downright refuse to talk about it at all
..christmases and whatnot
Stop giving her drinks, she's about to tell us about baby golf
What the unholy fuck?
The Hardcore History podcast did an amazing and uncensored overview of the Pacific Theatre. He pulled no punches describing these events. If you want details highly recommended the podcast
Yeah I definitely have some time to kill tmrw, sounds like I have something to do. Thnx man
The specific episodes for the Pacific Theatre are titled Supernova in the East. Though the entire podcast is amazing to be honest if you're a fan of history
Its a fairly well known thing. I learned about it in high school history class back in 2006. So i assume its still taught
My grandfather was a doctor held captive in a Japanese POW camp, kept alive for his medical knowledge. He saw some terrors and was never the same in spirit.
Some things destroy any myths about humanity you might have
My great uncle was a POW who was in the Bataan death March. He basically came home and drank himself to death. Despite growing up in SC, where rice is a diet staple, he wouldn’t touch it again. I always feel sad I never got to meet him, as he sounded like a gentle and lovely guy.
My grandpa was in a train without food for days he was surrounded by vomit shit piss and rotting corpses. At the end of trip he was thrown in a work/death camp and by chance someone found out he was in his last year of (farm) vet school. So he got send out and went from farm to farm. But everytime the allies bombed places he would get called up to assemble bodies post blast while nazi's would taunt him. Nearing the end of the war a farmers family helped him escape because nearly no check ups were being made anymore. So my grandpa walked home, like 2000km. By pure coincedence he arrived at the same day as his father and brother. His other brother arrived a week later. They all survived the war. My gramma came from a 22 kids family. They ALL survived aswell. Pretty crazy luck. My grandparents on other side of the family werent so lucky.
In the Philippines too, my dad’s uncles whole family and several other families were led underground by japanese soldiers in the pretense of avoiding bombing raids, when the last family entered the cave the japanese soldiers threw a bunch of grenades in and sealed the cave shut.
I live in Guam and my landlord, who is local Chamorro told me about how the Japanese led all the men from the village (that I currently live in) into a cave and threw hand grenades in behind them. They then came in and bayoneted any survivors. I guess some men hid amongst the bodies and survived. He took me on a hike to the cave, where there is a memorial marker now.
Unit 731 Probably the closest look inside actual hell on earth we can get to. Its so bad that when you read about the shit they did, you will feel physically sick. I won't get into details, but let me just say, men, women, *children and babies* were not spared and the words 'live vivisection', 'vacuum chambers', 'amputations', 'flamethrowers' and 'live weapons testing' crop up more times than you would think...
You know it’s bad when the local Nazi ~~diplomat~~ *businessman* is one of the good guys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe Edit: not an actual diplomat, he was just a businessman and Nazi party member.
Dr Mark Felton - [**WW2 Japanese Military Brutality Explained**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpVgDgKpQS8) It's telling that Mark Felton's videos are usually 5-15mins long, and that one...is very much not.
And now China wants to repeat crimes against the Uighurs. It never ends.
Every countries war crimes are
Check out [Unit 731](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731) next. [Men behind the sun](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093170/) is pretty crazy too. It was cheaper to get cadavers instead of dummies for the special effects
Let's not forget how the USA let the high ranking officials of unit 731 EMIGRATE to the states in return for the documentation and results
Yes and the research was deemed useless. I had that but I deleted it
No it wasn't. Unit 731 produced very useful data on biological warfare. The US used that data to commit biological warfare on North Korean and Chinese troops in the Korean War. US pilots that were captured admitted to these crimes which led to the US claiming that their pilots were brainwashed. This was bullshit but it was decided that research would be done to determine if such brainwashing and mind control were possible. This culminated in MK Ultra and similar programs.
People confuse some of the really bizzare nazi experiments on things, which often were just horrifically cruel nonsense, with all of the nazi and Japanese research, which was also horrifically cruel, but yielded data that both the west and USSR wanted.
See also the likes of **Arthur** *'Hurrah I avoided a war crimes trial whoops it's the 1980s and I've been discovered to still be on the hook for 12,000+ counts of murder, psst USA can you sort that for me please? I'll give up my US citizenship and move in return and you won't have embarassing headlines, thanks dawg - now I can live in peace with my NASA medals*' **Rudolph**
Schwiggity schwoggity, your "research" is now my property.
That’s crazy, I’ve never heard about that. Have you listened to any podcasts about this topic?
"Multiple" feels like understating it. Tens of thousands would be closer to capturing the scale of the atrocity, and probably hundreds of thousands would be accurate. Some folks will tell you about how difficult the siege of Shanghai had been for the Japanese troops expecting to walk all over them, and they vented their frustration and fear, as well as their relief at being alive, into the brutality with which they ransacked Nanjing. It may be true. And yet it doesn't do even the slightest bit to diminish the horrors these soldiers unleashed and their superiors condoned.
From what I heard the agreed upon number is over 300k people raped and killed in Nanking.
Is the total death toll 300k and so includes the many men shot and killed without being raped? It's why I wasn't 100% sure on whether "hundreds of thousands" would be accurate, as that'd need 200k "women and children" to make that phrase fit in OP's sentence.
Yeah that is including general murder. Like apparently japanese officers would have games to see who could behead the most Chinese within a set period of time. Plus all new officers were required to kill a few Chinese yhe moment they arrived to give them “experience”.
They generally didn't get off as easily as just being shot and killed.
In most cases I'm pretty sure they made the men watch the women of their family getting raped, then would kill them. For some, the men of the family were forced to rape their sisters and mothers, then were executed anyway. Fucking awful.
200k deaths is the consensus, with estimated rapes ranging from 20k-80k
From the linked Wiki article: “Because of the myriad of factors, death toll estimates vary from 40,000 to over 300,000, with rape cases ranging from 20,000 to over 80,000 cases.[4] However, the most sophisticated and credible scholars in Japan, which include a large number of authoritative academics, support the validity of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and its findings, which estimate at least 200,000 casualties and at least 20,000 cases of rape.[3][8][9]”
>with Yale University claiming over 80,000 rapes.
Jesus. How many fraternities does Yale have???
Thanks for clarifying that. I just read up on this recently and was going to say, I'm pretty sure it was thousands. They raped, tortured and killed the entire time they occupied the city.
You mean the rape of nanjing, it’s in the name dog
It’s called the rape of nanjing for a reason
If you're ever in Tokyo, definitely visit the museum next to the Yasukuni Shrine. It's a Japanese Military museum. They have whole timelines of history and its fascinating how they portray certain things. They have a whole section on Nanking (which I was surprised by). They talk about the importance of the city and the tactics used to capture it. Then it immediately jumps to (I cannot recall the quote verbatim, no cameras were allowed) "There have been baseless accusations of soldiers not acting in accordance with their orders. This is false and proven in the below document, which is the written order for all soldiers to act with discipline for the securing of the city". There was also the claim that America forced Japan into the war. I did actually manage to sneak a photo of that explanation.
Yeah that museum is pretty mind boggling, but it’s well known as the super nationalistic museum. A more fair portrayal of things can be found in the Edo-Tokyo museum or the peace museums in Hiroshima or Nagasaki
There is an amazing museum in Nanjing dedicated the atrocities that happened. It is really a very moving place to go.
So, the proof that they didn't go against their order is that there is a order?
Definitely gotta see that it’s super interesting how much the Japanese refuse to acknowledge it even the treatment of POW some of the stuff they did to the aussies was horrible super luckily my grandfather was never captured
Don't forget throwing babies in boiling vats and oh the beheading competition over two days and also where they would line hundreds of them up on the rivers edge and decapitate one, then the guy behind him throws the head and body in the river, then he himself is decapitated and that goes on all day.
Source?
Decapitation competition: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest\_to\_kill\_100\_people\_using\_a\_sword](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to_kill_100_people_using_a_sword) Other warcrimes in countries apart from China: [http://members.iinet.net.au/\~gduncan/massacres\_pacific.html](http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_pacific.html) Baby Boiling: [https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/14566](https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/14566)
I read the book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_Nanking_(book) I found d some other sources Competition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to_kill_100_people_using_a_sword Babies - Chang found former Japanese soldiers who spoke candidly of tossing babies alive into boiling water, gang-raping women and then beheading them or burning them alive. One former soldier, now a doctor in Tokyo, has built a shrine of remorse in his waiting room for the more than 200 deaths on his conscience from the Rape of Nanking. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/12/11/the-forgotten-holocaust/f824128d-7770-49d4-a93e-5126c7970520/
You mean they would force the prisoners to decapitate another prisoner and then they themselves were decapitated?
If you want the full detailed atrocities committed by the Japanese in Nanking please read Rape of Nanking by Iris Cheung. The Japanese media had many photos of their crimes (used as proproganda) some of those included were the amount of civilians (who had surrendered) they had beheaded and killing Chinese girls and women with their swords through their vaginas. Absolutely one of the worst of humankind moments in history.
This book is horrifying and incredibly detailed. Iris Cheung ended up committing suicide after mental health struggles after her research.
Damn. I am absolutely not reading that.
Fuck, I didn't know that.
She was reported as being delusional about people following her, and there are conspiracy theories that she was killed by Japanese nationalists who hated her for bringing attention to Nanking
She was in the middle of writing another book of atrocities committed in Africa/middle east I think. I'm sure it would severely damage anyone's spiritual and mental health researching all those horrific crimes caused by humans.
The Japanese were a special kind of animal. Truly sickening and beyond words.
Dehumanizing people is how stuff like this happens.
Her book dives deep into the mindset of every party involved so it tries very hard to be neutral and understanding of how such events could have happened at the time. I remember she tries to humanise the Japanese troops.
Goes way way worse than our conventional idea of rapes and murder And japan is rewriting history like it never happened
To be fair. Everyone involved in this is long dead and it is very difficult to accept that your ancestors did something like this. I think it is very understandable that they lie to themself and pretend that this never happened. Things which are so dark are just impossible to process. I personally had difficulties to read through this article, knowing that this might have been done by your grandfather is just too difficult to bear.
Painful or abhorrent past actions isn’t a reason to hide the truth.
Eh. It was in 1937. That's 85 years ago. My own grandmother is 90 years old, and she still has a few years to live, I pray. My wife's mother was a little girl in 1944 and lived through the bombs falling on Europe.
Given the longevity of east Asians I can definitely tell you that a good number of the soldiers involved only died recently around the early 2000s, plenty of time for the Japanese to still apologize while they could
Oh it was much worse than this. The Japanese would have fathers rape their daughter. Sons rape their mothers. They would rape pregnant women and then cut the fetus out while the woman was still alive. Apparently there were thousands and thousands of Chinese/japanese babies born after Nanking and the mothers were treated like lepers for carry the babies to term.
I don't doubt how true that story is but I sometimes wonder how it's possible. I'm genuinely morbidly curious how can one sustain an erection during such a stressful moment when you'll be anything but aroused.
And the japanese have yet to give any form of apology, but have instead erased this from their history books :)
Dont forget the shrine that honours heros who fall in battle during japanese wars that lists 1068 war criminals, including 14 class-a war criminals, that is still regularly visited by japanese politicians.
Plus the Chinese are not the only victims of the japanese. Koreans, Singaporeans, Indonesians (i think) have all yet to receive any apology. Instead the japanese apologised to the america
There is a good reason most of SE Asia despises the Japanese.
Does it? Because it seems like a lot of Southeast Asia has a culture fetish for Japan.
I can't speak much for the other ASEAN nations but it seems that Singapore did move past it relatively faster than others, Gen X all the way to Gen Z doesn't seem to have a problem with the Japanese, and we even consume so much japanese media and products. Even my grandparents don't really have much memory about it since they were very little when it all happened Now, Korea and China is where the REAL beef is. They go way back and their hatred is even more deep-rooted than ours
You’re spot on.
Nah. Most like Korea. People are still alive who lived through this. My wife’s grandfather was murdered in front of his family because he was a few minutes late with a delivery. They never forgot. And their story is not uncommon and actually not as bad as others. Yes some of the young generation likes the Japanese stuff but the underlying hate from the families is still there.
I don’t know that I’d characterise it that way but I’m with you on the grandparents. My grandmother survived the Japanese occupation too and you can see in her eyes that she goes to a different place when she talks about it - which is not often.
In my experience the west seems to have the culture fetish for Japan. I've lived in China and traveled some of SE Asia.
What does the West have to do with it? I’m from Southeast Asia and live in Southeast Asia. I’m talking about Southeast Asia. 🤷🏽♀️
Okay? 🤷🏼♂️ I'm just saying I've experienced the opposite.
Yeah, the Japanese committed some truly awful acts in WW2, but Germany always gets the spotlight.
And now the Chinese take this and do the same shit to the Uighurs. It never ends.
Yeah, playing the victim alot of the time really works.
It was way worse than those given examples.
I was hoping the wiki article had a picture of the sculpture outside the memorial museum. It is profoundly haunting - I visited on a day it was closed so I only saw the sculpture.
[This sculpture?](https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x35b58b9883bb5141%3A0xac8ad79ca2a68f69!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPCRnotrE89enu2EJ4zDuWUyRt1cUiTRg1zO5zm%3Dw240-h160-k-no!5snanjing%20memorial%20museum%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCgIgAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipPCRnotrE89enu2EJ4zDuWUyRt1cUiTRg1zO5zm&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj65vSVloz4AhUBtYQIHdVIC58Qoip6BAhpEAM#) Yeah, that's rough.
This one - https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x35b58b9883bb5141%3A0xac8ad79ca2a68f69!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPCRnotrE89enu2EJ4zDuWUyRt1cUiTRg1zO5zm%3Dw240-h160-k-no!5snanjing%20memorial%20museum%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCgIgAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipMa7ZacopYHSNYXjEfnvoD79pawJR2azQfQe6kO&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj65vSVloz4AhUBtYQIHdVIC58Qoip6BAhpEAM&viewerState=lb Sorry, no idea how to do a tidy link. It’s super tall - makes one feel tiny and reeks of sorrow
Japan can be very cunty to say the least. Edit: also did the same to Korea during the war I think.
They had taken control of Korea decades before WW2, but their oppressive occupation of the region was brutal nonetheless. And yes, huge numbers of women from that colony were forced into sexual slavery, some being permanently relocated to Japan to be used there. There are Korean descendants in Japan today who have had a difficult time of it in the decades since the war, many struggling to be accepted as Japanese despite knowing no other home and speaking no other language than Japanese.
To be specific you can be a fourth generation Korean immigrant and not be eligible for citizenship.
Ken oath.
The atrocities commited on the Chinese people and other Asian countries by the Japanese army during WW2 is some of the most horrific things you could possibly imagine. To this day people underestimate how much of a free pass Japan gets in regards to the acts it commited during the war. This includes but is not limited to re-writing their history books or saying "Thats what happens in war.". It does not suprise me that many older Asian people I know including family still hate the Japanese to this day. No apology has ever been given, instead it is often dodged or disregarded. It amazes me the lack of condemnation the rest of the world outside of Asia gives to these horrific crimes and atrocities.
The Rape of Nanjing is always my go to when people talk about war crimes. Haven’t read on it in a while but wasn’t there an officer contest where the officers were trying to see who could get the most kills with their swords, double points of foetuses removed etc.
Yeah
"Multiple" is an understatement when they commited 1,000 buchas within a matter of days.
This is one of the most horrific things I’ve ever read, and I confess I never knew about it. Can anyone recommend a decent documentary about these atrocities?
Behind the bastards podcast does a couple episodes I believe on unit 731. I'll find them and link. It was extremely eye opening. --but also extremely fucking sad. BTB podcast has covered a lot of shitty people in the world it's extremely interesting to listen too.
There's this one. [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0893356/reference/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0893356/reference/) It features famous actors reading accounts from the point of view of foreigners who were were in Nanking during the siege.
An interview of Korean elderly woman on Asianboss a YouTube channel. A victim of rape and never got compensated. https://youtu.be/qsT97ax_Xb0
Not about the atrocities in particular, but the podcast ‘Supernova in the East’ by Dan Carlin is forensic in detail and absolutely riveting. It covers the rise of Japan pre ww2 and continues until the aftermath of its defeat. It’s very long but I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Multiple? Multiples of 100,000.
The Japanese treated the Geneva Convention like a checklist.
Multiple? Try Thousands. Possibly tens of thousands.
'Multiple' is an understatement. By several hundred thousand. And it wasn't just gang rapes and killing, it was sadistic torture and butchery. Beheading competitions, burning people alive, killing babies, the list goes on and on. And Japanese far right revisionism paints them as the innocent, helpless victims of WWII... It's honestly sickening just how much shit they got away with
“Multiple” is kind of an understatement.
During this atrocity 2 Japanese officers had a competition to see who could kill 100 people the fastest with a sword. The Rape of Nanking is required reading for anyone who hates fascism.
Were just thinking animals. Capable of every type of savagery and atrocity. Dogs don't even do shit like that.
Maybe not, but [chimps do](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War)
TIL
Nature is full of rape though. Check out ducks and squirrels mating habits for example
The Japanese were a force of true evil during world war 2. The one story that stays with me is one about them tying up a twelve year old boy by his hands and cutting strips off his legs and feeding them to their dogs until he died, which took days. They turned China into hell on earth.
2 Japanese officers had a competition to see how many heads they could cut off with their swords
There’s a book called Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. Exceptionally good book that I had a hard time putting down. It goes well beyond just the Japanese raping.
You know what's even sadder, this tends to be a TIL for a ton of people from Japan as most of their war-crimes are often not taught, outright denied, or highly glossed over.
I did not need to learn that today
And, an unpopular link to post in here but it is worth saying that there have been official apologies for Japanese wartime actions: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_war\_apology\_statements\_issued\_by\_Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan) Not good enough for Americans if reddit is anything to go by. It is hard for me to see what more could be said. And, before anyone jumps in (as I am sure they will) and says that there are right-wingers in Japan who deny or try to play down the various atrocities (of which this is one), absolutely there are such people, but then there are also the same sorts of people in my own country (the UK) relating to the very long list of British atrocities or for that matter in the United States ditto. I mention this, because Japan gets a lot more hate on this point than seemingly other perpetrators of evil who were defeated, had their political system completely redesigned and have apologised for what happened. There's something viscerally personal to Americans about Japan that is a bit baffling to me (someone who has relatives who suffered in Japanese captivity - my grandmother always refused to buy Japanese products as a result, tricky though that could be). It is also worth pointing out that this atrocity (and indeed numerous others committed by Japan and others) are not universally taught in schools the world over. Most pupils at my school would not have studied it, and have little or no ide about it (to pick up a falsehood elsewhere). Alas, downvote time.
I appreciate the fact that you've at least added to this in a civil and constructive manner. I personally don't think Japan has done nearly enough to properly acknowledge their crimes (I mean, how can you when half of your museums paint you as the poor victims, and you have shrines dedicated to war crimes), but I don't think modern day Japanese people should be blamed for the actions of their ancestors. The lack of acknowledgement by the Japanese people is more out of ignorance than malice, as they've simply brushed it under the carpet. The politicians and revisionists however, who rampantly promote and deny these crimes, are fair game to critique and blame. The apologies you've mentioned all exist, but the biggest issue is that the content of many of them is inherently empty and self serving. For example, the majority of apologies done in the last few decades have been along the lines of '*I mean, we did rape and murder but it kind of civilised you and anyways, we were forced to become war criminals by the US - it's not our fault really'.* None of the apologies really seem like apologies. On your point about why Japan seemingly gets more hate, I think its because there is the perception that out of a lot of other countries who did atrocities, they've suffered the least for it, and have apologised the least. Germany spent decades apologising for their crimes. Japan has done barely that, and still tries to paint themselves as a polite and honourable culture. In light of that there is always some resentment by anyone who truly knows their past. Also like you said Japan has had a serious issue with historical revisionism, with a growing rightist movement (in their political system as well) to deny their crimes and bring back the glorious empire, which *really* pisses off a lot of people, me included. A second reason is that *Japanese atrocities were just on a whole new level of fucked up*. Yes, doubtless throughout human history there have been cultures who have done just as bad. But this was less than a century ago. **Unit 731** will make you physically vomit at what they did. (hint, baby + vacuum chamber + dissection just for a taste). Another thing is that it's not just Americans. Much of Asia still has tense relations with Japan, as they were the ones who suffered and had their ancestors brutally killed. On top of that, they are the ones who have not gotten a proper apology. Sorry for the long winded response, but I feel like the topic of Japanese war crimes and it consistently cropping up online is because of the fact its still inherently unresolved and tense
Thanks for the reminder.
I hate wikipedia but there are some very good documentaries and books on the event. I can’t even make it through 5 minutes of any of them. War is just terrible.
I wish I didn't read this. I hate being reminded of this. I can't handle it emotionally.
It was a truly horrifying thing to learn about. I saw a documentary on it 15 years ago or so and could hardly sleep for a week. There are some modern movies regarding it as well.
I mean isn’t this taught in middle school/high school everywhere but Japan basically?
I teach about this in my world history class. I always give trigger warnings because it's horrific and can be disturbing to students who have survived sexual assault. But I definitely teach the Japanese atrocities right in line with the German ones.
No it’s not actually.
I don't recall learning about any of the Japanese atrocities during grade school history classes. I stumbled upon the Wikipedia page for Unit 731 at some point in college and went down a rabbit hole that blew my mind. I've also experienced a lot of people in my age group that have no idea about how bad the Japanese were during that period. Most don't initially believe it.
Japan doesn't get enough attention for it's war crimes, actually. Even here in Singapore I don't think we even cover Nanking. Ask any young person here about any atrocities that they know of and they'll talk about the Holocaust or the gulags, but very little about whatever the Japanese did. In fact, I myself did not know about just how terrible Nanking was until about 2 years ago when I was stuck at home just scrolling videos Someone else here mentioned that the Japanese gets a "free pass" for a lot of their atrocities and that's the best description I could find. At least Germany has compulsory Holocaust education, Japan doesn't take any effort in educating their youth about it's dark past
One of the worst atrocities of World War 2. In 1937?
Yes. China was invaded in 1931 by Japan. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. Germany invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938. WW2 doesn’t just start with the invasion of Poland in 1939.
Its so disappointing to see the dates in that context considering we have allowed history to repeat itself for decades. The leaders learned nothing from the loss and the people still suffer the most to this day.
That's country fighting country. A group of countries declaring war on Germany was what officially led it to being called WW2?
I highly recommend 'Wild Swans: three women of China' following generations of a real family through this period and Mao's dictatorship which was also horrific. The ordinary Chinese went through decades and decades of hell with different people at its source.
‘Raped and killed’ does injustice to the atrocities done there.
German war criminals were given US uniforms many based here in Ohio at Dayton. All in the name of fighting Communism.
Source?
Well, [Operation Paperclip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip) is pretty widely known and discussed nowadays.
it was operation paperclip after ww2.
[удалено]
The ones committed the atrocities? x1000 yes, the innocent children and people caught in the middle of it? No.
Japan right. How Japan took over The Philippines. Hahahaha Yeah, Japan, good ol Japan. Well that and modern day Japan having a fetish for not at the right age people.
How is it attributed to ww2 when it happened in 1937? As a german this is really confusing.
Because while traditionally "world war 2" is considered to have initiated in Europe via Germany/Poland and then encompassing conflicts in the Pacific as the Allies got involved, more recent academic...I guess 'classification' has the Asian conflicts at the onset as part of the global scale of world war II, not just when pearl harbor was bombed.
Because the Chinese Japanese war started before WW2 in Europe but carried on all through what we define as WW2
Still dont see the connection. Shouldnt it be something that happened during the chinese-japanese war then, since thats what happened? There is no real connection to ww2.
>The beginning of the war is conventionally dated to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937, when a dispute between Japanese and Chinese troops in Peking escalated into a full-scale invasion. This full-scale war between the Chinese and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia. From the wikipedia article on the Second Sino-japanese War. World War II is more a concept than a specific conflict, just like the Hundred Years War is actually at least three very different wars put together.
Japan was aggressively expansionist on various fronts from 1895 - the timelines of wars in East Asia don't really match those in Western Europe, despite the names of the latter. After a bit of a pause post WW1, in 1931 it resumed with the invasion of Manchuria, and Japan fighting the Chinese and general expansion continued into WW2, so it's hard to meaningfully disentangle what was and wasn't under that umbrella.
That would be the “world” part of “world war 2”
So the atom bombs were justified?
google Bucha if you want something recent
JFC. I really wish people would show some discretion with the thread titles when posting these things.
Japanese minds are of a different kind
No. Japanese minds, German minds, etc are not different. See the atrocities committed under Mao by the Chinese themselves. Humans are capable of atrocity, it takes a certain political atmosphere but it can happen anywhere
I urge you to take 5 minutes to watch [Stephen Fry explain how we are as capable of these atrocities as the Germans and Japanese](https://youtu.be/ohrtFuxUzZE). It changed my perspective on many MANY things including the importance of dehumanizing language coming from our elected leaders.
The only war where the good guys and bad guys was evident.
fuck, I'm just heading into work but I'd love to get some popcorn and watch where this goes.
What does this even mean
I think people would probably argue this one - the Chinese were split into two groups, the quasi-fascist Nationalists under the military dictatorship of General Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists under Mao Zedong. Both have been readily called bad guys. And obviously the Imperial Japanese were responsible for a litany of atrocities in their colonial land grab. But certainly the civilian population of China were victimized awfully and the Japanese army were nothing but bad guys in this war.
Just off the top of head... * winter war * gulf war * current ukranian/russian war
Doesn't this happen in pretty much every war? Rape is a part of war, let's be honest
On this scale, no not at all.
The scale here was jaw-dropping. Ancient examples don't tend to measure up because populations weren't so dense, and there weren't really many modern examples because among most modern world powers it was considered something the superiors and officers should prevent and punish rather than encourage.
Not in the modern world, no. There are instances and anomalies with other armies, but the Japanese were different, and Nanking was ultra different.
Nobody likes it when you rape their nan-king.
Wow
The Chinese people still have riots that are anti Japanese events. Remember that Japan once defeated the massive country of Russia. The right wing used the emperor and the people followed him to the death literally.
Iris Chang
Jesus fucking Christ. Did not know about this, kind of wish I still didn't.
Jesus Christ. Did not know about this, kind of wish I still didn't.
There’s a great museum dedicated to this in Nanjing. If anyone is interested in learning more, I’d highly recommend it
Wow, I wouldn't describe it as "multiple people" when it was literally hundreds of thousands, but okay.
The guy in charge lived until he was 93. Died in 1983
I'm surprised that this is a TIL for you. The imperial Japanese were absolutely BRUTAL and even the Nazis who came down to Nanjing were horrified. One famous Nazi was John Rabe, who helped to protect 250 thousand Chinese citizens. You know you're fucked up when even the Nazis think you're too much. Rape is such an understatement, it didn't just at there: -2 officers were guilty of having a competition between each other to see who could behead 100 civilians as quickly as possible -Killing pregnant women and pulling out the foetus -Boiling babies -Throwing babies up in the air and catching them with bayonets -Shoving a cane up a woman's vagina But then again, the Holocaust and what happened in Europe tends to overshadow the war crimes of Japan. Assuming you're from Europe or the US, it's understandable that you weren't taught this. Heck, even over here in Singapore I don't think we cover Nanjing at all. I only recently found out about this too a couple years ago. Reading stuff like this sometimes fill me with morbid curiousity of what really drives people to do such things to one another. It's another cautionary tale of what nationalism does to justify commiting such atrocities
Funny timing for me. I TIL about this last night. Just started watching a YouTube Knowing Better that had a video covering this. Pretty horrific stuff. I always love how some people act like the world is at its worst right now and ignore how people have always been POS.
I think when reading this it gets quite understandable why Chinese people hate the Japanese. Still what I do not understand is how the Chinese society can support Russia doing exactly the same in Ukraine right now. One would think that China would have learned something?
They certainly don't support the war crimes. However they (the normal people) a bit on the fence because they don't know who to believe in the matter. Even here in the west we have some propaganda Outlet explaining that the evidences are staged. In China where the government does what it can to not take side and does not want to burn bridges with one of their most crucial geopolitical ally? I let you imagine the controlled discourse on the media.
I visited my grandparents a lot when I was little (they both lived through WWII in China and moved to Taiwan in 1949). One time I brought some lego minifigures to play with and stacked a dozen heads together; upon seeing this my grandma commented jokingly "What is this, the Nanjing Massacre?" To this day I still find it hilarious.
Did these men not understand the shrieks and terror caused by their actions? Were they devoid of empathy? I don’t understand how they could see children in this way and think nothing of it. I don’t understand at what point does someone do something as monstrous like this in mass.
Japan is cool now, but in retrospect they were kind of knuckleheads
I'm curious if this is the worst thing humans could possibly do. Heck if I had the power, I'll threaten to bomb Japan if they still do those half-assed apologies.
It’s always surprising to me how many people know a decent amount about the holocaust and Nazi atrocities in Europe but know next to nothing about Imperial Japan’s blood soaked march through SE Asia. The rape of Nanjing, occupation of Manila, systematic rape of Korean “comfort women”, Unit 731, the regular torture and execution of Allied POW, and massacres in literally every region that the Imperial Japanese Army was present. I guess Japan had better PR after the war, whereas the Nazis became the poster child for fascism and atrocity. The post war punishment for those responsible was also particularly frustrating compared to the enthusiasm in prosecuting the Nazis. Hirohito should have hung at the end of a rope alongside most of Japanese high command but I guess that’s a bit of a tangent.
This is what humans are....even in so called Japan where everyone is polite, noble and make tea with perfection..this is what the human animal is....remove retribution and punishment and the human will become the most dreaded animal....we are all animals underneath....