Why do we never here about the atrocities by the Japanese on Americans in WWII?

Question

We hear about Hiroshima, and Nagasaki but never about the Japanense rape of millions of Chinese, or Pearl Harbor, The killing and rape in the philliphines and Maylasia. I know they made good autos and i drive one but is that any excuse to give them a free ride on the truth?

brian: slick thats all you see and hear about on tv is the incarceration of the poor Japs in San Francisco but not much about them raping millions of chinese and the Bataan death march where they beheaded thousands of Ameican soldiers. Remember Pear Harbor, Iwo Jima? You should be ashamed to live on american soil paid with American lives you ingrate.

sobielo: so that makes it right for Japs to have raped and murdered millions of Chinese citizens. slaughtered thousands of Americans troops in the brutal Bataan death march?

dialeti: Do you not think that we should not honor the souls of those who gave their lives for this country? If you forget the past and those who sacrificed for your freedom, we have a bleak future.

jackw: Southerners are held to the sins of their slave owner ancestors and we are reminded daily in renaming or schools outlawing the Confederate flag. We should never forget lest it happen again.

bekindto: You apparently have selective memory and do not want to remember the Japanese atrocities but we are contantly reminding by the jewish owned press about the Holocaust. Its okay in your thinking to forget about Pearl Harbor, Bataan death march but we should always be reminded of the German concentration camps. You need to rethink this sweetie.

jbautist: I have a great respect for the Asian culture and most assimulate well into American society and are good neighbors as opposed to the Mexican invasion to the south. I just believe there has been a double standard when it come to Japanese atrocities as opposed to the German extermination of the jews.

cordelia: you may have local events that honor American soldiers massacred by Japanese soldiers but I am speaking in terms of National media exposure which has almost stopped on Pearl Harbor, Bataan death march, rape of Nanking. You contantly hear how Ameicans incinerated poor japanese civilians at Hiroshima, Nagasaki. These nuclear bombs saved and estimated 500,000 american lives it would taken to invade Japan and end the war. You need to rethink this sweetie.

mentish: a person would never have to read a book and just listened to the liberal news medica to find that Germans incinerated millions of jews in ovens but you never hear much anymore about the sneak Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the murder and rape of millions of Chinese. Japanese soldiers had great fun in china by cutting heads off and forcing family to have sex with each other, this was a fact but the news media never allows you to hear this.

mentish: incidently the movie TOP GUN no one really got killed likethe 3,000 americans at Pearl Harbor. Top gun was a movie and everyone went home after the end of the day. Germans are constantly shown as sadistic and always the heavy but the Asian gets a free pass. Think about it.

Answer 1

Part of the problem is the fact that Japanese themselves have downplayed their part in WW2, its hardly given a mention in their history books, and a lot of the crimes their military have committed have been glossed over.

Murder of innocent women and children, starting in Nanking in China.

Murder and inhuman treatment of P.O.W. and Foreign Nationals captured by their forces.

Germ Warfare experimentation on P.O.W's.

P.O.W & Foreign National Slave Labour in mines on the Japanese Homeland during W.W. 2.

Refusal to recognise or honour the Geneva Convention.

Refusal to provide Medical Care for wounded enemy combatants.

Answer 2

I think that one of the reasons is that all those things happened in Asia, and at the time all other Asian countries were very poor and the rest of the world did not put much attention to those countries. Also the Japanese are a much more old fashioned society, and is hard for them to accept their mistakes. I think that one of the conditions for Japan's surrender was to keep the monarchy, and since the Emperor remained in Japan, the Japanese government want to show the best face it can by denying and hiding the past. They like to save face at any cost. German companies who benefited from the Holocaust paid compensation to the Jewish people, but not such thing can be expected from Japanese companies that used slave labor during the war.
Another reason might be that the US feels some guilt about dropping the bomb, and the US doesn't want to push the matter any further. Something that the Japanese government use to their advantage so they can feel like martyrs.
Thank you for bringing up the subject!

Answer 3

Oh this has been well-documented.

Most of the people who lived during that time are dead or very old, and so the documentation is more in history books now then in the news.

The REAL suppression of this information is in Japan, where there has always been a concerted effort to downplay Japanese atrocities.

Also, to be fair, some Japanese feel they got paid back Big Time and that let's just forget it.

Not a bad idea.....however.....Japan must not be permitted to rewrite the history, or to publish books that say it never happened. That would be bad.

Also, to be fair, American soldiers didn't feel inclined to show much mercy to any Japanese soldier who refused to cooperate. I don't think there were too many cases of outright torture or sadism, but the Americans shot prisoners fairly regularly---the few who surrendered that is.

Japanese soldiers were very brave and very ferocious. The Pacific war was an extremely ugly form of combat, unlike anything our modern soldier is likely to experience. Hand to hand combat in the most atrocious conditions imaginable.

It was a descent to Hell that most people would rather forget.

Answer 4

Most of the Japanese involved in the atrocities during the period you mention are dead. Are you willing to hold the grandchildren responsible for the sins of their ancestors? Unfortunately, too many Americans are aware of the use of the atomic bombs but not the brutal treatment of POWs and other people during the war.

Japan was forced to become a democratic peaceful nation at the end of World War II. Many of the people involved in the war crimes were executed after being tried following the war. So some type of justice was served.

True, Japan - as a nation - does not want to face the responsibility, or even acknowledge, the brutal treatment of other people by their military during the war.

Books like the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking are pernament proof of the brutalities of the Japanese military.

Japan's silence is easily overcome by proof. But today's Japanese are not responsible.

Answer 5

I don't know why you have never heard of say, the Bataan Death March but the rest of us have....in fact, some bases have an annual base run to honor the people who died during the march. You must have missed the worldwide ceremonies three weeks ago commemorating the anniversary of Pearl Harbor....Maybe you did hear of the movie starring Ben Affleck about three, four years ago. I'm guessing that your high school only required American History versus World History, which is really unfortunate...resentments, etc over past events spill over into today's events.

Answer 6

There were documentaries shown on television for years and many books written about these events. People got tired of being reminded about the war. I'm sure they are still shown today, but not with any regularity. We can learn from history, but constant reminders of how ugly human beings can become are not healthy.

The Japanese have become some of the most peaceful people on earth. Isn't that good enough? We are their allies. What is the point of reminding everyone of the past. Better to build the future.

Answer 7

You need to watch the history or the military channel. However the Jewish have done a much better job at publizing the atrocities....not a slam at them. They did a better job and maybe some racism on the American side. Its "only" Orientals and not Europeans which in general we are culturally closer to.

Answer 8

Those who bother to read these amazing things called books do hear about them. Many people do not read much, and so only know what they see on TV/in the movies. The Japanese are not hiding anything. It is American movie makers, etc, who gloss over such things. It seems so much more profitably 'Top Gunnish' to be shooting down enemy planes in war movies, or sinking enemy ships, so that is what is shown. Sitting around being tortured by enemy POW camp guards is not so glamorous, so it gets shown less. If given a choice, which movie woud you go to, and pay more for a ticket to: "Zero Killer; The Exploits Of Americas' Top WW2 Fighter Ace"...or : "Pain...My Life as a POW" ? Blame American: audiences, producers, directors, writers, and stars, for the lack of coverage you denounce.

Answer 9

Because "white people" did Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That is why it tends to come up more often on forums than Nanking, or Manila, or using American POWS for medical experiments.
Whats wrong with performing medical experiments on racists?
they had it coming...right?
isn't that the logic?

Answer 10

We do hear about them.

At least I have --but the Japanese already apologized for the atrocities they committed in WWII.

and for the Liberals ---and the others that hate America---they get a lot more mileage out of bashing the USA then bashing JAPAN.--or any other country.

Which is what they really want any way--they don't care about atrocities or anything else. All they care about is bashing the USA whenever they get the chance.