Ghosts of Bataan

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

>>Why do you assume MOST people don't know?

Oh, i have every reason to assume most people in general don't know. Im not kidding, i have met people here (in real life) who did not know why we celebrate the 4th of july here in the US. Its been, beer, bbq, and fireworks for so long, and they haven't the foggest idea what its all about. Or at the very least, didn't know the year, 1776. Now if people can't even remember what july 4th, or the year 1776 is about, A little pennisnula like bataan is certainly not in their historical vocabulary. Another humorus observation: There was a war in Korea? Wow, no kidding?

>>Ducimus, I was more suprised to learn you have time to watch tv!

Havent been modding that much lately.

Boy you have that right! Thank you public education.

[TheSatyr]

The Pacific War was rascist on both sides...which is why it turned into such a vicious no holds barred kind of war. Plus you had the Japanese cultural belief in "no surrender" which in turn meant that any one who surrendered was a "non-person" and in their minds didn't deserve anything other than poor treatment. I've even read where some of the Japanese that were captured were basiclly ignored by family and freinds after the war BECAUSE they surrendered instead of dying. Thank God the Bushido crap has pretty much died out over there...for now.

Of course the Russian Front was extrememly brutal as well.

[Dantenoc]

Not really a big contribution to the thread but just a little thought:

Aside from all other reasons, there is one practical reason that the war in the Pacific was so brutal: that a very large part of it was fought in the air and in the sea.

That is to say, when you fight on land, very rarerly do you completely destroy the enemy... combut units retreat or disband long before reaching the 100% death rate. Worst case scenario (excluding death) you can abandon the fight and run for it! But at sea, or in the air... when a ship goes down EVERYBODY onboard goes down. When fighting on land, you can take pitty on your enemy and let him run away after you have defeated him, but when fighting in the air, sea or even in an island, there's no such posibility because theres no where to run to!

So yes, there was a lot of hate, but there were also practical issues at play that made the death rates higher.

This consideration, of course, does not excuse or apply to the way that japan treated it's prisioners, but rather explains why fighting at sea and air is such a "kill or be killed with no room for middle ground" deal.

[clayp]

Originally Posted by joegrundman

Oh you had plenty of revenge clayp.

When it comes to the killing of the defenseless, the US can hold its head up with the rest of us.

N ot with anyone who didnt start it first!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[joegrundman]

OK, enough trolling, clayp. I can see where you're coming from.

there was a third bomb btw. It was en transit to Tinian at the time of the surrender and was of the plutonium (fat man) variety. Most of us in this world are glad that the surrender came no later and with no more death than it did, but your position is shared by many Koreans that i have met.

Why the Japanese were so cruel is worth asking. In WW1 the Japanese captured the German garrison in Tsing-tao, and apparently treated them in a friendly manner although the facilities were antiquated. This caused some confusion among German POWs.

I guess the difference in treatment of pows and other non-combatants lies in the contexts of the two wars, but this little story puts a question mark over the assumption that it was an ingrained cultural phenomenon.

[clayp]

Originally Posted by joegrundman

OK, enough trolling, clayp. I can see where you're coming from.

there was a third bomb btw. It was en transit to Tinian at the time of the surrender and was of the plutonium (fat man) variety. Most of us in this world are glad that the surrender came no later and with no more death than it did, but your position is shared by many Koreans that i have met.

Why the Japanese were so cruel is worth asking. In WW1 the Japanese captured the German garrison in Tsing-tao, and apparently treated them in a friendly manner although the facilities were antiquated. This caused some confusion among German POWs.

I guess the difference in treatment of pows and other non-combatants lies in the contexts of the two wars, but this little story puts a question mark over the assumption that it was an ingrained cultural phenomenon.

You know I'm not trolling or anything else..I'm simply stating my views...The japs were ANIMALS and some not all germans were as bad..What the japs did to American POW'S and others makes anything we did pale in comparison..If you don't like me saying so I'm sorry but it is my right as it is for you to say your view..BUT if you vilify the US for the war with me around you are going to get a fight and if it gets me banned I don't care....

[piersyf]

To be honest I'm really glad that at least some have asked this thread to continue on an historical education type basis. I've been on many other sites where the general response has been like clayp's; if you say anything bad about the US you get severely flamed. I find it ironic that as an ex Australian soldier I was called a communist...
It may be of interest that the Japanese army was trained by the German army when it first formed, so the Japanese in WW1 had significant respect for their former educators. The treatment of prisoners in WW2 was very harsh by our standards, but not by theirs. How many willingly surrendered to us? What did they expect? Did you have many POW camps in the US for Japanese (apart from your own citizens)? We did in a town called Cowra. Read about it.
The Japanese fed us a diet consistent with penalty rations for their own army. That's right, a Jap soldier who had done wrong would have received the same general treatment our prisoners got. Secondly, if you read some of the literature the real mongrels were the Indians who changed sides. They even had the Japanese asking them to hold back. In camps in Japan it was the Korean guards trying to 'out Jap' the Japs.
Clayp, if you have something to say, say it. If you can back it up.
How many are aware that a condition on US entry into the war in Europe was the dissolution of the British Empire? Not to give 'freedom' to those 'colonial territories' but to give access to American business. Prior to WW2 US businesses couldn't get access to markets in the British Commonwealth because they all had favoured trade status with England. Look at the trade balances after WW2. You think it is a coincidence that the US was the only economy to increase after the war?
I have no problems with the US, except that it seems quite a few Americans are unwilling to consider ANYTHING unsavoury about their country (America never had colonial aspirations? What crap!). One of the great pleasures I get from this site is that there ARE Americans on here who WILL talk about the world as the rest of the world sees it, NOT just from an American perspective.

[Hylander_1314]

Originally Posted by piersyf

I dunno. Personally if any person can make comments about what another country did to his country but others aren't allowed to say back, then there is a problem with honesty. We criticise the Japanese for denying the truth to their own youth through slanted history books, but as was pointed out at the beginning of this thread, the Bataan march is almost unknown outside military history circles. If the truth is to be remembered, let it be the truth of ALL participants, not just the winners. How many people know that the Japanese attacked the US because the US made a trade decision between Japan and China? China was the larger market and a government more pro-American so the US took sides in the Sino-Japanese war and stopped supplying oil to Japan. Sure, the Japanes had choices, like just give up after what, 8 years of fighting in China (morally shouldn't have been there in the first place) but you can't say the US wasn't aware that Japan might be somewhat miffed at the US response.
One of my Uncles died in New Guinea fighting the Japanese, and we too had our death marches. Changi is rather famous for us. The work of Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop for keeping so many men alive in the camp. The Burma railway. The group of female nurses who were beheaded on a beach after swimming ashore from a sunken transport, the British, Australian and Dutch women forced to 'serve' Japanese officers. It was a nasty war alright, but I know we looked on them as animals at the time (ie; sub-human)... just watch some of the newsreels. I've seen footage of my own RAAF crews machinegunning japanese lifeboats after sinking a ship and the enthusiastic "give the little nips what for' from the voice-over dude. Tell the truth, and let it be known from both sides, or we risk repeating the whole thing. Ignorance is how govenments lead us into these messes in the first place (altered expletives). And isn't ignorance a part of the complaint of this thread?

Oh BTW, the reason there are movies about the Battered Bastards of Bataan but not the march afterwards is that the idea of the largest mass surrender of US troops in WW2 and that the US government wrote them off (couldn't rescue them or supply them) is not considered pallatable to a US audience.

Concerning U.S., and Japanese relations, it wasn't just oil that was cut off. The U.S. imposed a complete embargo of oil, steel, and the other materials needed for making war.

At the time of the attack on Pearl, the Japanese Navy was down to approximately 30 days of fuel oil for their ships. So a desparate nation with few resources of it's own will act desparately to continue on with it's agenda reguardless of what the rest of the world thinks. Especially if they, and or their government think that what they are doing is absolutely fine, and proper to do.

Racism was two sided in the Pacific war. Both sides considered the other to be inferior. There are many factors why the American, Australian, New Zealanders, and British troops did the things they did when confronting the Japanese. The Japanese attitude about fighting to the death, even with the use of booby-traps, and hidden grenades on the living who would act as though surrendering, and then blow themselves up and anyone close enough to get caught in the blast. The veteran soldiers knew what to expect, so out of self preservation, or saving the life of a fellow soldier, or friend, would tend to make you do things, you would not necesarilly do. But to the Japaese this was perfectly acceptable. It was also part of their idea, that if you inflict enough casualties on the enemy, they will sue for peace. Then Japan could keep what she had gained, and continue with the ideas of the Co-East Asian Prosperity Sphere that was set down by the Japanese Warlords.

I too had an Uncle who served in the Pacific. I just found photos from New Guinea, and the Philippines he had taken, but he and my Aunt were killed in a car crash in 1948, and Gramma buried those pictures away, and never told me about Uncle Ted serving in the artillary. Maybe because it brought back bad memories for her, as Aunt Mary was her younger sister.

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Originally Posted by clayp

BUT if you vilify the US for the war with me around you are going to get a fight and if it gets me banned I don't care....

You should care. You fight, you get brigged. You continue, you get keelhauled.

You've all been warned. This isnt the place.

[joea]

Thing is people really do foget the context. The context in 1941 was that the Axis seemd on a roll, one sucess after another, the problems Germany had in Russia were not really apparent yet, after a brief stall in the muds of autumn, they picked up the advance when the ground froze and seemed to be on the way to Moscow. The very high casualties (more than the rest of European campaign together or at least comparable) were not appreciated, Germany had overrun Europe and everyone had written off the Soviets by this time.

Japan, bogged down in China, I think was encouraged to move by the German success and a probable free hand in Asia... the embargo was slapped in direct response to the Japanese move into French Indochina (controlled by Vichy France at the time). This showed a growing threat to the European holdings in Southeast Asia as well as the Phillipines, so I don't see how the US could not respond in some matter given that Japan was allied to Germany and the US was supporting those countries now at war or occupied by Germany (Uk and the Netherlands in this case). True a healthy dose of self-interest and realpolitik I mean no action was taken during the early stage of the Sino-Japanese war despite the moral outrage over the Rape of Nanking or the sinking of the Panay.

Some good posts here though.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Oh you got me started now.......

Back to the OP about why people generally ( at least in the U.S.) have not heard of the Bataan death march goes all the way back to the propoganda machine of those days.
Saying that if you go into the army and are captured you will go on a "death march" or be subjected to any other horrors was tantamount to political suicide at that point in the war.
Remember that in the first half of the century news coverage of the horrors of war was censored to agreat degree and volunteer enlistments would have dropped dramatically ( especially concerning the isolastionist sentiment that existed at the time)
Not that this is the only example of such a thing. Who remembers being taught about the holocaust? How many genocides since then have been commmitted that virtually no American knows about? In fact, who ever talks about the OTHER 6 million people killed in the holocaust? No one.
The simple truth is that if there is not a movie or a government hype about it Americans just don't know it. It is a disgrace to our culture that our media and our educational system are subject to censorship and filtration on par with the U.S.S.R. (unintentional though it may be)
Ok one more example. Excluding the presumably educated gamers who prefer more or less accurate simulations of WW2 submarine warfare, who in the U.S. knows that the civil war was started over a tax? Specifically an import tax? Ask anyone in this country and I will bet 80 percent say that it was over slavery. If the U.S. civil war was over slavery then why did Lincoln not free the slaves in the only two slave states he had sovereignty over?( West Virginia and Kentucky)
This is starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist rant but the fact is, there are very few instances of black and white in history and the winners write the history books.
I apologize for the bluntness of my remarks but as a veteran of OIF 2 and 3 I have seen firsthand the effect propoganda has had on people. In my unti the attitude was "screw'em" they're just ragheads".
Very well, if "ragheads" do not deserve freedom why draw the line there? Why not asians? Or whites? Or Hispanics? Or Jews? Or Blacks? Or Slavs? Or whatever?
Again I apologize for the length of this rant but in summary my point is that all too often "authorities" determine the shape of history and present conceptions. In particular the "Death March" was omitted because of the derogatory effects on morale.
Lesson learned; Remember the ideals of our forefathers and NEVER entrust your welfare to the government.

Constructive criticism is welcome.

Near my home city, about 15 km away had been a death march route for women from KLs in eastern europe. Its marked as an area in which digging or amateur archeology sites are forbidden. Bot about Baatan Ive heard first time ...

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

Ever wonder why atrocities occur with POWs? In a recently viewed DVD I listened to one former (albeit, unrepentant SS Sturmbanfuhrer) relating their treatment of 12,000 russian POWs during Operation Zitadelle. He said because of the massive resources in men and material needed to maintain and feed POWs it was better to just eliminate them. This cold and brutal solution made military sense to them as materials and men were needed for the Ost Front. The same argument was made for the resources used in the concentration camps. The Japanese were pretty brutal in their treatment of POWs as their culture view submission and retreat and even surrender with disdain. That's why may of them resorted to suicide (aka the shouts of 'Banzai!' and kamakazee). In contrast the US treated captured SS men and treated them with almost citizen-like amenities in America (this is not bashing the US) knowingly or unknowingly that their servicemen were brutalized on the other side. Isn't war strange?

[GerritJ9]

Actually, Hylander, Japan had been stockpiling oil for a long time and had about two years worth of stocks when the oil embargo was announced. Prior to the embargo, Japan had been trying to get a monopoly on NEI oil supplies through trade "negotiations", but thanks in no small part to the Dutch being able to read the Japanese diplomatic signals (see "Nishi No Kaze, Hare" by Robert D. Haslach) they got nowhere. In Malaya, Japanese espionage and subversive activities were widespread well before the war (see Peter Elphick's "Singapore: The Pregnable Fortress" among others); I don't have any sources for subversion in the Philippines or the NEI but it can be safely assumed that they were very active there as well. Japanese expansion southward was practically guaranteed regardless of whether the US, Britain and the Netherlands blocked all trade with Japan or not- the oil embargo merely accelerated the timetable.
Given the Japanese Army's correct behaviour towards POWs and civilians during the Russo-Japanese War and the Great War, their barbarity in China and the rest of Asia is incomprehensible- it was an official policy as the Tokyo Trials showed (see see Arnold Brackman's "The Other Nuremberg: The Untold Story Of The Tokyo War Crimes Trials").

[piersyf]

Like I said, one of the things I love about this forum is you can find open minded Americans here. I didn't want to go to the 'dehumanising' of modern enemies, but thatnk you undersealcpl for doing so. I love the discussion in 3 Kings about it... rag head and camel jockey is OK but dune coon or sand ****** isn't (from a negro sergeant). Says a lot.
Yes the embargos on Japan before WW2 were an attempt to show displeasure, but (I think) it is in the Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire (written by an American) that states the US made its choices on economic grounds.
And yes, propaganda was a major factor in the war, one in which the US does still suffer from the so called 'free press'. A friend of mine (an American living in California) came out for a visit and stopped over in Fiji for a scuba dive, just in time for the second coup. When she got out and arrived in Oz the first thing she wanted to do weas ring home and tell her mother she was OK. Her mother's reply was 'coup? what coup?' Not important enough to report in the US, so it just didn't happen.
The US isn't the only country to suffer from this, but the US IS a powerful giant on the world stage, a theoretical democracy that is put in place by a largely ignorant and uneducated populace, at least in terms of geopolitics and history. The world's largest lynch mob is the result. Having open and honest discussions with people from other places is a way of getting 'alternate views'. See, I'm not saying I'm right, just that I see the world from a different place. Open and honest from your perspective is a start, but also be willing to take on new information as it comes up (and is verifiable)