Indeed, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan wanted to form an alliance. A formal treaty of alliance was signed between Germany, Japan and Italy on 27 September Japan used the moment to move into northern Indo-China. This had been a French colony but the Germans had just overrun France so for the Japanese it was ripe for the picking. Japan wanted to create a greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere.
The slogan was Asia for the Asians - in essence the locals were swapping one colonial master for another. In Washington the American government, nervous about Japanese colonial intentions, announced that fuel sales to Japan would be suspended if Japan did not reconsider her aggressive actions. With no fuel resources of its own Japan believed it could now either give up its imperial ambitions, or fight the Americans. They attacked Pearl Harbor and, moments after, attacked Hong Kong.
As the Japanese advanced into Hong Kong the Chinese inhabitants of the city became a particular target.
Rees's film interviews too a British nurse who tells of how, on 25 December , the day of the British surrender, - nurses at the makeshift hospital at the Hong Kong Jockey Club were raped. Japanese newsreel and commentary: The prisoners consisted of soldiers from Britain, Malaya, Australia, India, a parade of mongrel troops.
More than one in four died in captivity. Writer-producer Laurence Rees looks at the Kamikaze phenomenon - " What could be more impossible to understand? Marines tried to re-take Japanese-held islands like Tarawa in , the ferocious way in which the Japanese were prepared to fight to the death did not make the Americans respect them more. To many Americans, their refusal to surrender, like their attack on Pearl Harbor and their mistreatment of prisoners, became another sign they were a dishonourable foe.
Japanese savages fighting the Australians in New Guinea committed cannibalism. Japanese forces were sent to New Guinea in but without sufficient preparation — they were simply abandoned. In late , forbidden to surrender and cut off from their supplies, they began to starve — some resorted to cannibalism of their own and enemy dead. According to Professor Yuki Tanaka: Japanese propaganda about Saipan emphasised the nobility of dying in the struggle against the British and Americans.
With the capture of islands like Tinian and Saipan, heavy bombers were now in easier range of targets on the home islands of Japan and the Allies now launched the biggest aerial bombardment the world had ever seen - more than tonnes of bombs were dropped on Japan in an effort to make the Japanese accept unconditional surrender. On 10 March Tokyo was fire bombed. Over Boeing B bombers dropped incendiaries which caused a fire storm. Despite the destruction in Tokyo opinion was still divided in the Japanese government in the months that followed about what should be done.
Accepting unconditional surrender might, some feared, mean the elimination of the institution of the emperor itself. Hirohito and his military leaders believed that, in order to negotiate a more advantageous peace, Japan needed to win one big victory - and the Kamikaze would provide the means.
Horror in the East () - Crime Documentary
Sporadic isolated kamikaze attacks had occurred in - now in the spring of kamikazes were to sortie en masse for the first time. A student from Tokashiki Island: The Japanese people belonged to the emperor - we were his children. They said, 'If you go on this mission, you won't come back alive. We wanted to answer, 'No, I don't want to go'.. But later on we thought, 'Wait, if we want to say no, can we really say it, can we say no to this officer?.. We told each other that we should calm down and think about the consequences.. They would be ostracised from the community The British warships with their armoured decks did not suffer as much under kamikaze attacks as the Americans.
In March as the kamikaze flew around them, the Americans landed on the small island of Tokishiki. As on Saipan, the civilians were told by the Japanese army that the Americans would rape and murder them and encouraged them to adopt kamikaze tactics. To some they gave two hand grenades — one to throw at the Americans, the other to blow themselves up with. Shigeaki Kingjou, a student in , looking back in the year The Americans expected the Japanese to defend the beaches on Okinawa but on 1 April when American troops came ashore they found their arrival virtually unopposed.
But more than Japanese troops were dug into the fabric of the island interior, some in concrete pill boxes underneath the trees. In Okinawa, as the Americans pushed to the south of the island there were many civilian suicides, some thousand at Cape Kyan. Once more the Japanese military played a crucial role in encouraging the civilian population to kill themselves — on nearby islands where there were no Japanese soldiers there were no mass suicides. Around American troops, Japanese soldiers, and Japanese civilians died on Okinawa. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Akira Iriye Foreword by.
The question is as searing as it is fundamental to the continuing debate over Japanese culpability in World War II and the period leading up to it: In the years that followed, under Emperor Hirohito, conformity was the norm and the Japanese psyche became one of selfless devotion to country and emperor; soon Japanese soldiers were to engage in mass murder, rape, and even cannibalization of their enemies. Horror in the East examines how this drastic change came about.
Horror in the East (2001)
On the basis of never-before-published interviews with both the victimizers and the victimized, and drawing on never-before-revealed or long-ignored archival records, Rees discloses the full horror of the war in the Pacific, probing the supposed Japanese belief in their own racial superiority, analyzing a military that believed suicide to be more honorable than surrender, and providing what the Guardian calls "a powerful, harrowing account of appalling inhumanity Hardcover , pages.
Published September 19th by Da Capo Press first published To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Horror In The East , please sign up. Lists with This Book. May 16, Pranky reads rated it really liked it. My first book on Japan's involvement in the world war 2, their fighting spirit, the motivation behind.
The emperor Hirohito being a god and people were ready to do anything for the country. Their atrocities on Chinese people and the POW is unimaginable. But that did come to an end, and rather a very sad end. The army was committing suicide, some resorted to cannibalism and their was mass suicides by people as they did not want to surrender to their enemies. Well, the emperor still sat on the thr My first book on Japan's involvement in the world war 2, their fighting spirit, the motivation behind. Well, the emperor still sat on the throne when they surrendered to Japan after the bombings.
Imagine the devastation, this books covers interviews from the perspective of people of Japan , the Chinese victims, British victims, American army, Japanese survivors and Japanese army. The writing is very simple and easy to understand. This book does an excellent job of not only presenting the reader with rare first-hand accounts of the atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War, but, more importantly, explaining the background that made these atrocities possible.
To me it was an invaluable help in understanding why Japan has, to this day, not apologised for the horrors inflicted on the world in the name of its emperor. The book, however, is far from defending the Japanese.
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On the contrary, This book does an excellent job of not only presenting the reader with rare first-hand accounts of the atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War, but, more importantly, explaining the background that made these atrocities possible. On the contrary, it pauses some very disturbing questions. A really good read - highly recommended.
Ainda bem que acabou. May 29, Jo rated it it was amazing Shelves: Clear, concise, and incredibly engaging writing. Absolutely horrific stories of what happened under Japanese brutality, and it was fascinating to hear different voices from different people: May 16, Nicole rated it liked it. This was a great book, although full of graphic detail and heartbreaking stories of the innocent Japanese, Chinese and American civilians who survived the war in the Pacific.
This book however does give insight into why the Japanese fought the way they did and gives reasoning behind their thinking. Japanese survivors tell their story as to why their commrades committed suicide and why it was so important to never surrender. Didn't go into as much depth on the experiences of POWs as I had hoped I bought this book for more information after reading the Narrow Road to the Deep North but it does set the context for the atrocities that were perpetrated by both sides during this conflict. Dec 06, Michael Gilbride rated it really liked it.
The level of barbarity raised some complex moral questions. He was a God on earth to them. Numerous other former Japanese soldiers testified to the same thing. They believed they were fighting for a higher power and would do anything to honour Hirohito. When you combined the general obedience of the average Japanese at the time, it became a lethal cocktail.
Honed wisely, this trait can have many benefits.
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Visiting Japan some years ago, Iseult and I found it to be the most clean and orderly country we had ever set foot in. New recruits were put in a position where they had to prove that they would do likewise. He was directly involved in authorising war crimes. The Allies showed a genuine moral failing by never prosecuting the Emperor for his crimes as they did with the rest of the Japanese war time cabinet.
It is inconceivable to me that he continued ruling as Emperor until Then again, were the Allies really in a moral position to prosecute anyone after dropping two nuclear bombs? Being on the winning side and having the right intentions does not justify crimes against humanity. At the turn of the twentieth-century, the Japanese viewed their Chinese neighbours as inferior. It was the era of colonialism and powerful countries believed that they could rule nations they perceived to be inferior.
Horror In The East: Japan And The Atrocities Of World War - II
The Japanese followed the British colonialists lead and believed that they had a right to invade China. This decision was clearly immoral. After they began their unjust occupation of mainland China, the level of violence that was meted out to the native Chinese people remains incomprehensible. Japanese soldier Hajime Kondo spoke about how he killed six innocent farmers with a bayonet.
When the Japanese captured the city of Suchow in China, it left the city with only people, from a pre-war population of , Chinese soldiers were killed on the spot. The occupying forces raped thousands of innocent Chinese women. Two sixteen year olds were raped to death. There were mass shootings of innocent civilians. Unit was a notorious Japanese unit that experimented on people to develop biological weapons.
They killed up to , people during the occupation of China. Most of their victims were civilians and prisoners of war who were infected with diseases such as Tetanus, Typhoid, Syphilis and Cholera often without anaesthesia. They were stripped of their organs and female prisoners underwent forced pregnancies. They kept their test subjects in cages and often raped the women who had been infected with diseases.
After the Battle of Hong Kong in , hundreds of British soldiers surrendered but were massacred nonetheless. The ones that survived were treated to inhumane conditions. Innocent British women were raped after the Japanese took the Island. As in Suchow, the population fell from 1. In the Dutch West Indies, multiple women were raped by the Japanese army. There were British POWs at the same camp and every one of them was killed.
In New Guinea, things were even more insane. The Japanese army ran out of food supplies after one of their ships was cut off by the US. They ate one POW a week, sometimes hacking off a leg whilst the prisoner was still alive. Rees did contextualise the treatment of POWs with some numbers. Doesnt give as much detail as I hope More of a shirt history of japan then any in depth study of the madness.
The author spends tge last chapter on how such monstrosity occured and his argument backed by data made a convincing read. Over all the book was fine and performed its goal, only I would have preferred more data presenting his argument as I did not feel fully convinced by it. And much of it before the last chapter felt like a history lesson that didnt always tie up to the argument he was Doesnt give as much detail as I hope More of a shirt history of japan then any in depth study of the madness.
And much of it before the last chapter felt like a history lesson that didnt always tie up to the argument he was trying to lay out. In the end while I understood some of the mentality that led to unspeakable horrors, I still couldnt fathom how this could ever lead to cannibalism, something prevalent in the japanese army. May 06, Ivan rated it really liked it Shelves: A short, yet riveting book. Its language is simple which is good and it probably isn't a serious historical study. But neither am I a serious history person. It tells the story of World War II, specifically, events around Japan and Asia, and also features brief fragments of interviews of actual people who fought, and why did they do the horrible, as title suggests things they did.