Link: Hiroshima A-bomb survivors reflect on horror, healing

[JPT4Bama]

I read a fascinating book several years ago written by a former Australian POW during WWII called (I think) "The One Hundred Year War". It dealt with not only his internment but how Japanese culture including the Bushido code was nearly impossible for westerners to comprehend.

First of all the two languages do not translate well as Japanese has many inferences that simply are not understood by us.

For example, when the Emperor announced Japan had surrendered he actually meant "for now". He knew the military would not believe Japan would ever surrender unconditionally and unless he put it this way the fighting would continue.

In the 1960's the Japanese Ambassador asked the US for an end to certain tariffs imposed on Japanese goods, etc. The Americans said "we'll see". The Japanese took this as "no" since they would not actually use the word "no" (considered rude) and assumed we wouldn't either. So the Japanese media announced "US refuses request regarding lifting tariffs."

 

[mikes12]

I've met several veterans of the Pacific campaign. Their words would not be appropriate for this forum, but I've heard them express the wish that the US had killed every last one of them.

 

[exiledNms]

A neighbor whose lawn I mowed when I was a kid was on Bataan, & escaped. He had a Samurai sword hung over his fireplace...I asked about it, & he said "The original owner of that sword didn't want my buddy & me to leave, & we REALLY wanted to..." Even as a young kid, I understand exactly what he meant & got the significance of the sword.

Semi-related note: I highly recommend a day trip to Auschwitz, should one be near Krakow, Poland (interested place itself for very different reasons; The Polish town of "Osweciem" is a short drive away.) Walking through that gate & seeing the size of the facility created solely to kill large #s of people in a cost-efficient manner boggles the mind & causes one to think very long & hard about what one believes about mankind. You won't enjoy the visit at all; but you'll be glad you went. I've been a couple of times, & am still haunted about it...and am glad I went.

Another semi-related note: during college, I worked w/ a guy who was a POW in Germany (captured as a soldier). We talked a lot, and he always choked up reminiscing about how he & the other POWs were tasked with cleaning the bodies out of the streets of a nearby city after the night bombings.

On a lighter note, that guy spoke with a pronounced Greek accent, despite growing up in W. AL. When they were released @ the end of the war, he was the highest-ranking enlisted guy in the group & thus was the spokesman. They're walking down a road & encounter some American soldiers, who pointed rifles at them & started asking questions. The guy--in his pronounced Greek accent, remember--says "We're Americans! I'm from West Alabama!" To which the patrol leader said, "Right; if you're from west AL, how far is from Selma to Tuscaloosa?" My friend told him & gave him the road numbers. At which point the squad leader says "They ARE Americans!" & the former POWs were fed & clothed & seen about.

 

[Tidewater]

Weren't a lot more civilians killed during the fire bombings? This was the 1st war where civilians became a primary target.

of course, the Japanese treatment of Nanking - @350,000 Chinese slaughtered in eight weeks - is one of the worst displays of savagery in recorded history.

In 1258, the Mongols took Baghdad, after calling on the Caliph to surrender.
The Mongols killed all the men, and sold the women and children into slavery. Baghdad had about 1,000,000 people in 1258. A couple of decades later, it held 20,000 souls.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Semi-related note: I highly recommend a day trip to Auschwitz, should one be near Krakow, Poland (interested place itself for very different reasons; The Polish town of "Osweciem" is a short drive away.) Walking through that gate & seeing the size of the facility created solely to kill large #s of people in a cost-efficient manner boggles the mind & causes one to think very long & hard about what one believes about mankind. You won't enjoy the visit at all; but you'll be glad you went. I've been a couple of times, & am still haunted about it...and am glad I went.

The Germans had a great sense of humor. In German, "Auschwitz" means "sweat-out." The sign above the gate read "Arbeit Macht Frei." That means "Work will set you free." Once, back in the early 60s, I was speaking German with an Austrian man and mentioned that I had a cold. He looked at me and just said "auschwitzen." I did a double take and then realized that he was telling me to get rid of the cold by sweating it out. The word just had such an unpleasant association for me...

 

[Bodhisattva]

In 1258, the Mongols took Baghdad, after calling on the Caliph to surrender.
The Mongols killed all the men, and sold the women and children into slavery. Baghdad had about 1,000,000 people in 1258. A couple of decades later, it held 20,000 souls.

IIRC, the invasion was led by Hulegu (sp?), one of Genghis Khan's grandsons. The sack of Baghdad is often considered the endpoint of the Islamic Golden Age. I don't think that region has contributed much worthwhile to the world since then.

 

[92tide]

A neighbor whose lawn I mowed when I was a kid was on Bataan, & escaped. He had a Samurai sword hung over his fireplace...I asked about it, & he said "The original owner of that sword didn't want my buddy & me to leave, & we REALLY wanted to..." Even as a young kid, I understand exactly what he meant & got the significance of the sword.

Semi-related note: I highly recommend a day trip to Auschwitz, should one be near Krakow, Poland (interested place itself for very different reasons; The Polish town of "Osweciem" is a short drive away.) Walking through that gate & seeing the size of the facility created solely to kill large #s of people in a cost-efficient manner boggles the mind & causes one to think very long & hard about what one believes about mankind. You won't enjoy the visit at all; but you'll be glad you went. I've been a couple of times, & am still haunted about it...and am glad I went.

Another semi-related note: during college, I worked w/ a guy who was a POW in Germany (captured as a soldier). We talked a lot, and he always choked up reminiscing about how he & the other POWs were tasked with cleaning the bodies out of the streets of a nearby city after the night bombings.

On a lighter note, that guy spoke with a pronounced Greek accent, despite growing up in W. AL. When they were released @ the end of the war, he was the highest-ranking enlisted guy in the group & thus was the spokesman. They're walking down a road & encounter some American soldiers, who pointed rifles at them & started asking questions. The guy--in his pronounced Greek accent, remember--says "We're Americans! I'm from West Alabama!" To which the patrol leader said, "Right; if you're from west AL, how far is from Selma to Tuscaloosa?" My friend told him & gave him the road numbers. At which point the squad leader says "They ARE Americans!" & the former POWs were fed & clothed & seen about.

i dont know that i could visit one of the actual camps. i could barely make it through the holocaust museum in WDC.

 

[bama_wayne1]

From my time in Korea I learned that the resentment toward Japan is still pretty strong. The Japanese occupation was cruel - from the pointless destruction of Korean cultural artifacts to the enslavement of 200,000 Korean women.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/06/world/asia/korean-comfort-women/index.html

And, of course, the Japanese treatment of Nanking - @350,000 Chinese slaughtered in eight weeks - is one of the worst displays of savagery in recorded history.

My daughter-in-law is 1/2 Korean and her mom actually cheers while wathcing old WWII movies where Japanese are killed. She hates them today.

 

[BamaFanTraeInGeorgia]

My grandfather was a POW in WW II. He flew out of Bologna (sp) Italy, and was a nose gunner on a B24. His plane was shot down, and he was wounded. He received no medical attention until he arrived back in the states some 6 or more months later (he did not really know how long he was a POW). One of the stories he told me was that the Germans took him and several others out on a work detail once in the Spring. He found a nest of baby birds and ate all three whole. He said he was just as scared that one of his buddies would see him eating the birds as he was the Germans.

Incidentally, my grandfather never agreed with MacArthur, or the Cold War. He loved the Russians, because they were the soldiers who liberated them.

FWIW, a couple of years ago, my father sent me a link to a video on YouTube. The video link was sent to him by someone he had never heard of from somewhere in Belgium. The video contains footage from when the POW camp my grandfather was at was liberated, and shows about 5 or 6 seconds of footage of my grandfather. I have tried to contact the person who sent the email, and the one who posted the video (assuming they are different people). Neither has replied.

I also have the story written by one of the pilots of granddaddy's plane who managed to escape for a while. His story is very interesting, and should anyone want me to email it to them, just pm me and I will be glad to scan it.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

My grandfather was a POW in WW II. He flew out of Bologna (sp) Italy, and was a nose gunner on a B24. His plane was shot down, and he was wounded. He received no medical attention until he arrived back in the states some 6 or more months later (he did not really know how long he was a POW). One of the stories he told me was that the Germans took him and several others out on a work detail once in the Spring. He found a nest of baby birds and ate all three whole. He said he was just as scared that one of his buddies would see him eating the birds as he was the Germans.

Incidentally, my grandfather never agreed with MacArthur, or the Cold War. He loved the Russians, because they were the soldiers who liberated them.

FWIW, a couple of years ago, my father sent me a link to a video on YouTube. The video link was sent to him by someone he had never heard of from somewhere in Belgium. The video contains footage from when the POW camp my grandfather was at was liberated, and shows about 5 or 6 seconds of footage of my grandfather. I have tried to contact the person who sent the email, and the one who posted the video (assuming they are different people). Neither has replied.

I also have the story written by one of the pilots of granddaddy's plane who managed to escape for a while. His story is very interesting, and should anyone want me to email it to them, just pm me and I will be glad to scan it.

I'd like to read it - eself@comcast.net...

 

[Crimson1967]

Back in the early 1990s a Japanese company bought the Birmingham Barons. I didn't really care or see the big deal. But the national news sent a camera crew out to the Hoover Met to ask fans what they thought and talked to a couple of old guys who had been in WWII. They were extremely unhappy the team would be owned by the "Japs".

I wouldn't be surprised if the news people were trying to play up the "people in Alabama are racist" angle, but reading what some here have said about WWII vets who served over there, I can understand how those men felt.

 

[JPT4Bama]

Back in the early 1990s a Japanese company bought the Birmingham Barons. I didn't really care or see the big deal. But the national news sent a camera crew out to the Hoover Met to ask fans what they thought and talked to a couple of old guys who had been in WWII. They were extremely unhappy the team would be owned by the "Japs".

I wouldn't be surprised if the news people were trying to play up the "people in Alabama are racist" angle, but reading what some here have said about WWII vets who served over there, I can understand how those men felt.

You can read what one Marine from Alabama thought in "With the Old Breed" by Eugene Sledge.. Considered by many to be one of the finest books on the war in the Pacific seen throught the eyes of a young Marine from south Alabama.

The horror he describes is unforgetable.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

You can read what one Marine from Alabama thought in "With the Old Breed" by Eugene Sledge.. Considered by many to be one of the finest books on the war in the Pacific seen throught the eyes of a young Marine from south Alabama.

The horror he describes is unforgetable.

I didn't have a brother in the Pacific Theater, but I remember well when the stories started coming out. In fact, my memories go back to when I was a toddler. I think that's mainly true because of what was going on in the world when I was that young and having two brothers under arms, with blue stars hanging in the front window. Also, I guess, there were the evening prayers with the whole remaining family, on our knees by the bed, asking for them to come back whole - or just to come back, period. Of course, I could also be a PITA, asking why we needed blackout curtains, when I got them to confess that that no German or Japanese bombers could reach Decatur, AL. Must have been about four at the time. It was a long journey from the editorial cartoons of Japanese soldiers with huge buck teeth, coke bottle glasses and those leg wraps they wore on their calves, to eating sushi. I'm surprised that this is still emotional for me after all these years...

 

[jabcmb]

You can read what one Marine from Alabama thought in "With the Old Breed" by Eugene Sledge.. Considered by many to be one of the finest books on the war in the Pacific seen throught the eyes of a young Marine from south Alabama.

The horror he describes is unforgetable.

Sledge taught at the University of Montevallo and died in 2001. He was one of a tiny percentage of his unit who was not killed or wounded at Peleliu or Okinawa. His books are captivating and his experiences are almost unbelievable. He also wrote "China Marine" about his post war service in China. There are a few You Tube clips of him for those who wish to view them (Eugene B. Sledge or E.B. Sledge).

When I would come across someone who attended Montevallo I would ask them if they had Professor Sledge for any classes. They had various memories of him as quiet, strict, and demanding; but not one of them knew who he was or what he had been through until I told them. An amazing man...