THE NOT-SO-FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST
January 2nd, 2009 From
>From: “John Forester”
>To:
>Subject: Re: THE NOT-SO-FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST
>Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 10:18:22 -0800
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>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
> I have several sets of second-hand experiences of WW II by > which to refer
>to the controversy about the nuclear bombing of Japan and about Japanese
>war guilt generally. I knew Germans, both Nazi and non-Nazi (I won’t say
>anti-Nazi, because they were too afraid to do anything against the regime).
>I knew one woman who cowered in a Berlin cellar while the Russians and
>Germans fought it out overhead. The German army fought to the bitter end in
>a house-to-house battle in Berlin, but they fought skilfully and according
>to the accepted logic of war, even though they reached down to the
>thirteen-year-olds as the last reserves thrown into action. German
>civilians simply surrendered and were glad to be out of the fighting. On
>the other hand, the Japanese, who were much weaker than the Germans in most
>resources, fought to the death with fanatical urgency and their civilians
>committed suicide rather than surrender. Tarawa was bad enough. Okinawa
>demonstrated that the Japanese public was as fanatical as the Japanese
>military. I knew one person who had been liberated from Japanese
>imprisonment in the Phillipines, and that had been nasty. Other reports of
>Japanese atrocities were also known before August, 1945. The Japanese
>treated correctly those who belonged to their society, and ignored the
>rights of those who did not.
>
> With this kind of knowledge, it was most reasonable to > predict that the
>defense of the Japanese home islands would be comparable to the defense of
>Okinawa and to the German defense of Berlin, at least as long as Japanese
>military supplies held out. Such a war does not need many of what Japan was
>most short of, such as fuel for mobility and air attack; it needs small
>arms and fanaticism to cause great casualties while suffering even more.
>The nuclear bombs caused no more damage to warmaking potential than did the
>bombing of other Japanese cities; they just did it with one planeload
>instead of requiring thousands. The Japanese still resisted, and should be
>considered to still resist if directly attacked on their home islands. With
>these conclusions, the use of nuclear bombs was a reasonable necessity to
>avoid a greater number of casualties on both sides.
>
> I have another second-hand recollection that contradicts > the above. My
>father was among the first, perhaps the first, Allied person allowed to
>travel away from the Toyko-Yokohama area after the surrender. It was
>thought that he might be in danger, traveling with only a Japanese driver,
>not even a proper interpreter. He got along fine with the Japanese that he
>met, many of whom had never seen a caucasian before, persuading them to
>sell him eggs, fruit, and vegetables for the navy mess of which he was a
>civilian member. They wanted to give him the food, but he insisted on
>paying, as he should have for many reasons. When he returned to the States,
>he wrote to several of his friends that if he were to tell the true story
>of his travels he would be thought to have turned pro-Jap. So, perhaps, the
>Japanese home islands would not have been defended in the fanatical manner
>of Okinawa, but there was no means of predicting that at the time, nor even
>to reasonably state, now, that it would not have happened. War within one’s
>homeland raises up all sorts of nationalistic emotions, and the Japanese
>were distinctly nationalistic. It may be that only the influence of the
>Emperor made the occupation peaceful; again, something about which we can
>never be sure.
>
>John Forester 408-734-9426
>forester@johnforester.com 726 Madrone Ave
>http://www.johnforester.com Sunnyvale, CA 94086-3041
>
>
>———-
> > From: TMOliver
> > To: mahan@microworks.net
> > Subject: Re: THE NOT-SO-FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST
> > Date: Sunday, 14 December, 1997 11:11 AM
> >
> > Louis R. Coatney wrote:
> > >
> > > > Jonathan Gingerich wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > Which is *exactly* what Jonathan Spence is doing, Jonathan.
> > >
> > > > but those numbers seem way off. Jonathan
> > > > Spence in his history of China says 20,000 rape victims many
>murdered,
> > > > 30,000 executed soldiers, 12,000 murdered civilians. Notably absent
> > > > was any comparison to CCP killings… >>
> > >
> > > The American intellectual/academic Left … in its ongoing attack on
> > > America’s (use of the) nuclear weapon/deterrent and military
> > > establishment, generally … has not only attacked the justification
> > > for the atom bombings … minimizing what the human holocaust of
> > > a U.N. assault on the home islands would be, for example … but in
> > > a few cases has even attempted to question and/or de-emphasize the
> > > bestial — un-negotiable, you see — fanaticism of the World War II
> > > Japanese fascists. (Snippage)
> > > There have been academic/intellectual “missions” — intellectual
> > > diplomats, you see — by American Hiroshima revisionist
> > > historians which have supported … instigated? … Japanese
> > > historians’ call on American historians to “reassess” the atom
> > > bombings … i.e., blame Americans for the nuclear holocausts,
> > > rather than the Japanese fanatics whose refusal to surrender
> > > necessitated them … shifting the weight of war-guilt off of the
> > > lid on the A-bomb-sealed tomb of Imperial Japanese militarism.
> > >
> > (Vast snippage for length)
> >
> > Lou’s comments are well considered (and well received, at least by me).
> >
> > Secondhand personal experience provides much of my perspective, formed
> > by a childhood spent at my father’s knee. He had spent several WWII
> > years running a field hospital for the CHINAT army and had little regard
> > for Japanese sensitivities. Detached in late 1941 from a unit in transit
> > to the Phillipines (from captivity only a few returned) and sent to
> > China (where his profession brought him into contact with vivid examples
> > of the activities of the ambassadors of the Greater East Asian
> > Coprosperity Sphere), he harbored extreme ill will toward Japan. Until
> > his death in 1982, he refused to purchase a Japanese auto, complained if
> > required to ride in one, attempted with some success to avoid the
> > purchase of Japanese products, eschewed sushi and sukiyaki and even
> > things described as “tempura”, and planned carefully any travel to the
> > Orient to avoid landings in Japan.
> >
> > His anecdotes provided ample justification for his attitude, and he
> > maintained strong opinion that even with nuclear attack on two of its
> > cities, the fire-bombing of Tokyo, and the damage from other air
> > attacks, the sum of destruction to (and casualties within) the Japanese
> > home islands had been relatively light compared to Germany, and far too
> > light in view of Japanese military and civilian conduct abroad. Perhaps
> > his attitudes and remarks represented “extremism”. Certainly cutting
> > short a Hawaiian vacation because of the number of Japanese tourists may
> > have indicated a certain level of irrational reaction. But for him,
> > memory was real, vivid, and not dulled by the passage of half a century.
> >
> > National blame/guilt for atrocities ought not always to be apportioned
> > by total numbers or comparisons. The levels of systematic application
> > and breadth of occurrence may also form determinate indicators.
> >
> > —
> > “A little learning is a dangerous thing,
> > But more is inevitably catastrophic!”
> >