Doesn't Anyone Know the real truth about the Japanese in WWII?

Question

The Japanese Government bombed America because they had enough of America pushing them around. Like back then when America had guns and ran into Japan demanding things and shooting the Japanese. Then the stupid president just bombs a ton of Japanese cities and kills hundreds of thousands of civilans who had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor and the Japanese Government is unharmed. So could someone explain to me why nobody knows this??

Answer 1

Well you are correct that the United States did take some bully tactics with Japan.  Sailing our navy into their harbors and essentially forcing them to trade with us wasn't the nicest of things to do.

However, you are incorrect in your other assumptions.  Japan had been making attacks against civilians in the United States long before the dropping of the atomic bombs.  They would tie small explosive devices to balloons and send them sailing across the Pacific.  The idea was that they would, eventually, reach the West Coast of the U.S. and possibly kill someone.  Some did make it, though I've never seen any account that they caused any casualties.

At the point in the war that the U.S. decided to drop THE bombs, there were no more Japanese civilians.  If the home islands were invaded it was expected that all citizens would fight.  As the U.S. forces got closer to mainland Japan fighting became more and more fierce, the Japanese started using kamakazi tactics.  We all know about the pilots, but were you aware of manned torpedoes?

It is estimated that American casualties would have been in excess of a million had we attempted a conventional invaision of Japan.  The losses on the Japanese side would have been even higher.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because they were isolated and the landscape was such that radioactive fallout would be contained to a small area.  

In the end, the United States made the decision that the dropping of these bombs, while devestating, would save lives in the long run.

Answer 2

"The Japanese Government bombed America because they had enough of America pushing them around." - America's very mild 'pushing them around' was a response to Japanese military aggression in China. This aggression was undertaken against the will of the Japanese civilian government itself by conspiracies within the Japanese military. These conspirators were arrogant fascists who had no defensible case for their actions. It also raises the question of why respond to alleged US 'pushing around' by raping Chinese women.

"Like back then when America had guns and ran into Japan demanding things and shooting the Japanese."  - You mean Perry? Yes, the US did open Japan to outside influence and trade at gunpoint, but Japan turned this to advantage, avoided being colonised, absorbed Western ways, and became a military power. Hardly something to complain about. There were very few casualties as a result of this and many of them were Europeans murdered by Japanese, which is why Japan remains insular to this day.

"Then the stupid president just bombs a ton of Japanese cities and kills hundreds of thousands of civilans who had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor and the Japanese Government is unharmed." - During the 1930s control of Japan was taken over by fascists in the military, who completely usurped peaceful civilians. Politicians and moderates within the military were assassinated again and again in conspiracies organised by those who led Japan into WW2.  And all this was INCREDIBLY POPULAR with the Japanese population who loved the easy victories over China and the idea of the world quaking before them. There were large rallies in support of attacks on China.

It is completely fitting that this population reaped what it sowed in 1944-45. It's all about taking responsibility for your actions, or inactions.

The irony of your question is that very few Japanese today learn about what their country did in World War 2, and the Rape of Nanking was almost completely unknown until the 1980s. Unlike Germany, Japan has never confronted its past. Could you explain to me why this might be?

Answer 3

The reason is, because that is not what happened. There were not a 'ton of Japanese cities' bombed. Truman authorized only two cities as targets and by doing so, he saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

In every war, it is the combatants who bear the brunt of the battles, along with civilians who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were thousands of civilian casualties in England during the n**i bomb raids - civilians who had nothing to do with the war and were just trying to get along as best they could. Governments don't take a vote on whether to go to war or not - they simply make a unilateral decision and the entire country is committed, whether that is what they want or not.  

Answer 4

When did America push Japan around?  Are you saying America invaded Japan before Pearl Harbor?  The president finally bombed Japan because they would not stop.  They would never have surrendered and a whole lot more lives would have been lost if the fighting continued.  Probably more Japanese would have lost their lives in continued fighting than were killed with the Atomic Bomb, but it definitely saved a lot of American lives.  That's the long answer.  The first lady gave a well-put short answer though.

Answer 5

Others here have provided some very good answers pointing out the incorrectness of the foundation of your question.

I suggest that you revisit the source(s) that provided the incorrect information for your question.  Whatever they are they are suspect as to both the validity and motivation of what they have been feeding you.

Answer 6

Possibly because it's - um - nonsense?

Document sources, please.

Answer 7

I see someone needs to go back an learn your history.  Sounds like you've been watching too many Michael Moore movies.

Answer 8

Because it's absolute garbage, that's why. The part where you talk about "back then when America had guns and ran into Japan demanding things and shooting the Japanese". That's completely bogus. We went to Japan to open up trade relations. They had been isolated for hundreds of years. They bombed us (Pearl Harbor) and when we started bombing their cities it was because we realized it was that, or go in on the ground killing every single one of them. We had to make them want Tojo (the ruler) to end the war. And eventually the emperor had to step in and do it.

Answer 9

Your rant is more amusing than accurate.

It would take many, many pages to list the atrocities committed by the Japanese military in WWII, but I'll give you just a few.  The Japanese followed up their 1931 conquest of Manchuria by attacking the rest of China in 1937 without reason or provocation, and shortly engaged in the rapefest and slaughter at Nanking which saw countless women raped then murdered by Japanese soldiers, wholesale slaughter of civilians in the streets and a civilian Chinese death toll of over 300,000 in six weeks.  Unit 731 of the Japanese Army engaged in experimental germ warfare against the Chinese civilian population.  Routine beheadings of prisoners, often followed by eating the liver of the murdered prisoner.  Korea was conquered in 1909 and thousands of Korean men were taken as slave laborers to work on fortifying Japanese held islands all over the Pacific.  When these islands were invaded these Korean men were forced to fight with the Japanese and practically none lived to get home.  Hundreds of thousands of Korean women were taken and forced to work in brothels for the enjoyment of the Japanese military, and in 1991 the Japanese government finally made a half-mumbled and wholly insincere apology to these "comfort women".  The Bataan Death March and countless atrocities all over the Philippines during the occupation.  When the Americans returned Japanese Marines forced a fight for Manila, a location which has absolutely no military significance whatsoever, and which the US had declared an "open city", hoping to spare the civilians, whom the Japanese would not allow to leave.  The result was 100,000 dead Filipinos.

I could go on and on and on, but what would be the point since you already think you know everything?  I will say that the difference between the Germans and the Japanese is that the Germans are ashamed of their war criminals, while the Japanese have the names of theirs inscribed in the Yasakuni Shrine.  A man who ate an Australian's liver served in the Japanese cabinet.

Japan attacked the US because the US had embargoed oil sales to the Japanese, in an effort to force them to stop the slaughter in China.  This left the Japanese without a source of oil, and they had only an eighteen month supply on hand.  Rather than give up their dream of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" - which was a Japanese-dominated Asia and Pacific, they chose to attack the East Indies for the oil there, and made a preemptive attack on the US to destroy the US ability to interfere with this new conquest.

Before you go trying to defend the monstrous WWII Japanese activities, you might ask the Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Burmese, Laotians and other Asians what they think of them, and whether they were grateful that someone came along and freed them from this atrocious abomination.

The Japanese-American war was lost to Japan after June 1942, but they did not stop or seek a surrender.  Pages from Tojo's diary released just last week show that he wanted to fight on, even after the nuclear bombings, because he did not give a d**n how many of his own people died in his mad war.  Most people who bother to acquaint themselves with the facts realize that the nuclear bombings SAVED LIVES, as the Japanese were arming women, children and the elderly in the home islands with bamboo spears so they could try to stab an invading American before they would, inevitably, be killed.  Plans were on the table for the invasion of the first of the Home Islands, and projections were for one million American casualties.  It was assumed that ALL the Japanese would have to be killed, as, even if they were disposed to surrender, their government and Emperor-worshiping religion would not allow it.

I suppose your reference to "Like back then when America had guns and ran into Japan demanding things and shooting the Japanese" refers to Commodore Perry "opening" Japan to trade with the rest of the world in 1853.  Youve obviously seen "The Last Samurai" once too often.  Its news to everyone who has ever lived on this planet between then and now that "America had guns and ran into Japan demanding things and shooting the Japanese".

Of course you dont seem like the sort who lets mere facts get in the way of some good old-fashioned irrational hatred.

Answer 10

I think someone needs to study a little Japanese history, starting with the invasion of China and the Rape of Nanking in 1937.  (The US and Japan were not fighting militarily until 1941, after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.)

Essentially, everything you've claimed is backwards.  Japan was an imperial aggressor over that period, was an ally of the Axis (n**i) powers in Europe, and attacked the US because the US cut off exports of the scrap metal and oil that Japan was using to run its war machine.  Japan reacted by taking the oil fields in Indonesia and trying to wipe out the US naval power in the area.  The nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a last-ditch attempt to force Japan to surrender without a full-scale invasion of the main island and killing a large fraction of the population (since they were all told that death in the service of the Emperor was better than surrender).