IRL how much have Japanese got from conquered territories

[warspite1]

I've started reading Mukerjee's book Churchill's Secret War. I'm only on the prologue at the moment but there have been few surprises.

I think "Once upon a time" would have been a better opening line based on what came after. The woman clearly doesn't understood that, in order to make her case, she doesn't need to make pre-British Bengal sound like a fairy tale land where the Mughal rulers were paragons of virtue, no one ever went bankrupt, taxes were only paid if the peasants could afford it blah blah blah.... or maybe she does....

I have a rule that if an author or politician or salesman has to tell lies to get their point, policy or product over, then there is clearly something wrong with what they are trying to sell....

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

I've started reading Mukerjee's book Churchill's Secret War. I'm only on the prologue at the moment but there have been few surprises.

I think "Once upon a time" would have been a better opening line based on what came after. The woman clearly doesn't understood that, in order to make her case, she doesn't need to make pre-British Bengal sound like a fairy tale land where the Mughal rulers were paragons of virtue, no one ever went bankrupt, taxes were only paid if the peasants could afford it blah blah blah.... or maybe she does....

I have a rule that if an author or politician or salesman has to tell lies to get their point, policy or product over, then there is clearly something wrong with what they are trying to sell....

Write a rebuttal. I'll buy it.

[Buckrock]

Ahhh!!! Don't encourage him. If he's prepared to critique the prologue, we're in trouble.

Can't we get this thread back to a morbid subject that is less controversial, like how the Japanese treated the populations of their conquered territories.

You two can take the fun out of anything.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: warspite1

I've started reading Mukerjee's book Churchill's Secret War. I'm only on the prologue at the moment but there have been few surprises.

I think "Once upon a time" would have been a better opening line based on what came after. The woman clearly doesn't understood that, in order to make her case, she doesn't need to make pre-British Bengal sound like a fairy tale land where the Mughal rulers were paragons of virtue, no one ever went bankrupt, taxes were only paid if the peasants could afford it blah blah blah.... or maybe she does....

I have a rule that if an author or politician or salesman has to tell lies to get their point, policy or product over, then there is clearly something wrong with what they are trying to sell....

Write a rebuttal. I'll buy it.

warspite1

Nah, the more I read, the more disingenuous her arguments are and the soppier she appears. The chapter entitled "Harvesting the Colonies" is largely about Adolf Hitler and that Hitler's plans for the east were modelled on a blueprint provided by the British in India.

The rantings of this sociopath are viewed by history in the manner they should be - unless of course, according to Mukerjee, he's waxing lyrical on his view of British rule - then of course Adolf Hitler apparently becomes the font of all knowledge [8|]

Her nonsense just ruins what could have been an interesting book. This hyperbole just makes anything she says suspect.

[rustysi]

then of course Adolf Hitler apparently becomes the font of all knowledge

You mean he isn't. How disconcerting.[:D]

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: warspite1

I've started reading Mukerjee's book Churchill's Secret War. I'm only on the prologue at the moment but there have been few surprises.

I think "Once upon a time" would have been a better opening line based on what came after. The woman clearly doesn't understood that, in order to make her case, she doesn't need to make pre-British Bengal sound like a fairy tale land where the Mughal rulers were paragons of virtue, no one ever went bankrupt, taxes were only paid if the peasants could afford it blah blah blah.... or maybe she does....

I have a rule that if an author or politician or salesman has to tell lies to get their point, policy or product over, then there is clearly something wrong with what they are trying to sell....

Write a rebuttal. I'll buy it.

warspite1

Nah, the more I read, the more disingenuous her arguments are and the soppier she appears. The chapter entitled "Harvesting the Colonies" is largely about Adolf Hitler and that Hitler's plans for the east were modelled on a blueprint provided by the British in India.

The rantings of this sociopath are viewed by history in the manner they should be - unless of course, according to Mukerjee, he's waxing lyrical on his view of British rule - then of course Adolf Hitler apparently becomes the font of all knowledge [8|]

Her nonsense just ruins what could have been an interesting book. This hyperbole just makes anything she says suspect.

Max Hastings (yes, THAT Max) disagrees.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chur ... 9ff5hws39m

Quote from article

Winston Churchill told the House of Commons after Pearl Harbor in December 1941: “The great thing is that we have four-fifths of the world’s populations on our side.” This was a terminological inexactitude. It would have been more correct to say that the allies had many of the world’s peoples under their control, which was somewhat different.
A significant proportion, including many Arabs and Indians, were alienated from the allied struggle for freedom, because it included no commitment to liberate them from colonial mastery.
Even Churchill’s greatest admirers cannot escape the fact that British misgovernment of the Raj represented a blot on his wartime leadership.
“He is really not quite normal on the subject of India,” wrote Leo Amery, secretary of state for India. Churchill defied American opinion by resisting serious negotiation with Nehru’s Congress party about self-government. He wrote in his war memoirs that President Roosevelt’s commitment to this represented “an act of madness… Idealism at other people’s expense and without regard to the consequences of ruin and slaughter which fall upon millions of humble homes cannot be considered as its highest and noblest form”.

He claimed that British policy was based on a refusal to desert the Indian people in their hour of need, “leaving them to anarchy or subjugation”. He caused most of the nationalist leadership to be imprisoned for much of the war, and endorsed ruthless repressive measures in response to strikes, demonstrations and acts of sabotage. The British authorities copied Stalin’s policy in Russia by confiscating all accessible private radios to prevent disaffected Indians from listening to Axis broadcasts.
All this was narrowly defensible in the context of Britain’s struggle for survival, especially when the Japanese were at the gates. On January 21, 1942, the viceroy Lord Linlithgow reported to London: “There is a large and dangerous potential fifth column in Bengal, Assam, Bihar and Orissa, and…indeed, potentiality of pro-enemy sympathy and activity in eastern India is enormous.”
But the scandal, one of the great horrors of the war, was the 1943 Bengal famine, in which at least 1m and perhaps 3m Indians perished. In the clubs of Calcutta sahibs continued to enjoy unlimited eggs and bacon, while a few yards from their doors people died in the streets.
This is the story Madhusree Mukerjee tells in her significant and — to British readers — distressing book. A soldier of left-wing sympathies, Clive Branson, was appalled by what he found in India during war service there: “Let our imperialists boast… Never will any of us…forget the unbelievable, indescribable poverty in which we have found people living wherever we went.” If the British people knew the truth, “there would be a hell of a row — because these conditions are maintained in the name of the British”.
Bengal was especially vulnerable. Its principal source of imported rice was cut off when neighbouring Burma was occupied by the Japanese. The British confiscated or disabled most of the coastal region’s transport, including boats and bullock carts, to prevent its use by the enemy. This crippled both fishing and trade.
Much traditional crop-growing land had been turned over to jute production, vital for sandbags — indeed, India became a major source of war material for the empire. Then in November 1942 a cyclone struck today’s Bangladesh, killing 30,000 people and ravaging the countryside. As hunger began to give way to starvation, the authorities were slow to respond. Large quantities of food continued to be exported to Sri Lanka.
When the crisis was belatedly recognised and the new viceroy, Wavell, appealed to London for food aid, his repeated and increasingly urgent requests received woefully inadequate responses. He wrote: “Apparently it is more important to save the Greeks and liberated countries from starvation than the Indians and there is reluctance either to provide shipping or to reduce stocks in [Britain].”
The government pleaded the shipping shortage, which was real enough. But Mukerjee makes the telling and just point that, even at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, Churchill insisted on sustaining the British people’s rations at a level far above that prevailing in India.


To put the matter brutally, millions of Indians were allowed to starve so that available shipping — including vessels normally based in India — could be used to further British purposes elsewhere. When Churchill’s nation was engaged in a desperate struggle, perhaps this reflected strategic logic. But it made nonsense of his post-war claims about upholding the interests of the Indian people, and indeed of the whole paternalistic ethic by which the empire sought to justify itself.
Churchill wrote in March 1943, applauding the minister of war transport’s unwillingness to release ships to move relief supplies: “A concession to one country…encourages demands from all the others. [The Indians] must learn to look after themselves as we have done… We cannot afford to send ships merely as a gesture of goodwill.”
It is a ghastly story, and the book’s eyewitness accounts of the consequences for the people of Bengal make harrowing reading. Most recent western histories of the war in the east mention the famine — as earlier chronicles did not. But Mukerjee’s book offers the fullest account I have read.
She is right in asserting, passionately and bitterly, that British wartime governance of India was exploitative. Towards the end of her tale, however, I became less confident of her judgments. She suggests, for instance, that British agents might have been responsible for the 1945 plane crash that killed nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose, serving with the Japanese. British enthusiasm to eliminate Bose was not in doubt, but there is no evidence to suggest that they were smart enough to sabotage his aircraft on the far side of Asia.
Finally, she blames Churchill for the bloody 1947 partition of India. This seems a bridge too far. The old imperialist’s enthusiasm for a Muslim Pakistan is well known, as is his matching distaste for Hindus. But he was two years out of office when partition came. Its causes seem to lie deep in the subcontinent’s history and racial make-up. It is hard to make a credible case that what happened was the product of a
Churchillian conspiracy.
But the broad thrust of Mukerjee’s book is as sound as it is shocking. I have myself argued that Churchill’s disdain for the interests of black and brown peoples besmirched his awesome wartime record. If the Bengal famine arose from circumstances beyond British control, failure to relieve the starving millions — or even to be seen to care much about them — was in substantial degree our fault.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

Max Hastings (yes, THAT Max) disagrees.

warspite1

Hastings appears to be increasingly trying to stay relevant....

[anarchyintheuk]

Had edited it originally from steaming pile to moderate steaming pile. Then I realized that I had only read about 3 or 4 of his books, so I'm not really qualified to comment as to his pileishness.

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

Max Hastings (yes, THAT Max) disagrees.

warspite1

Hastings appears to be increasingly trying to stay relevant....

How so? Not read much of his work since Nemesis, which I remember as being a pretty solid book.

[adarbrauner]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Historically for oil, fuel, resources(minerals) . Anyone knows, i guess somewhere, someone might have made that calculation.

Also interesting would be to know how much they lost in transit from total.

much can be found or addessed here, by Mcarthur's commission:
https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/Mac ... h4.htm#p45

[Buckrock]

ORIGINAL: adarbrauner

much can be found or addessed here, by Mcarthur's commission:
https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/Mac ... h4.htm#p45

Yep, good old Japanese shipping issues gets a mention. It would become one of the primary reasons why they were unable to adequately exploit the resource bounty from their early war conquests.

Also interesting to read the pre-war "Estimate of Allied Strategy" by the Japanese on that linked page. It seems incredibly prescient. Admittedly though, if it was based entirely on the post-war recollections of Japanese officers, there may have been some after-the-fact adjustments in play.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

Max Hastings (yes, THAT Max) disagrees.

warspite1

Hastings appears to be increasingly trying to stay relevant....

How so? Not read much of his work since Nemesis, which I remember as being a pretty solid book.

warspite1

He seems to be increasingly 'controversial' in some of his views - always helps when trying to sell books on subjects that have been written about extensively.

As for the Mukerjee book I continue to get through it. It's such a shame; this woman has a story that needs to be told but her book isn't it. There is plenty here about the famine I don't know about and want to no more but, being set during WWII, there is also plenty I do know. So when I see basic facts being falsely presented it just makes me question what else - to do with the famine (and India generally) - is being dealt with in the same way. Interesting that, despite supposedly both being from the same side of the argument, there have already been contradictory comments between this book and some of the famine papers presented to the thread previously.

Her 'understanding' - or at least her presentation of the battles in northwest Europe in the spring and summer of 1940 gives an indication of what the book seeks to achieve. Clearly not everyone reading this book will have a proper understanding of World War II and so background and context is needed if a sensible, balanced work is to be achieved.

After explaining how Hitler had made peace overtures to the British (which they rejected) the United Kingdom had instead sent troops to defend France. No further mention of what happened but simply the following sentence "and in the summer of 1940 [Britain] had dispatched bombers over Germany, some of which dropped their payloads on residential areas". Apparently this meant that "on September 4th 1940 Hitler announced that his patience had run out: he would force the United Kingdom into submission. Starting three days later, some 200 bombers at a time, escorted by hundreds of fighters, attacked London and other towns almost every night for two months straight".

So no mention of the Battle for France, of the British being ejected from the continent or the French collapse and armistice with the Germans. no mention yet of the U-Boat war (this does come but with an interesting twist). No mention of the Battle of Britain (apart from the inference that the British provoked Hitlers' attack on them by refusing his peace overtures and then bombing German cities) and that 'it' started in September 1940. This isn't history, there is no effort to present context for what is to come. Its simply a propaganda sheet.

[Dili]

ORIGINAL: adarbrauner

ORIGINAL: Dili

Historically for oil, fuel, resources(minerals) . Anyone knows, i guess somewhere, someone might have made that calculation.

Also interesting would be to know how much they lost in transit from total.

much can be found or addessed here, by Mcarthur's commission:
https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/Mac ... h4.htm#p45

Thanks, will look into it.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: warspite1

warspite1

Hastings appears to be increasingly trying to stay relevant....

How so? Not read much of his work since Nemesis, which I remember as being a pretty solid book.

warspite1

He seems to be increasingly 'controversial' in some of his views - always helps when trying to sell books on subjects that have been written about extensively.

As for the Mukerjee book I continue to get through it. It's such a shame; this woman has a story that needs to be told but her book isn't it. There is plenty here about the famine I don't know about and want to no more but, being set during WWII, there is also plenty I do know. So when I see basic facts being falsely presented it just makes me question what else - to do with the famine (and India generally) - is being dealt with in the same way. Interesting that, despite supposedly both being from the same side of the argument, there have already been contradictory comments between this book and some of the famine papers presented to the thread previously.

Her 'understanding' - or at least her presentation of the battles in northwest Europe in the spring and summer of 1940 gives an indication of what the book seeks to achieve. Clearly not everyone reading this book will have a proper understanding of World War II and so background and context is needed if a sensible, balanced work is to be achieved.

After explaining how Hitler had made peace overtures to the British (which they rejected) the United Kingdom had instead sent troops to defend France. No further mention of what happened but simply the following sentence "and in the summer of 1940 [Britain] had dispatched bombers over Germany, some of which dropped their payloads on residential areas". Apparently this meant that "on September 4th 1940 Hitler announced that his patience had run out: he would force the United Kingdom into submission. Starting three days later, some 200 bombers at a time, escorted by hundreds of fighters, attacked London and other towns almost every night for two months straight".

So no mention of the Battle for France, of the British being ejected from the continent or the French collapse and armistice with the Germans. no mention yet of the U-Boat war (this does come but with an interesting twist). No mention of the Battle of Britain (apart from the inference that the British provoked Hitlers' attack on them by refusing his peace overtures and then bombing German cities) and that 'it' started in September 1940. This isn't history, there is no effort to present context for what is to come. Its simply a propaganda sheet.

Wasn't that "city bombing" that infuriated Hitler a single bomber damaged by flak jettisoning its bombs in the dark and happening to hit some little hamlet? Hitler was looking for a pretext to bomb cities. After all, Goering and Hitler had shown in the bombing of Guernica that they were prepared to apply General Giulio Douhet's theories about bombing cities to break morale.

[spence]

Wasn't that "city bombing" that infuriated Hitler a single bomber damaged by flak jettisoning its bombs in the dark and happening to hit some little hamlet? Hitler was looking for a pretext to bomb cities. After all, Goering and Hitler had shown in the bombing of Guernica that they were prepared to apply General Giulio Douhet's theories about bombing cities to break morale.

My understanding of the sequence of events was that a German bomber squadron assigned to attack some "strategic target" got lost at night and suddenly came under fire from AAA, that it jettisoned its bombs, bombs which ended up falling in some part of London; that British retaliated by bombing Berlin the following night and that Hitler subsequently declared that the Luftwaffe would wipe out UK cities starting the first major daylight raids on London a few days later.

I have to admit that this sequence is primarily taken from the 70's movie "Battle of Britain" but I also recall that the Luftwaffe had a special unit (IIRC KG 100) that specialized in night bombing, that they were also experimenting with a radio direction system to would guide bombers to a particular strategic target at night or in bad weather and that at some point that system was successfully used (that ultimately a similar system was used by all belligerents). I don't know if the particular German unit which was supposed to attack some strategic target in the initial "attack" on London was trying to use the radio directional system or not.

When WW2 started cities were not directly targeted because all of the belligerents felt correctly, that they would be unable to defend their cities from retaliation bombing. Guernica stood out as an example of what bombers could do to a city (especially when the other side doesn't have the ability to retaliate) but since both the British/French and the Germans had "lots" of bombers everybody stood down from bombing cities for a while. Once cities became targets though a there was spiraling series of retaliations by both sides.

[Jaroen]

ORIGINAL: spence

Wasn't that "city bombing" that infuriated Hitler a single bomber damaged by flak jettisoning its bombs in the dark and happening to hit some little hamlet? Hitler was looking for a pretext to bomb cities. After all, Goering and Hitler had shown in the bombing of Guernica that they were prepared to apply General Giulio Douhet's theories about bombing cities to break morale.

When WW2 started cities were not directly targeted because all of the belligerents felt correctly, that they would be unable to defend their cities from retaliation bombing. Guernica stood out as an example of what bombers could do to a city (especially when the other side doesn't have the ability to retaliate) but since both the British/French and the Germans had "lots" of bombers everybody stood down from bombing cities for a while. Once cities became targets though a there was spiraling series of retaliations by both sides.

Nothing to take away from the argument but Germany was already city bombing right from the beginning of the war. I remember reading about the surprise with the German staff with the apparent decisiveness of bombing Warsaw and Rotterdam. There was substance to the argument that massive city bombing would weaken the fighting spirit of a nation. Right from the start of the war. And up to the Battle of Brittain it was almost proven that the bomber would get through. Hindsight tells us it was many other circumstances leading to Germany's early success with city bombing, like weak opponents and no predicting (radar) sudden bomber attacks. Anyway, that got nothing to do with the Bangladesh famine . . . On that subject I think the wikipedia does hand an 'open' (honest?) description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: spence

Wasn't that "city bombing" that infuriated Hitler a single bomber damaged by flak jettisoning its bombs in the dark and happening to hit some little hamlet? Hitler was looking for a pretext to bomb cities. After all, Goering and Hitler had shown in the bombing of Guernica that they were prepared to apply General Giulio Douhet's theories about bombing cities to break morale.

My understanding of the sequence of events was that a German bomber squadron assigned to attack some "strategic target" got lost at night and suddenly came under fire from AAA, that it jettisoned its bombs, bombs which ended up falling in some part of London; that British retaliated by bombing Berlin the following night and that Hitler subsequently declared that the Luftwaffe would wipe out UK cities starting the first major daylight raids on London a few days later.

I have to admit that this sequence is primarily taken from the 70's movie "Battle of Britain" but I also recall that the Luftwaffe had a special unit (IIRC KG 100) that specialized in night bombing, that they were also experimenting with a radio direction system to would guide bombers to a particular strategic target at night or in bad weather and that at some point that system was successfully used (that ultimately a similar system was used by all belligerents). I don't know if the particular German unit which was supposed to attack some strategic target in the initial "attack" on London was trying to use the radio directional system or not.

When WW2 started cities were not directly targeted because all of the belligerents felt correctly, that they would be unable to defend their cities from retaliation bombing. Guernica stood out as an example of what bombers could do to a city (especially when the other side doesn't have the ability to retaliate) but since both the British/French and the Germans had "lots" of bombers everybody stood down from bombing cities for a while. Once cities became targets though a there was spiraling series of retaliations by both sides.

There is one very nice book (wholeheartedly recommended):


Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain
by Len Deighton

https://www.amazon.com/Fighter-True-Sto ... hton+books


He is best known for his thrillers but I have all his history books as well!


Leo "Apollo11"