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When it comes to Memorial Day, some would rather forget what happened.

From today's NYT:
"Since the war ended, the Japanese government has either ignored or denied efforts by American former prisoners of war to obtain compensation or an apology. Japanese companies have sought to suppress historical documentation of forced P.O.W. labor ..."

LESTER TENNEY survivied the Bataan Death March, a "hell ship" and performed forced labor in an IJ coal mine so dangerous that some natives refused to work there.

"... The death rate for the Allied prisoners of Japan in World War II was 27 percent, far greater than the rate for British and American soldiers in German captivity, about 4 percent."

Of 8,000 Australian POWs taken by German and Italian captors, 265 died
Of 22,000 Australian POWs taken by the Japanese, 8,000 died during the war (36%), and many others died early of mistreatment in POW camps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_h ... ers_of_war
http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/statistics/world_wars.asp

Japanese National Policy since 1950 seems to have been "If we pretend it didn't happen long enough, everybody who can say different will die."  Looks like they may get away with it...

And the question is... why the Americans (occupation army after all) didn't do what they did in Germany (the denazification thing)? [;)]

Can you imagine a German saying after 1945 "lies, tons of lies, we weren't that bad"? In fact, some Germans did that. But everyone knew they were/are lunatics.

But "being a lunatic" (well, "revisionist" is the correct term) in Japan is the official doctrine. The US are partially responsible, sorry. The parallel German example is contundent [;)]

As I see it, as long as that generation is alive, they have to remember their many crimes... They must swallow all of these well founded accusations. Especially when revisionism is their main tactic...

ORIGINAL: Minedog

... Of 22,000 Australian POWs taken by the Japanese, 8,000 died during the war (36%), and many others died early of mistreatment in POW camps.

I regret that the NYT omitted that.

Omission can be a crime in itself.  In the effort not to offend various groups or countries the ones who suffered are yet again punished.

Did you know that when the Smithsonian Museum was going to do up a display about Hiroshima the Japanese government protested? 

Do you remember the old Sony Beta tape decks?  The included instruction book walked you through how to set the date using December 7 as the example. 

The one's who perpetrated atrocities got away with it for the most part.  After all the Holocost never happened?

The Japanese were never really taken to task for the many things they did that a supposedly civilized society doesn't do.

ORIGINAL: Minedog

Of 8,000 Australian POWs taken by German and Italian captors, 265 died
Of 22,000 Australian POWs taken by the Japanese, 8,000 died during the war (36%), and many others died early of mistreatment in POW camps.

The survival rate of Russian POWs in German captivity was something else. I think they would have wished for conditions as favorable as those Australians in Japanese captivity got. And to top it, those who survived in most cases disappeared into Stalin's GULAG postwar because they were clearly traitors if they had let themselves be captured.

Of course, it was no fun at all to be a German in Soviet captivity, either, except if you worked publicly for the German communists (but few got that chance).

The Nazis and the Western Allies were kept reasonably honest in the mutual application of the Geneva Convention concerning POWs because of the likelihood of reciprocal retaliation (at least until Germany had capitulated and all Allied POWs had been liberated).