My grandpa, Hank Gorder, flew the last mission of WWII as an engineer on The Boomerang. You can read about it in a book entitled “The Last Mission” by Jim B. Smith, the pilot. The History Channel even made a two hour-long documentary about it by the same title. Miss you, grandpa, and all your stories about the war.
My father was a radar operator on the B-29 named the Georgia Peach, in 58th Bomb Wing, 468th Bomb Group, 793rd Bomb Squadron. He said all his bomber crew decided to die in a plane crash rather than bail out and be captured, if their B-29 was ever damaged enough not to make it back after a mission. They knew how awful the Japanese treated captured US airmen.
My mom was a teenager in Tokyo during this time. She said her neighbors joked you could set your watch according to the arrival of B29s. A Firestorm blew towards their house but they prayed and the wind changed direction, saving only her house.
My Father flew over Japan 6 or 7 times in 1945 (only 3 times during the war). He always said that when remains are sent back to the US it's just a handful dirt from the execution site.
@@MrChopsticktech I recall about 3 times ... my Dad would only talk about it if there was a news article on TV about Japan returning the "bones" of bomber crews.
My dad was a navigator on a B29 and flew many missions to Japan. They also flew very low level flights to lay mines in Japanese harbors. They got a letter from the Navy for that effort.
Referring to the Geneva Convention, it's clearly a war crime. No intention to excuse anybody about a war crime but we might consider also that if you are bombing civilians using incendiary bombs and then you bail out just over the people you were killing in a horrible way just minutes before ... don't expect too much empathy, whatever are the conventions. Just to put things in perspective, keep in mind that war is hell and everybody always uses to consider the bad actions from the ennemy as horrible and unacceptable while all what is done on our side is at worst justified. God is on "our" side, as Bob Dylan was singing ...
What a horrific story! The thought of those airmen being executed, especially by beheading, angers me. Add to that the reality that the men directly responsible were not executed is an insult and an act of disrespect to those airmen. Regardless of the feeling this story generated in me, I believe stories like this MUST be told! Anything that will help younger generations appreciate the sacrifices our military men and women make, or knowingly might have to make, is vital. Thank you for the continued good work you are doing! I look forward to your next episode!
@@Jimpiedepimpie you know they started it right? Have you heard of the Rape of Nanking? And the thousands of other atrocities committed in the name of the Emperor before the Japanese mainland was ever targeted? The Japanese aren’t the victims in this.
My Dad was called back to active service in July 1950, right after the start of the Korean War, and soon flew close-air-support (CAS) missions in a P-51 Mustang around the Pusan Perimeter. These were dark and very desperate times. My Dad once asked what to expect if he was shot down and captured by the advancing North Koreans, and was simply told: "Don't". Many of my Dad's friends and comrades were lost on these missions and he was very lucky to have survived. He once told me that you never want to bail out over the people that you have just bombed, and as a Caucasian, you never want to be captured by an Asian adversary.
And you can thank Gen. Douglas MacArthur for the lenient sentences given the Japanese war criminals because of his policies the Japanese were not properly punished for war crimes against allied soldiers . MacArthur literally turned his back on the allied servicemen that died and those that survived the horrible treatment from the Japanese all for politics . And they gave him a Medal of Honor and for what , abandoning his men in the Philippines and his nickname was dugout Doug .
The same thing happened (in parallel) in W. Germany: the U.S. elite wanted it that way. Read about John McCloy, I.G. Farben, the J.P. Morgan dynasty and Konrad Adenauer's 'amnesty' that saw almost all jailed war criminals released by 1958
I read a story about mcarthur once and they were talking about his father. The author said the father was the most arrogant man he ever knew. Until he met the son.
Not saying anything about right and wrong but I think there was a great deal of war fatigue in the US by the time war ended. I think what happened regarding war crimes reflected this fatigue.
We did what you wanted to do to the Japanese in Iraq. Everyone from politicians to school teachers , generals to privates in the army during Saddam's time were fired and forbidden from rejoining society. Turned what should've been a few months war into a decade long one. Moralizing is irrational, peace must be made and "defeated enemies" must be given opportunities or they won't stop fighting.
The picture at 10:22 is of Australian Special Forces radio operater Leonard Siffleet about to be beheaded by Yasuno Chikao on 24 October 1943 along with two other Australian prisoners.
The Japanese cartoon movie " Graveyard of the Fireflies" is about two children in Japan during the bombings. I was surprised how they made it seem as though they were the victims and the Americans were the bad guys. Japan does not teach their children much about what they did in WW2. My father was an antiaircraft gunner on a destroyer, (sent to the Pacific since his mother was German) and they all knew what would happen to them if they were captured. He never forgave the Japanese
In the movie they're just civilians caught in events they don't understand, they're even children. From the civilian pov, the bad guys will be the people bombing them. I'm french, and my grandparents who were children at the time told me they were more afraid of allied bombers than they were of german soldiers. In fact they didn't saw a lot of germans during occupation, what they mainly remember of the war is the allies bombing their town. However it's true that Japan doesn't teach its people properly about its crimes during the war, unlike Germany where people are very aware of the horrors of nazism
Being executed would have been a more merciful fate if you could believe it. There are some reports that downed US airmen had been turned over to the notorious Unit 731 and were dissected alive without any anesthesia.
The airmen in the documentary were killed just some days before the downfall of the Japanese empire. So if some insane Jap office wouldn't have gone crazy for "revenge" and after the executions also killed the witnesses on the last day of war, all of those men could have survived and lived a long life. That's the tragic of this story. But of course they are other gruesome and brutal stories waiting to be told.
@@telekommandant but the Japanese officers all got out of prison in ten years or less. The big sentences were announced for press coverage, but never carried out. A metaphor for the whole Japanese peace. They got a pass the German leaders did not.
What awful way to die , knowing that the treatment to POWs from our part was completely different. I was in the ARMY I always thought if any time I get into combat “ not Mercy to the enemy “
Very interesting and sad, no one wins in wartime, the people being bombed into submission on the ground or the aircrews lost, such a terrible episode in human history.
Not a episode, normal for the US. In my country Vietnam you dropped 480.000 tons of napalm and as much phosphorous bombs + agent orange you killed millions of inocents. 100s of thousands of children incinerated alive. ..that is the tradgedy you never learn
It’s incredible how the Japanese education system doesn’t teach stuff like these and if they do talk about their involvement in WW2, they say that they were victims and that they were forced to become an Empire and do all that horrible stuff in Manchuria because of the European Great Powers. How are they gonna learn from their errors if they don’t admit that they committed them?
If you ever want to see the Japanese Historical Narrative on the war, go to the Yasukuni Shrine in Toyko. They allow westerners but do not allow pictures in some places where the Japanese perspective is written.
It is approximated that 200,000 men, women & children were killed when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki - alone. That figure doesn't include subsequent deaths from burns &/or radiation sickness. Neither does it include the losses from other raids on other cities of the Japanese mainland. The relatively small number of combatant aircrew, prisoners or not, killed in retaliation pails in to insignificance in comparison. The British RAF's fire bombing of German cities was another 'crime' of near equal proportion. These were servicemen that chose to be where they were, do what they did.
That is in fact a pilot from New Zealand, he was shot down in his F-6 Hellcat and he along with a number of other aircrewmen were murdered after the surrender. One of the Japanese photographers had kept rolls of film that were confiscated and developed and none of them made it back to Japan, they were executed, summarily.
So it’s illegal to kill the enemy who was literally just previously killing the people of your country? How many people died from the incendiary bombs that were dropped? As far as the entire war in the first place; like all wars; it was just a waste of many lives because of the governments of the countries that were involved. War is absurd and ridiculous.
I don't condone the actions of the Japanese, but put yourself in the shoes of any one of them, who lost his entire family in a fire bombing... I would not expect mercy either.
Oh, I don't know, pictures of japanese soldiers bayonetting chinese babies, the cowardly attack on hawaii, the bataan death march, japanese officers EATING american soldiers, keeping foreign women as rape slaves, gruesome science experiments, convincing local populations of islanders to jump to their death while american soldiers tried to stop them. . . . all comes to mind. I feel no pity for the japanese people of that time. Those war criminals were their husbands, their sons, their nephews, their cousins.
Yep, I agree. As disgusted as I am at these atrocities, I can't imagine I'd take too kindly to someone raining fire on my town. I am a veteran and I sure have no empathy for my enemies, I think one has to be careful when disappearing down the rabbit hole of what is and what isn't abhorrent in war, it is usually decided by the victors who is a war criminal and who just acted in just retribution.
did we forget about the fire bombings in Europe where this approach was developed? did we forget about the human testing Japan did in China? close to as bad as the German camps.
I will never question the heroic acts of soldiers from any nation. But I will always questions the one's that bring us to war for their financial gain. And to keep the peoples of earth fighting amongst ourselves instead of the leaders that bring us to that point. They are the real villains and always have been.
Exactly! Such an irrational response towards those complicit in your civilian population enduring saturation firebombings and the first and second use of nuclear bombs - bombs harnessing the power of the Sun. Completely irrational and dishonourable.
@@CM-1488 While sad it was necessary, Japan production was mainly focused in the home stead. And also the predicted death from the invasion of Japan would of been much greater. While it was sad it was the best of two horrible options. What makes what the officer did wrong is that the war had ended when he ordered the execution. It would be like America dropping another bomb even though peach had been reached.
@CM And what about the Japanese dropping barrels full of disease ridden ticks and fleas onto Chinese civilians? They had opened that door, and were reaping what they had sown.
@@CM-1488 soldiers should respect other soldiers when captured, these airmen didn’t make decisions about bombing, the japanese disgraced themselves by treating pow’s this way
One side droped incendiary bombs especialy for killing civilian population, and other side beheaded pilots in vendetta act. Small quiz. Who did war crimes?
The entire war was replete with war crimes committed on all sides. Pointing fingers 80 years after the fact does Jack shit. Learning the lessons and making sure that it never happens again is the only real way to move forward.
I don’t know how many of us are second gen Japanese Americans here. But it’s so eerie listening to my grandpas stories of the fire bombings as a child and now to hear the opposing perspective on TH-cam. From my grandpas (both sides) POV, the first thing you hear isn’t the air raid sirens, it’s the ominous buzzing of all those B29’s approaching Tokyo, and then you hear the sirens. They both (both grandpas) hid in the bunkers and obviously survived all the bombings or else I, nor my parents, would be here. When he came out of the bunker, the things he saw people screaming “it’s hot! It’s hot! Mamma help, It’s hot!” And they go jumping into the near by river. The river turned red… blood red -he told me. He told me that he saw charred bodies everywhere too. And screaming kids with their faces melting off…. Horrifying stuff… My grandpa, specifically my maternal side, said the him and his neighbors dug holes in their backyards to keep all their belongings, money and food. It miraculously survived the fires. (Note, this is just one of many times my grandpas and probably grandparents in general, had to deal with the fire bombings.) I have a lot to say, I will if anyone wants to read my retellings of my grandparents war stories as in their knowledge of war is important. Even if they weren’t military.
I will try to provide a moment of levity here. My great-uncle George Witty was Chief Engineer on Three Feathers, then Lil’ Herbert (444 BG/676 Squadron). He kept a journal, which he was expressly not to do. In one entry (paraphrased from memory) he says they were prohibited from bombing the Imperial Palace. MacArthur has said he will ride Hirohito’s white horse on the streets of Tokyo after the war. If the Emperor’s horse was at the Imperial Stables tonight MacArthur won’t be riding it! By the summer of 1945 there were few known military targets remaining.
I saw that photo taken just prior to execution many years ago. Never forgot how it so poignantly reflects the ruthlessness of war. Even the angle at which the soldier has positioned his sword in relation to the American prisoner's head and neck . It appears that the poor guy is going to get split down the center of his skull rather than a decapitation. Very disturbing; very insightful. Thanks for another good one.
The soldier about to be executed was Leonard Siffleet an Australian Special Forces radio operator, sent on a mission to Papua New Guinea to establish a coast watching station. In September 1943, his patrol was sent to Japanese-held New Guinea, to recon the Japanese forces stationed there. Siffleet and two other Australian soldiers were captured by local natives and turned over to the Japanese. All three men were interrogated, tortured, and confined for approximately two weeks before being taken down to Aitape Beach on the afternoon of 24 October 1943. Bound and blindfolded, surrounded by Japanese and native onlookers, they were forced to the ground and executed by beheading, on the orders of Vice-Admiral Michiaki Kamada of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The officer who executed Siffleet, Yasuno Chikao, detailed a private to photograph him in the act. At the end of the war, Chikao was captured, tried for war crimes, and sentenced to be hanged; his sentence was commuted to ten years imprisonment, and upon completion of his sentence, he returned to Japan. The execution of prisoners by beheading was not an uncommon practice by the Japanese. Under the code of Bushido that the Japanese military conformed to at the time, the act of beheading a captured enemy actually restored some lost honour to the foe, since warriors were considered dishonoured if they allowed themselves to be captured alive. In the eyes of the Bushido adherents, this “dishonourable surrender” justified the terrible treatment captured Allied prisoners received at the hands of the Japanese. The photograph of code of Bushido that the Japanese military conformed to at the time, the act of beheading a captured enemy actually restored some lost honour to the foe, since warriors were considered dishonoured if they allowed themselves to be captured alive. In the eyes of the Bushido adherents, this “dishonourable surrender” justified the terrible treatment captured Allied prisoners received at the hands of the Japanese. The photograph of Siffleet’s execution was discovered on the body of a dead Japanese major near Hollandia by American troops in April 1944. execution was discovered on the body of a dead Japanese major near Hollandia by American troops in April 1944. It is believed to be the only surviving depiction of a western prisoner of war being executed by a Japanese soldier. Published in LIFE magazine, it became one of the war’s most iconic photos. Siffleet is commemorated on the Lae Memorial in Lae, Papua New Guinea, together with all other Commonwealth war dead from actions in the region who have no known grave. A memorial park commemorating Siffleet was also dedicated at Aitape in May 2015.
This is not the worst fate. Eight American B-29 crew who survived from the same B-29 were experimented on in Kaikosha Hospital at Kyusha University. Only Marvin Watkins, the pilot, survived. They were injected with salt water in an experiment to see if that could be a substitute for blood plasma. While still alive and awake, on the table, they were dissected and then killed in different ways to observe how they died. After this, their livers were served in the cafeteria. This is all documented in Case 420 and the trial notes of 1948. The entire story can be found in The Fallen by Marc Landas. All those convicted of murder, torture and cannibalism were eventually released with the coming of the Korean War and the story went quiet like many others such as Unit 731 (the Japanese had a company in 1980 called Green Cross that used the experimental research from Unit 731and when this was realized in 1981 the company name disappeared from the market). My father’s cousin was a B-25 pilot, one of Kenney’s Kids, and committed suicide within the first year of repatriation back to the States. He had been tortured fairly heavily and regularly and was apparently a physical and phycological wreck. As an added note, one calculation used after the US experiences on Saipan and Okinawa had the casualty rate for the final invasion at 10 million through the winter of ’45-’46, many due to starvation. One million American and 9 million Japanese. The Japanese concurred after the war with that figure. All Purple hearts awarded to this day were manufactured in 1945 in anticipation of high casualties. Also, the Japanese were preparing to kill all Allied prisoners on August 22, 1945 and had actually practiced marching them to kill areas and back so they wouldn’t rise up, and they actually herded a large group of Americans into a field erected bomb shelter, under the guise of an air raid, and then poured gasoline in and burned them all. One witness amazingly survived to tell the story. The Allied POW death rate under the rising sun was 47% by best calculations.
1943 After the first landing in Europe - Husky operation - some U.S. soldiers took prisoners some Italian and German soldiers. Then they put them to dig trenches, but at the end they machine gunned all the prisoners. A wounded Italian, unseen, escape and told the police all the crime. The bodies were discovered and Patton was fired. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscari_massacre
@Monica Blewinsky Get down under the desk of your chief and let your mouth make what you're expert to do... and is not talking about history and war's crime 😉
Dr. Stenger's figures list 93,941 U.S. military personnel captured and interned by Germany, of whom 1,121 died (a little over a 1% death rate), and 27,465 U.S. military personnel captured and interned by Japan, of whom 11,107 died (more than a 40% death rate).
This video does a service to these pilots but not to modern Americans. Here is why: There are many more and bigger Japanese war crimes than this scenario -- the Rape of Nanking, Bataan Death March, the sex slaves of Korea ("Comfort women"), their treatment and slaughter of prisoners throughout the war, and disgusting human experiments of a grizzly and pointless nature, just to name a few. The Japanese need to come to grips with that in their history classes (the way the Germans have). Ignorance of their past makes the Japanese less than ideal allies today - it makes it easier for fascistic types to get elected to their government. But Americans also, apparently, still need to come to grips with how bad war is and the slaughter that we perpetrated in trying to win that one. To put the behavior of a few officers and soldiers in this specific incident at the end of the war in perspective, the firebombing of Tokyo killed over 100,000 people, while Hiroshima and Nagasaki together killed 140,000 people. Other population centers were decimated in the same way. How many of those soldiers had found out their relatives or friends were being burned to death, perhaps by those same airmen? War had become a such a nightmare that no civilian outside the United States was safe - on any side. But I take particular issue with the video's claims that are backhanded excuses for the wholesale slaughter of cities. 1st, what parts for aircraft or ships were made in the cottage industry that they describe - the leather straps and uniforms? Planes require precision parts, and those parts are mostly metal and have to be machined. You cannot do any of that in a house or even a mansion. 2nd, the bombing of Japanese cities and their civilian populations in 1945 was done for the exact same reason that Hitler had earlier switched to bombing England's cities, and Nixon turned to bombing North Vietnamese cities - to demoralize the enemy so that they sue for peace ASAP. That is it -- demoralization by rapid carnage. Necessary at the time? Maybe. Perceived as necessary? Yes. Successful in its objective? Mostly not. Let's not sugar coat it by claiming firebombing civilians was the only way to stop Japanese industry that was scattered in cottages throughout Japan. What a crock! Our ancestors bombed them to save potentially hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives by taking hundreds of thousands of lives? Duh, no! The demoralization/depopulation of Japan was to save *American* lives. A worthy cause under the circumstances, but not a well-meaning, generous act by the US Military. Give me a break. Maybe if America had experienced real modern war on its home soil (not just our colony at Pearl Harbor), I would hear less BS warmongering today from my fellow Americans over every foe they perceive out there. Maybe if those people had been around to experience the Civil War (on home soil), they might not talk so much about starting a civil war today. But history (along with civics) is taught very poorly in America; it is not a STEM subject.
Targeting of civilians seems to be a common and popular tactic in war. Its only a matter of time before a Russian dictator gets ideas with his nuclear trigger finger. Agreed that most people aren't interested in history and don't bother to learn it. Its a pity, as history always repeats itself (because we fail to learn our lessons the first time).
Youngster, You weren't there! You can sit here decades later and safe and comfy and talk shit about what they had to do back then. Back then, the Japanese people were willing to die as a people for their Emperor! that means EVERYBODY! We had to show them what was going to happen if the war would continue. The warrior ethic of Bushido was drummed into the people from youth. We can talk about Civil War today because you leftists want to take away our freedoms. Our right to free speech, our right to bear arms, these rights are God-given and we will fight for them. are you willing to fight to take them?
An Iowa State University history professor commented years ago that the war in the Pacific was a race war. That stuck with me over the years. Recently the algorithm presented the real first hand accounts of pacific veterans in their own unfiltered words. Their hatred for the Japanese was extremely intense. My father was in the Pacific and demonstrated that hatred
@@1912papa I am in no way judging your father, but I think race had a lot to do with things. Americans took ears, gold fillings from teeth, skulls etc. from Japanese military, but I can't imagine them doing the same to Germans.
Obviously, one war crime does not justify another, but.... Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article 8 War Crimes Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts: 2.b.i. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities. 2.b.iv. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.
@@deadon4847 you mean like the U.S. and their treatment of American Citizens, or did you forget the roughly 1,600 Japanese American prisoners who died in U.S. internment camps during WW2 and those who lost their land.
Horriffic treatment by the Japanese of their Allied prisoners in Ww2. No less horrific that was done to their own countrymen who refused to be as barbaric. No worse than the chinese, nor the Nazi's. Fairly sure the rest of us came a close 2nd. We all bombed the citizens of all countries......the us topped that with the atomic bomb. Funny how we call bombing civillians in 2022/2023 a war crime. I hope in another 70yrs any action will be considered a war crime!!? 🤬
REMEMBER THE SACRIFICES OF THESE POOR AIRMEN!!! YOUNG AMERICAN COMMUNISTS WHO THINK TYRANNY IS A GOOD THING, NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THESE SACRIFICES AND KNOW THAT WHEN TYRANNY REIGNS THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS!!!
- bombs japanese cities with incendiaries - gets beheaded "How could this happen to me?" Karma dude. Say thanks that they didn't burn you alive so you could feel like folks in Tokyo in 1945
Those Servicemen gave the Ultimate price and so did the families having to grieve all those years . I don’t take that lightly . Maybe Macgarther should have been Court marshal over it.
A ggod friend of the family piloted B-29's first out of China and then from the Mariania Islands. He flew on many of the firebomb raids over various cities, including the one that darn near burned Tokyo to the ground on the night of March 9-10th, 1945. After thw war he came back and lived with his sister for a while, the sister being my mom's friend and thus our family connection to him. His sister told my mom that he used to get bad nightmares about the fire raids, it was the smell of burning flesh that he said were the worst parts of the dreams. He did however rejoin the by then US Air Force and flew missions during the Korean War. He retired a "Bird" Colonel, and I used to have all his medals and badges of rank and whatnot in a glass frame. I'm so grateful that the US did not have to invade Japan.
All sides committed atrocities; you think nuking civilians wasn't a war crime? Or burning them alive? Of course it was; there are no 'good guys' and 'bad buys' in war, just bad guys. And one lot wins by making a few less mistakes than the other.
Hey, they were given numerous chances to give up. They were told what was going to happen, it didn't have to happen. And fairly certain the Axis we're a wee bit closer to being considered the "bad guys" than the Allies were (with the exception of the Soviet Union).
11.32 No, sir. The holocaust perpetrated by Japanese did not start in June 1945. It started in April 15, 1919 with Jeamni massacre continuing on with LOTS of other psychopathic mass murders of Koreans, Chinese (for example Nanking massacre), Allied prisoners of war etc etc etc until General Douglas MacArthur stepped on the Japanese soil to put those monsters in order. Japanese who lived 80 to 100 years ago were monsters.
You gotta do a video about Jesse Leroy brown and other black aviators it’s super intresting, jesse’s story is so inspiring Nvm: just found it, awesome!!
War is unfortunately horrendous and barbaric. Honor, chivalry and ethics soon give way to barbarism when your buddies and family are killed, maimed, blinded and your homes are destroyed. As they say everything becomes fair in love and war.
I just saw those two bombers (at the 02:00 videomark) outside of Memphis a few weeks ago. The B-29 and B-24 crews were very accommodating and even gave us an interior tour of the B-24 which is the only flying one left in the world.
good morning from the rocky mountains hanks for your work lovin it and i remember when you started doing all this im glad its gone so well and i really enjoy it more than just gaming aloha.
after dropping the atomic bombs i have some understanding about these reaction. this must be a complete shock for everyone....but not for general bad treatment
The fact is that 2,000 atom bombs would NOT have paid those vicious people back for the horrors they inflicted on those that fell into their hands. Even today, the populous have NO idea what their people did in that war.
I find it disengious that we accused Germany and Japan of war crimes while allied war crimes were on a scale the axis could only dream about. Dresden for example, fire bombing civilians in Germany and Japan. Least we forget the Soviets did before and after the war. Killing civilians as defined by the allies constitute a war crime. This applies today as well. The only reason I bring this up is the victors determines these things. Dosent matter if it is the hight of hipocrscy. Simply put we took revenge. We needed to do this to shorten the war and save American lives, which was worth it. What happened after the war with the Marshal Plan and MacArthur ruling Japan does represent America at it's best. What other country would have done the same? I include the Berlin airlift here as wrll.
" horrendous war crime" Thats funny how you describe what they went through but dropping an atomic bomb on civilians is an "earth-changing event" "History is Written by Victors" I guess Cool video anyways
Yeah, they were given ample opportunity to surrender, they were told what would happen if they didn't, and Japan's attitude was "We'll fight until every man woman and child gives their lives." That's on them. The same country that was allies with Germany. The ones that said "Ya know what...this Hitler guy... he's OK. We're with him." Definitely not a great bunch. Just saying.
@@karlepaul6632 what you said is absolutely true, but it do not dismiss what I said. I just find funny how he describe those two events, for him : soldier dying in war = HORRENDOUS war crime 200 000 civilian dead with 2 atomic bomb = earth changing event
What happened to the surviving American POW's AFTER the war was as much a crime as what happened during the war. Our government, in their infinite wisdom and concern for the men who suffered so much for THEM, decided NO American could sue Japan for ANY of the horrors committed against them during the war, the ONLY allied nation to issue such a prohibition !
I guess the deaths of roughly 1,600 plus Japanese American prisoners who died in U.S. internment camps at the beginning of the U.S. involvement of WW2, as well as those who lost their land as well as suffered was good payback for the atrocities Japan committed later in the war on POW's.
Not true. In 40 years of studying the war, I never heard of it, and a Google search l did just now doesn't have any results. It would be interesting to hear from Allies outside of the US, I may be wrong.
Bombing the of civilians is war crime!! ...... Those poor valiant American pilots...... they get shot down over the enemy they are trying to kill, what do they expect when captured! Bacon/eggs for breakfast! LOL
This is a tragic story of our proud hero’s. Although the letter was accurate and sincere I am sure it was of little comfort to the parents of these men believe me I know but hat it is like to lose a child. We are it built to bury our children no matter what the cause
When Curtis LeMay decided to target civilians, he became just as much a war criminal as the men who executed the aviators. The aviators themselves, by intentionally targeting civilians, were war criminals also. It is a violation of the Geneva conventions to intentionally target civilians. I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal. Fortunately, we were on the winning side. - US General Curtis LeMay, commander of the 1945 Tokyo fire bombing operation.
Japan was not a place to be a POW ! That is where the real war crimes happened. Those horrifically went unpunished. So both USA and Japan have to know healing takes place over many years. However the pain of loss doesn't just go away for the living.
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Thanks....
Shoe🇺🇸
Nicely done video
My grandpa, Hank Gorder, flew the last mission of WWII as an engineer on The Boomerang. You can read about it in a book entitled “The Last Mission” by Jim B. Smith, the pilot. The History Channel even made a two hour-long documentary about it by the same title. Miss you, grandpa, and all your stories about the war.
My father was a radar operator on the B-29 named the Georgia Peach, in 58th Bomb Wing, 468th Bomb Group, 793rd Bomb Squadron. He said all his bomber crew decided to die in a plane crash rather than bail out and be captured, if their B-29 was ever damaged enough not to make it back after a mission. They knew how awful the Japanese treated captured US airmen.
My mom was a teenager in Tokyo during this time. She said her neighbors joked you could set your watch according to the arrival of B29s. A Firestorm blew towards their house but they prayed and the wind changed direction, saving only her house.
Rude, could have prayed for her neighbour too. Talk about selfish.
@@kremepye3613 Arigato gaijin!
Certainly not “forgotten”, by some of us who know a little about history, I can assure you.
My Father flew over Japan 6 or 7 times in 1945 (only 3 times during the war). He always said that when remains are sent back to the US it's just a handful dirt from the execution site.
Of course now the japs are the good guys it was those naughty Chinese all along.
@@rogerlibby14613 How often does the subject of American remains come up?
@@MrChopsticktech I recall about 3 times ... my Dad would only talk about it if there was a news article on TV about Japan returning the "bones" of bomber crews.
My dad was a navigator on a B29 and flew many missions to Japan. They also flew very low level flights to lay mines in Japanese harbors. They got a letter from the Navy for that effort.
Referring to the Geneva Convention, it's clearly a war crime. No intention to excuse anybody about a war crime but we might consider also that if you are bombing civilians using incendiary bombs and then you bail out just over the people you were killing in a horrible way just minutes before ... don't expect too much empathy, whatever are the conventions.
Just to put things in perspective, keep in mind that war is hell and everybody always uses to consider the bad actions from the ennemy as horrible and unacceptable while all what is done on our side is at worst justified. God is on "our" side, as Bob Dylan was singing ...
What a horrific story! The thought of those airmen being executed, especially by beheading, angers me. Add to that the reality that the men directly responsible were not executed is an insult and an act of disrespect to those airmen.
Regardless of the feeling this story generated in me, I believe stories like this MUST be told! Anything that will help younger generations appreciate the sacrifices our military men and women make, or knowingly might have to make, is vital.
Thank you for the continued good work you are doing! I look forward to your next episode!
They were dropping incendiary bombs on people's houses. Do you think Drone Joe will get clemency when they find his RV?
oh noooo, how dare the people who just bombed civilians get treated accordingly nooooooo
@@Jimpiedepimpie you know they started it right? Have you heard of the Rape of Nanking? And the thousands of other atrocities committed in the name of the Emperor before the Japanese mainland was ever targeted? The Japanese aren’t the victims in this.
If you were a German prisoner in Normandy, and knew the Americans were ordered to kill prisoners... you would feel anger too.
@@kadenbrown-cobarrubias5510 What an idot..
Another amazing video TJ, this one struck an emotional chord, though. RIP to all of those unjustly executed heroes.
Stay Awesome TJ!
Thank you!
Yep. Japan was carpet bombed. Nukes don't exist.
Dr. Mark Felton has an in depth TH-cam video lecture regarding atrocities committed by the servicemen of Imperial Japan
My Dad was called back to active service in July 1950, right after the start of the Korean War, and soon flew close-air-support (CAS) missions in a P-51 Mustang around the Pusan Perimeter. These were dark and very desperate times. My Dad once asked what to expect if he was shot down and captured by the advancing North Koreans, and was simply told: "Don't". Many of my Dad's friends and comrades were lost on these missions and he was very lucky to have survived. He once told me that you never want to bail out over the people that you have just bombed, and as a Caucasian, you never want to be captured by an Asian adversary.
And you can thank Gen. Douglas MacArthur for the lenient sentences given the Japanese war criminals because of his policies the Japanese were not properly punished for war crimes against allied soldiers . MacArthur literally turned his back on the allied servicemen that died and those that survived the horrible treatment from the Japanese all for politics . And they gave him a Medal of Honor and for what , abandoning his men in the Philippines and his nickname was dugout Doug .
He was a well-connected creep
The same thing happened (in parallel) in W. Germany: the U.S. elite wanted it that way. Read about John McCloy, I.G. Farben, the J.P. Morgan dynasty and Konrad Adenauer's 'amnesty' that saw almost all jailed war criminals released by 1958
I read a story about mcarthur once and they were talking about his father. The author said the father was the most arrogant man he ever knew. Until he met the son.
Not saying anything about right and wrong but I think there was a great deal of war fatigue in the US by the time war ended. I think what happened regarding war crimes reflected this fatigue.
We did what you wanted to do to the Japanese in Iraq. Everyone from politicians to school teachers , generals to privates in the army during Saddam's time were fired and forbidden from rejoining society. Turned what should've been a few months war into a decade long one. Moralizing is irrational, peace must be made and "defeated enemies" must be given opportunities or they won't stop fighting.
The picture at 10:22 is of Australian Special Forces radio operater Leonard Siffleet about to be beheaded by Yasuno Chikao on 24 October 1943 along with two other Australian prisoners.
The Japanese cartoon movie " Graveyard of the Fireflies" is about two children in Japan during the bombings. I was surprised how they made it seem as though they were the victims and the Americans were the bad guys. Japan does not teach their children much about what they did in WW2. My father was an antiaircraft gunner on a destroyer, (sent to the Pacific since his mother was German) and they all knew what would happen to them if they were captured. He never forgave the Japanese
In the movie they're just civilians caught in events they don't understand, they're even children. From the civilian pov, the bad guys will be the people bombing them. I'm french, and my grandparents who were children at the time told me they were more afraid of allied bombers than they were of german soldiers. In fact they didn't saw a lot of germans during occupation, what they mainly remember of the war is the allies bombing their town.
However it's true that Japan doesn't teach its people properly about its crimes during the war, unlike Germany where people are very aware of the horrors of nazism
It was LeMay's deputy, Thomas Power who came up with the idea of low-level night time fire bombing missions.
Being executed would have been a more merciful fate if you could believe it. There are some reports that downed US airmen had been turned over to the notorious Unit 731 and were dissected alive without any anesthesia.
I thought the same thing. I would probably have opted to have gone down with the plane.
The airmen in the documentary were killed just some days before the downfall of the Japanese empire. So if some insane Jap office wouldn't have gone crazy for "revenge" and after the executions also killed the witnesses on the last day of war, all of those men could have survived and lived a long life. That's the tragic of this story. But of course they are other gruesome and brutal stories waiting to be told.
@@telekommandant but the Japanese officers all got out of prison in ten years or less. The big sentences were announced for press coverage, but never carried out.
A metaphor for the whole Japanese peace. They got a pass the German leaders did not.
Japs had their livers for sushi no joke but then what about jap civilians kids burnt alive
@@jimwiskus8862 45 to the head if you please crew all had side arms
Those heroic and brave men would not believe what has become of this world, we have insulted the sacrifice they made.
What awful way to die , knowing that the treatment to POWs from our part was completely different. I was in the ARMY I always thought if any time I get into combat “ not Mercy to the enemy “
The fact that these murderers all got off is abhorrent. May they burn for eternity.
unit 731 of the Japanese imperial army ? , sorry , never heard of it !!!
u mean the murdering pilots who bombed civilian targets with the intent to kill as many as possible!
And what about the bomber crew that murdered thousands of civilians, they got medals for that...
@@KapitanPisoar1*hundredthousands
@@dovidell
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
Very interesting and sad, no one wins in wartime, the people being bombed into submission on the ground or the aircrews lost, such a terrible episode in human history.
Not a episode, normal for the US. In my country Vietnam you dropped 480.000 tons of napalm and as much phosphorous bombs + agent orange you killed millions of inocents. 100s of thousands of children incinerated alive. ..that is the tradgedy you never learn
It’s incredible how the Japanese education system doesn’t teach stuff like these and if they do talk about their involvement in WW2, they say that they were victims and that they were forced to become an Empire and do all that horrible stuff in Manchuria because of the European Great Powers.
How are they gonna learn from their errors if they don’t admit that they committed them?
This is true of lots of history that is not taught. All history should be taught.
@@TJ3 I agree
@socialist prepper absolutely right 👍
Yes. I think every country enjoys modifying history.
If you ever want to see the Japanese Historical Narrative on the war, go to the Yasukuni Shrine in Toyko. They allow westerners but do not allow pictures in some places where the Japanese perspective is written.
It is approximated that 200,000 men, women & children were killed when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki - alone. That figure doesn't include subsequent deaths from burns &/or radiation sickness. Neither does it include the losses from other raids on other cities of the Japanese mainland. The relatively small number of combatant aircrew, prisoners or not, killed in retaliation pails in to insignificance in comparison. The British RAF's fire bombing of German cities was another 'crime' of near equal proportion. These were servicemen that chose to be where they were, do what they did.
On one of the smaller islands held by Japan, they literally killed then "ATE" captured B29 crews,
Not B29, but Avenger bombers. Six airmen were captured and eaten, one evaded capture and survived. He later become the US President George Bush Sr.
The picture is of an Australian soldier being beheaded. It is a famous photo. I guess it ios all you could find.
Correct. Very few images survive of the Japanese. Especially with POWs. Had to do my best.
@@TJ3 The comment was mostly for your viewers. Maybe you could explain this in the video. Keep up the good work.
That is in fact a pilot from New Zealand, he was shot down in his F-6 Hellcat and he along with a number of other aircrewmen were murdered after the surrender. One of the Japanese photographers had kept rolls of film that were confiscated and developed and none of them made it back to Japan, they were executed, summarily.
I think the overall point being they definitely took heads off.
So it’s illegal to kill the enemy who was literally just previously killing the people of your country? How many people died from the incendiary bombs that were dropped? As far as the entire war in the first place; like all wars; it was just a waste of many lives because of the governments of the countries that were involved. War is absurd and ridiculous.
I don't condone the actions of the Japanese, but put yourself in the shoes of any one of them, who lost his entire family in a fire bombing... I would not expect mercy either.
Oh, I don't know, pictures of japanese soldiers bayonetting chinese babies, the cowardly attack on hawaii, the bataan death march, japanese officers EATING american soldiers, keeping foreign women as rape slaves, gruesome science experiments, convincing local populations of islanders to jump to their death while american soldiers tried to stop them. . . . all comes to mind. I feel no pity for the japanese people of that time. Those war criminals were their husbands, their sons, their nephews, their cousins.
Yep, I agree. As disgusted as I am at these atrocities, I can't imagine I'd take too kindly to someone raining fire on my town. I am a veteran and I sure have no empathy for my enemies, I think one has to be careful when disappearing down the rabbit hole of what is and what isn't abhorrent in war, it is usually decided by the victors who is a war criminal and who just acted in just retribution.
did we forget about the fire bombings in Europe where this approach was developed?
did we forget about the human testing Japan did in China? close to as bad as the German camps.
I will never question the heroic acts of soldiers from any nation. But I will always questions the one's that bring us to war for their financial gain. And to keep the peoples of earth fighting amongst ourselves instead of the leaders that bring us to that point. They are the real villains and always have been.
The Japanese during WW2 talked so much about honor and duty. Yet they were the ones who threw it all away.
Yet Burning children alive with incendiary bombs is Very Honorable , isn't it ? ...........
Exactly! Such an irrational response towards those complicit in your civilian population enduring saturation firebombings and the first and second use of nuclear bombs - bombs harnessing the power of the Sun. Completely irrational and dishonourable.
@@CM-1488 While sad it was necessary, Japan production was mainly focused in the home stead. And also the predicted death from the invasion of Japan would of been much greater. While it was sad it was the best of two horrible options. What makes what the officer did wrong is that the war had ended when he ordered the execution. It would be like America dropping another bomb even though peach had been reached.
@CM And what about the Japanese dropping barrels full of disease ridden ticks and fleas onto Chinese civilians? They had opened that door, and were reaping what they had sown.
@@CM-1488 soldiers should respect other soldiers when captured, these airmen didn’t make decisions about bombing, the japanese disgraced themselves by treating pow’s this way
Firebombing of cities can be also called a "war crime"...
BS
victors write history
One side droped incendiary bombs especialy for killing civilian population, and other side beheaded pilots in vendetta act. Small quiz. Who did war crimes?
Typical democratic bull shit lol. They got what they asked for
The civilian population was producing war materiel. By doing so they lost their rights as civilians.
The entire war was replete with war crimes committed on all sides. Pointing fingers 80 years after the fact does Jack shit. Learning the lessons and making sure that it never happens again is the only real way to move forward.
@@gerardblack6859 That was a very poor excuse, just to justify their own war crimes...
One of my late uncle (on dad's side) was a tail gunner of a B-29 during the Pacific Theater.
I don’t know how many of us are second gen Japanese Americans here.
But it’s so eerie listening to my grandpas stories of the fire bombings as a child and now to hear the opposing perspective on TH-cam.
From my grandpas (both sides) POV, the first thing you hear isn’t the air raid sirens, it’s the ominous buzzing of all those B29’s approaching Tokyo, and then you hear the sirens.
They both (both grandpas) hid in the bunkers and obviously survived all the bombings or else I, nor my parents, would be here.
When he came out of the bunker, the things he saw people screaming “it’s hot! It’s hot! Mamma help, It’s hot!” And they go jumping into the near by river. The river turned red… blood red -he told me.
He told me that he saw charred bodies everywhere too.
And screaming kids with their faces melting off….
Horrifying stuff…
My grandpa, specifically my maternal side, said the him and his neighbors dug holes in their backyards to keep all their belongings, money and food.
It miraculously survived the fires.
(Note, this is just one of many times my grandpas and probably grandparents in general, had to deal with the fire bombings.)
I have a lot to say, I will if anyone wants to read my retellings of my grandparents war stories as in their knowledge of war is important. Even if they weren’t military.
What a fascinating story. So many brave men gave their lives so that i would live a peaceful life. Thank you.
My dad was Commander of K-3, The Spirit of Fort Worth. 330th Bomb Group. 25 missions.
Amazing video as always!
Glad you enjoyed it!
My first thought was crashing in Japan, I would rather fall to my death than land in that WW2 era Japan.
My father was on B-29s and then the first nuke deterrent, the B-50 which was a "fixed" B-29 before Korea. As WW-II bombers go, definitely the sexiest.
nicee
I thank your Dad for his service!
@@squint04 thank you. I miss him.
I recommend reading "The Bomber Mafia"
I will try to provide a moment of levity here. My great-uncle George Witty was Chief Engineer on Three Feathers, then Lil’ Herbert (444 BG/676 Squadron). He kept a journal, which he was expressly not to do. In one entry (paraphrased from memory) he says they were prohibited from bombing the Imperial Palace. MacArthur has said he will ride Hirohito’s white horse on the streets of Tokyo after the war. If the Emperor’s horse was at the Imperial Stables tonight MacArthur won’t be riding it! By the summer of 1945 there were few known military targets remaining.
If you fell into Japanese hands at that time, you were pretty much as good as dead.
they were savages.
@@kevinspacey5325 The Japanese Army was, for sure. Their theme was basically "no mercy".
It's a horrible story but I doubt most people would do much different if their cities and people were being firebombed into oblivion...
2 nuclear bombs were the revenge for the greatest generation P.O.W’s.
I saw that photo taken just prior to execution many years ago. Never forgot how it so poignantly reflects the ruthlessness of war. Even the angle at which the soldier has positioned his sword in relation to the American prisoner's head and neck . It appears that the poor guy is going to get split down the center of his skull rather than a decapitation. Very disturbing; very insightful. Thanks for another good one.
The soldier about to be executed was Leonard Siffleet an Australian Special Forces radio operator, sent on a mission to Papua New Guinea to establish a coast watching station.
In September 1943, his patrol was sent to Japanese-held New Guinea, to recon the Japanese forces stationed there. Siffleet and two other Australian soldiers were captured by local natives and turned over to the Japanese.
All three men were interrogated, tortured, and confined for approximately two weeks before being taken down to Aitape Beach on the afternoon of 24 October 1943. Bound and blindfolded, surrounded by Japanese and native onlookers, they were forced to the ground and executed by beheading, on the orders of Vice-Admiral Michiaki Kamada of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The officer who executed Siffleet, Yasuno Chikao, detailed a private to photograph him in the act.
At the end of the war, Chikao was captured, tried for war crimes, and sentenced to be hanged; his sentence was commuted to ten years imprisonment, and upon completion of his sentence, he returned to Japan.
The execution of prisoners by beheading was not an uncommon practice by the Japanese. Under the code of Bushido that the Japanese military conformed to at the time, the act of beheading a captured enemy actually restored some lost honour to the foe, since warriors were considered dishonoured if they allowed themselves to be captured alive.
In the eyes of the Bushido adherents, this “dishonourable surrender” justified the terrible treatment captured Allied prisoners received at the hands of the Japanese.
The photograph of code of Bushido that the Japanese military conformed to at the time, the act of beheading a captured enemy actually restored some lost honour to the foe, since warriors were considered dishonoured if they allowed themselves to be captured alive.
In the eyes of the Bushido adherents, this “dishonourable surrender” justified the terrible treatment captured Allied prisoners received at the hands of the Japanese.
The photograph of Siffleet’s execution was discovered on the body of a dead Japanese major near Hollandia by American troops in April 1944. execution was discovered on the body of a dead Japanese major near Hollandia by American troops in April 1944. It is believed to be the only surviving depiction of a western prisoner of war being executed by a Japanese soldier. Published in LIFE magazine, it became one of the war’s most iconic photos.
Siffleet is commemorated on the Lae Memorial in Lae, Papua New Guinea, together with all other Commonwealth war dead from actions in the region who have no known grave. A memorial park commemorating Siffleet was also dedicated at Aitape in May 2015.
@@timorvet1 Thank you! That was the best (and most interesting) comment I've ever read. You took a lot of time and I truly appreciate it.
The photo is of f an Australian commando executed in Papua New Guinea earlier in the war.
His name was Sgt Leonard Siffleet .The execution was in 1943 and the photo disciovered on the body of a dead Japanese soldier by US troops in 1944
@@fishpants3877 Cheers mate.
Great video!
This is not the worst fate. Eight American B-29 crew who survived from the same B-29 were experimented on in Kaikosha Hospital at Kyusha University. Only Marvin Watkins, the pilot, survived. They were injected with salt water in an experiment to see if that could be a substitute for blood plasma. While still alive and awake, on the table, they were dissected and then killed in different ways to observe how they died. After this, their livers were served in the cafeteria. This is all documented in Case 420 and the trial notes of 1948. The entire story can be found in The Fallen by Marc Landas. All those convicted of murder, torture and cannibalism were eventually released with the coming of the Korean War and the story went quiet like many others such as Unit 731 (the Japanese had a company in 1980 called Green Cross that used the experimental research from Unit 731and when this was realized in 1981 the company name disappeared from the market). My father’s cousin was a B-25 pilot, one of Kenney’s Kids, and committed suicide within the first year of repatriation back to the States. He had been tortured fairly heavily and regularly and was apparently a physical and phycological wreck.
As an added note, one calculation used after the US experiences on Saipan and Okinawa had the casualty rate for the final invasion at 10 million through the winter of ’45-’46, many due to starvation. One million American and 9 million Japanese. The Japanese concurred after the war with that figure. All Purple hearts awarded to this day were manufactured in 1945 in anticipation of high casualties. Also, the Japanese were preparing to kill all Allied prisoners on August 22, 1945 and had actually practiced marching them to kill areas and back so they wouldn’t rise up, and they actually herded a large group of Americans into a field erected bomb shelter, under the guise of an air raid, and then poured gasoline in and burned them all. One witness amazingly survived to tell the story. The Allied POW death rate under the rising sun was 47% by best calculations.
Dang right. Drop it every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
1943 After the first landing in Europe - Husky operation - some U.S. soldiers took prisoners some Italian and German soldiers. Then they put them to dig trenches, but at the end they machine gunned all the prisoners. A wounded Italian, unseen, escape and told the police all the crime. The bodies were discovered and Patton was fired. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscari_massacre
@Monica Blewinsky Yeah, just ignore the war crime just posted by Sup. Go play with some string.
@Monica Blewinsky Get down under the desk of your chief and let your mouth make what you're expert to do... and is not talking about history and war's crime 😉
Dr. Stenger's figures list 93,941 U.S. military personnel captured and interned by Germany, of whom 1,121 died (a little over a 1% death rate), and 27,465 U.S. military personnel captured and interned by Japan, of whom 11,107 died (more than a 40% death rate).
…Two Nukes weren’t enough!
You're sick
When First Enlisting in the Air Force, I took my Aircraft Maintenance Graduation photo with Fi-Fi as the Background.
This video does a service to these pilots but not to modern Americans. Here is why: There are many more and bigger Japanese war crimes than this scenario -- the Rape of Nanking, Bataan Death March, the sex slaves of Korea ("Comfort women"), their treatment and slaughter of prisoners throughout the war, and disgusting human experiments of a grizzly and pointless nature, just to name a few. The Japanese need to come to grips with that in their history classes (the way the Germans have). Ignorance of their past makes the Japanese less than ideal allies today - it makes it easier for fascistic types to get elected to their government. But Americans also, apparently, still need to come to grips with how bad war is and the slaughter that we perpetrated in trying to win that one. To put the behavior of a few officers and soldiers in this specific incident at the end of the war in perspective, the firebombing of Tokyo killed over 100,000 people, while Hiroshima and Nagasaki together killed 140,000 people. Other population centers were decimated in the same way. How many of those soldiers had found out their relatives or friends were being burned to death, perhaps by those same airmen? War had become a such a nightmare that no civilian outside the United States was safe - on any side.
But I take particular issue with the video's claims that are backhanded excuses for the wholesale slaughter of cities. 1st, what parts for aircraft or ships were made in the cottage industry that they describe - the leather straps and uniforms? Planes require precision parts, and those parts are mostly metal and have to be machined. You cannot do any of that in a house or even a mansion. 2nd, the bombing of Japanese cities and their civilian populations in 1945 was done for the exact same reason that Hitler had earlier switched to bombing England's cities, and Nixon turned to bombing North Vietnamese cities - to demoralize the enemy so that they sue for peace ASAP. That is it -- demoralization by rapid carnage. Necessary at the time? Maybe. Perceived as necessary? Yes. Successful in its objective? Mostly not. Let's not sugar coat it by claiming firebombing civilians was the only way to stop Japanese industry that was scattered in cottages throughout Japan. What a crock! Our ancestors bombed them to save potentially hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives by taking hundreds of thousands of lives? Duh, no! The demoralization/depopulation of Japan was to save *American* lives. A worthy cause under the circumstances, but not a well-meaning, generous act by the US Military. Give me a break. Maybe if America had experienced real modern war on its home soil (not just our colony at Pearl Harbor), I would hear less BS warmongering today from my fellow Americans over every foe they perceive out there. Maybe if those people had been around to experience the Civil War (on home soil), they might not talk so much about starting a civil war today.
But history (along with civics) is taught very poorly in America; it is not a STEM subject.
Targeting of civilians seems to be a common and popular tactic in war. Its only a matter of time before a Russian dictator gets ideas with his nuclear trigger finger. Agreed that most people aren't interested in history and don't bother to learn it. Its a pity, as history always repeats itself (because we fail to learn our lessons the first time).
Very well said!!!
Youngster, You weren't there! You can sit here decades later and safe and comfy and talk shit about what they had to do back then. Back then, the Japanese people were willing to die as a people for their Emperor! that means EVERYBODY! We had to show them what was going to happen if the war would continue. The warrior ethic of Bushido was drummed into the people from youth. We can talk about Civil War today because you leftists want to take away our freedoms. Our right to free speech, our right to bear arms, these rights are God-given and we will fight for them. are you willing to fight to take them?
An Iowa State University history professor commented years ago that the war in the Pacific was a race war. That stuck with me over the years. Recently the algorithm presented the real first hand accounts of pacific veterans in their own unfiltered words. Their hatred for the Japanese was extremely intense. My father was in the Pacific and demonstrated that hatred
@@1912papa I am in no way judging your father, but I think race had a lot to do with things. Americans took ears, gold fillings from teeth, skulls etc. from Japanese military, but I can't imagine them doing the same to Germans.
Obviously, one war crime does not justify another, but....
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
Article 8
War Crimes
Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:
2.b.i. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities.
2.b.iv. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.
Yes, Rome who sent tanks into Ethiopia to attack people on horses and armed only with spears.
@@deadon4847 you mean like the U.S. and their treatment of American Citizens, or did you forget the roughly 1,600 Japanese American prisoners who died in U.S. internment camps during WW2 and those who lost their land.
Horriffic treatment by the Japanese of their Allied prisoners in Ww2. No less horrific that was done to their own countrymen who refused to be as barbaric. No worse than the chinese, nor the Nazi's. Fairly sure the rest of us came a close 2nd. We all bombed the citizens of all countries......the us topped that with the atomic bomb. Funny how we call bombing civillians in 2022/2023 a war crime. I hope in another 70yrs any action will be considered a war crime!!? 🤬
REMEMBER THE SACRIFICES OF THESE POOR AIRMEN!!! YOUNG AMERICAN COMMUNISTS WHO THINK TYRANNY IS A GOOD THING, NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THESE SACRIFICES AND KNOW THAT WHEN TYRANNY REIGNS THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS!!!
- bombs japanese cities with incendiaries
- gets beheaded
"How could this happen to me?"
Karma dude. Say thanks that they didn't burn you alive so you could feel like folks in Tokyo in 1945
Hirohito should have got life in prison
some downed bomber crews were dissected alive, that seems worse to me
Top notch channel here
The same two types of justice that we have today. Thank you for letting the innocent be punished and the guilty go free.
Those Servicemen gave the Ultimate price and so did the families having to grieve all those years . I don’t take that lightly . Maybe Macgarther should have been Court marshal over it.
A ggod friend of the family piloted B-29's first out of China and then from the Mariania Islands. He flew on many of the firebomb raids over various cities, including the one that darn near burned Tokyo to the ground on the night of March 9-10th, 1945. After thw war he came back and lived with his sister for a while, the sister being my mom's friend and thus our family connection to him. His sister told my mom that he used to get bad nightmares about the fire raids, it was the smell of burning flesh that he said were the worst parts of the dreams. He did however rejoin the by then US Air Force and flew missions during the Korean War. He retired a "Bird" Colonel, and I used to have all his medals and badges of rank and whatnot in a glass frame. I'm so grateful that the US did not have to invade Japan.
People can become animals, or, worse, if we let ourselves become what we fear.
All sides committed atrocities; you think nuking civilians wasn't a war crime? Or burning them alive? Of course it was; there are no 'good guys' and 'bad buys' in war, just bad guys. And one lot wins by making a few less mistakes than the other.
Turns out we should have nuked a couple more jap cities...... darn! 🤣🤣
Hey, they were given numerous chances to give up. They were told what was going to happen, it didn't have to happen. And fairly certain the Axis we're a wee bit closer to being considered the "bad guys" than the Allies were (with the exception of the Soviet Union).
And then you see the Grave of the Fireflies
11.32 No, sir. The holocaust perpetrated by Japanese did not start in June 1945. It started in April 15, 1919 with Jeamni massacre continuing on with LOTS of other psychopathic mass murders of Koreans, Chinese (for example Nanking massacre), Allied prisoners of war etc etc etc until General Douglas MacArthur stepped on the Japanese soil to put those monsters in order. Japanese who lived 80 to 100 years ago were monsters.
Amazing video
You gotta do a video about Jesse Leroy brown and other black aviators it’s super intresting, jesse’s story is so inspiring
Nvm: just found it, awesome!!
War is unfortunately horrendous and barbaric. Honor, chivalry and ethics soon give way to barbarism when your buddies and family are killed, maimed, blinded and your homes are destroyed. As they say everything becomes fair in love and war.
I just saw those two bombers (at the 02:00 videomark) outside of Memphis a few weeks ago. The B-29 and B-24 crews were very accommodating and even gave us an interior tour of the B-24 which is the only flying one left in the world.
How many B-29's were shot down in total during the war?
War. Is hell.
Those killers should of served full sentences and not sent free. FUBAR.
good morning from the rocky mountains hanks for your work lovin it and i remember when you started doing all this im glad its gone so well and i really enjoy it more than just gaming aloha.
Thank you!
after dropping the atomic bombs i have some understanding about these reaction. this must be a complete shock for everyone....but not for general bad treatment
The fact is that 2,000 atom bombs would NOT have paid those vicious people back for the horrors they inflicted on those that fell into their hands. Even today, the populous have NO idea what their people did in that war.
I been there the museum is nice
I find it disengious that we accused Germany and Japan of war crimes while allied war crimes were on a scale the axis could only dream about. Dresden for example, fire bombing civilians in Germany and Japan. Least we forget the Soviets did before and after the war. Killing civilians as defined by the allies constitute a war crime. This applies today as well. The only reason I bring this up is the victors determines these things. Dosent matter if it is the hight of hipocrscy. Simply put we took revenge. We needed to do this to shorten the war and save American lives, which was worth it. What happened after the war with the Marshal Plan and MacArthur ruling Japan does represent America at it's best. What other country would have done the same? I include the Berlin airlift here as wrll.
😭 God save those brave American B29 aircrews, SALUTE !
Using war thunder for the plane footage is based as fuck
" horrendous war crime"
Thats funny how you describe what they went through but dropping an atomic bomb on civilians is an "earth-changing event"
"History is Written by Victors" I guess
Cool video anyways
Yeah, they were given ample opportunity to surrender, they were told what would happen if they didn't, and Japan's attitude was "We'll fight until every man woman and child gives their lives." That's on them. The same country that was allies with Germany. The ones that said "Ya know what...this Hitler guy... he's OK. We're with him." Definitely not a great bunch. Just saying.
@@karlepaul6632 what you said is absolutely true, but it do not dismiss what I said. I just find funny how he describe those two events, for him :
soldier dying in war = HORRENDOUS war crime
200 000 civilian dead with 2 atomic bomb = earth changing event
Hey, do u remember me TJ?
Is this the only comment 8 mins in? Or am I lagging
What happened to the surviving American POW's AFTER the war was as much a crime as what happened during the war. Our government, in their infinite wisdom and concern for the men who suffered so much for THEM, decided NO American could sue Japan for ANY of the horrors committed against them during the war, the ONLY allied nation to issue such a prohibition !
I guess the deaths of roughly 1,600 plus Japanese American prisoners who died in U.S. internment camps at the beginning of the U.S. involvement of WW2, as well as those who lost their land as well as suffered was good payback for the atrocities Japan committed later in the war on POW's.
Not true. In 40 years of studying the war, I never heard of it, and a Google search l did just now doesn't have any results.
It would be interesting to hear from Allies outside of the US, I may be wrong.
Another sad 😭 story
Its called revenge
We all have it in us
Just need the perfect triger
To unleash it
And then fuckn run if you
Are in my sights😳👋✌👍🙏🇨🇦
Japan had soilders in China Vietnam Manchuria etc.
Bombing the of civilians is war crime!! ...... Those poor valiant American pilots...... they get shot down over the enemy they are trying to kill, what do they expect when captured! Bacon/eggs for breakfast! LOL
Shocking.
Poor guys, the youth of today don’t even know about this stuff.
This is a tragic story of our proud hero’s. Although the letter was accurate and sincere I am sure it was of little comfort to the parents of these men believe me I know but hat it is like to lose a child. We are it built to bury our children no matter what the cause
Yes because fire bombing civilians is the war crime that should be ignored here.
I think shima was a war crime too .
When Curtis LeMay decided to target civilians, he became just as much a war criminal as the men who executed the aviators. The aviators themselves, by intentionally targeting civilians, were war criminals also. It is a violation of the Geneva conventions to intentionally target civilians. I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal. Fortunately, we were on the winning side. - US General Curtis LeMay, commander of the 1945 Tokyo fire bombing operation.
He and Robert McNamara said as much. I still think they did the right thing.
What did Curtis LeMay saiy about warcrimes?
>Fire bomb murder of civilians
>Get's captured
>Help I'm being warcrimed
The real tragedy of WW2 was that they were all fighting for the same people all along War is a racket and nobody wins bit money
GEICO? 🦎
Confederate AF!👍
Jman
Japan was not a place to be a POW ! That is where the real war crimes happened. Those horrifically went unpunished. So both USA and Japan have to know healing takes place over many years. However the pain of loss doesn't just go away for the living.
Brilliant, you released them, failed your men, and disgraced your comrades... good move
Be better off to go down with the aircraft.