USA - WW2 War crimes never addressed and held accountable!

This nebulous concept of differentiating between combatants and civilians is a very recent development.

A populous who supports a war effort are in a sense, enabling the combat by providing additional manpower, supplies, and war material.

The line between military and civilian is not a clearly defined as one may make it out to be.

reply to post by Pervius


I'm also thinking that you anti-American activists here aren't very well-schooled about the history of warfare in the 20th century.

For example, you have most likely conveniently forgotten about the savagery of the Imperial Japanese army between 1900 and 1940. These people did their best to eradicate the population on an entire countryside.

I would like to caution you sensitive obama voter types about the material contained within the following link. It is pretty horrible (the horror courtesy of the Japanese).

The Nanking Massacre - 1937

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated that 20,000 women were raped, including infants and the elderly.[40]

A large portion of these rapes were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped.[41] The women were often killed immediately after the rape, often through explicit mutilation[42] or by stabbing a bayonet, long stick of bamboo,[43] or other objects into the vagina.

On 19 December 1937, Reverend James M. McCallum wrote in his diary: I know not where to end. Never I have heard or read such brutality. Rape! Rape! Rape! We estimate at least 1,000 cases a night, and many by day. In case of resistance or anything that seems like disapproval, there is a bayonet stab or a bullet ... People are hysterical ... Women are being carried off every morning, afternoon and evening. The whole Japanese army seems to be free to go and come as it pleases, and to do whatever it pleases.[44]

On March 7, 1938, Robert O. Wilson, a surgeon at the American-administered University Hospital in the Safety Zone, wrote in a letter to his family, "a conservative estimate of people slaughtered in cold blood is somewhere about 100,000, including of course thousands of soldiers that had thrown down their arms".[45]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Yep, buddy, your saintly and gentle origami-folding, bonzai-tree snipping, haiku-writing japanese under emperor hirohito in cold blood murdered (conservatively) 300,000 unarmed chinese villagers in the most vicious ways possible:

Japanese Beheading Contest - Nanking

Japanese Atrocities - Nanking 1937

On August 6, 1937, Hirohito had personally ratified his army's proposition to remove the constraints of international law on the treatment of Chinese prisoners. This directive also advised staff officers to stop using the term "prisoner of war".[55] Immediately after the fall of the city, Japanese troops embarked on a determined search for former soldiers, in which thousands of young men were captured. Many were taken to the Yangtze River, where they were machine-gunned.

What was probably the single largest massacre of Chinese troops occurred along the banks of the Yangtze River on December 18 in what is called the Straw String Gorge Massacre. Japanese soldiers took most of the morning tying all of the POWs hands together and in the dusk divided them into 4 columns, and opened fire at them. Unable to escape, the POWs could only scream and thrash in desperation. It took an hour for the sounds of death to stop, and even longer for the Japanese to bayonet each individual. Most were dumped into the Yangtze. It is estimated that at least 57,500 Chinese POWs were killed.

The Japanese troops gathered 1,300 Chinese soldiers and civilians at Taiping Gate and killed them. The victims were blown up with landmines, then doused with petrol before being set on fire. Those that were left alive afterward were killed with bayonets.[56]

F. Tillman Durdin and Archibald Steele, American news correspondents, reported that they had seen bodies of killed Chinese soldiers forming mounds six feet high at the Nanking Yijiang gate in the north. Durdin, who was working for the New York Times, made a tour of Nanking before his departure from the city. He heard waves of machine-gun fire and witnessed the Japanese soldiers gun down some two hundred Chinese within ten minutes. Two days later, in his report to the New York Times, he stated that the alleys and street were filled with civilian bodies, including women and children.[57]

According to a testimony made by missionary Ralph L. Phillips to the U.S. State Assembly Investigating Committee, he was "forced to watch while the Japs disembowled a Chinese soldier" and "roasted his heart and liver and ate them".[58]

-------------------------------------------

Listen, some of you people on here harping about the bomb being dropped on the innocent and saintly japanese need to rethink your beliefs. My hunch is that, because of your naivete and a deeply seated hatred of some early figures in your childhoods, you hate the American military.

What you have resoundingly failed to understand is that there is such a thing as a righteous war, and that force sometimes must be used to contain murderous ideologies.

The imperial japanese were murderous, barbarous thugs. Everybody recognized it then, just like they understood that the japanese would have wrapped up operations and eventually moved on to greener pastures, like suburban Omaha, or Atlanta, or St. Louis. The sad thing is that you people seem to either have never learned that, or have since forgotten it.

Sorry to bust the bubble, folks.

reply to post by MMPI2

Now MMP12, don't go confusing these young immature, uninformed, uneducated minds with facts.

They've been taught only one side of things, and everything US is bad. They actually believe that the US caused the Japanese to attack us. They actually believe the Japanese WANTED to surrender, but the US wouldn't let them.

Don't confuse them and bring up the fact of more total deaths in the 81 days of fighting on Okinawa than both atomic bombs together killed.

Do NOT point out that the Japanese didn't mind all those casualties, as they were able to inflict a number themselves and maintain their honor in the process.

And for heaven's sake, do NOT suggest that the idea of the dying being all one-sided, with them unable to kill in kind, was the reason the bombs finally caused them to capitulate.

Just no further glory to be had by spilling maximum blood for the next year or so.

reply to post by FarArcher


It's interesting that, when someone comes along and reminds (or educates) these people about historical facts they have forgotten (or never learned in the first place), the anti-american invective and spin disappear.

Everybody was on here spouting off about "the saintly gentle japanese who never did nothing to hurt nobody until the mean ol' american's started provoking them", but then they suddenly got quiet when the facts about the Nanking rapes, murders and atrocities committed by the imperial japanese were presented.

Funny the way that works, huh?

The both of you in the above post's still continue to rant about the justifications and how bad the Japanese army was. That fact isnt being debated in this thread. I have said over and over again i know exactly what happened during WW2 and what the Japanese did.

My point is the use of Atomic weapons, thats all.

reply to post by MMPI2


Also i want to add im not anti-american, ive got nothing against you or anyone else. I do have a problem with your government and it's policies.

reply to post by fixer1967


yep and it still happens today.

Bad intel, human error, depleted uranium shells causing radiation sickness.

Pointless wars....

reply to post by MMPI2


Perhaps using yours and Fararchers logic we could have won alot more wars alot faster using atomic weapons?

Perhaps a couple of nukes on Bagdad? That would have saved many allied lives, but we will just ignore all the innocent civilians. What then? Maybe Nth Korea and then Iran.

Atomic weapons should never have been used. Pitty the Gaza countries didnt have nukes 2000 years ago, it woulda stopped the longest ongoing occupation war in history...yawn

the point is they should never have been used, i guess it's hard for to think objectively though....

Originally posted by Havick007
The both of you in the above post's still continue to rant about the justifications and how bad the Japanese army was. That fact isnt being debated in this thread. I have said over and over again i know exactly what happened during WW2 and what the Japanese did.

My point is the use of Atomic weapons, thats all.

I'd recommend that you go back and read this thread in full.

There are posters on here that are positing that the japanese were innocent in the run-up to the pacific campaign.

atomic weapons clearly have their place in certain strategic and tactical circumstances.

This is evidenced by their effective use in ending the japanese "excursions" in the 1940s, in the use of their deterrent effect with the soviets and the chinese, and could possibly play an effective tactical role in the persian gulf.

dont think that folks in the pentagon and the white house have recognized this, and have thoroughly gamed it out.

reply to post by Havick007

You're suggesting nuking North Korea and Iran.

Now you're thinking!

Problem?

Problem solved.

No fuss, quickly, and won't have to miss tee time.

reply to post by MMPI2


Ok no probs, it just seemed like you were directing the Japanese realted issues at me. Trust me i fully understand the history of WW2, i did pay attention in History classes...

Although as per the direction i have been trying to take the thread, dont you think there could have been a better way.
I am not sad about the Japanese military losses, theey deserved it, although i do understand the propaganda and brain washing of the citizens. Hence all the suicide planes etc.

I do care about innocent civilan losses. That is my concern and that is what this thread is about. Well that is what i have tried to make it about.

reply to post by FarArcher


I didnt suggest that, i was being sarcastic.... I cant believe you got a star for that reply!!
If you cant see how bad it is, then there is something wrong with you. Perhaps you would understand if your city or neighborhhod became the victim of an Atomic bomb, then you might understand. It seems like that is what it would take, because you are being really stubborn and in the worst sense.

But if that is your belief then you disgust me and i hope to god you never have any position of power.

Your lack of care for human life is exactly what is wrong with this world. Untill we get past these pitty wars and actually learn to talk things out and agree then this world will continue to go to crap and i hate it!!

I hate there is nothing one person can do uunless your rich, this whole planet is heading in the wrong direction and it's people like you that make it so much worse!

reply to post by Havick007

Of all human conditions, uncertainty is the most miserable.

I grow weary of all the uncertainty that continues, but some like you seem to thrive on it, but talk like you find it disappointing.

I guarantee you, the bombs ended the war.

I guarantee you, you kill the SOB's causing all the misery and uncertainty, and your world is not nearly as miserable.

But you keep wallowing in pity, misunderstanding of the root of the problems, or succinct, certain solutions.

reply to post by lewman


This is a lie...
Please don't lie.

As always when this very question comes up, it is always based on hindsight. When in combat you make decisions that at the time seem right but when looked upon at a later date with hindsight you go WTF was I thinking.

There really was no better or worse solution. Truman made a decision there and then period.

reply to post by Havick007


Country born of violence?
Yeah so much better to be the decendent of convicts and whores....whose sole contribution to their adopted homeland is the attempted genocide of the aborigines...

see...revisionist history is a bad thing....the war ended in time to save Australias bacon too....

HomeAboutThe Forgotten Tragic Loss of American Airmen at Hiroshima: "Beat this American Soldier before you pass..."

On This Date in History: By the end of July 1945, the allies pretty much had secured air superiority over the Empire of Japan. The Japanese, however, showed no signs of giving up any time soon so the Americans continued to bomb targets on the Japanese mainland. On the morning of July 28, 1945 several small groups of B-24 Liberators took off to fly their mission. The target was the Japanese Battleship Haruna, one of the few battleships remaining in the once mighty Japanese Navy. The group of planes that included the “Lonesome Lady” was short one plane so it only had 5 B-24s in its flight. Now, the Haruna was anchored in the Kure Harbor Naval Base, which was heavily armed with anti-aircraft defenses. The Haruna and other vessels at the base also were naturally heavily armed. Members of the US Army Air Corps generally had a rule of thumb: “never fly over a battleship.” However, Lonesome Lady pilot Lt. T.C. Cartwright knew that orders always trumped rules of thumb.


The Lonesome Lady Turned Back Over Land Instead of Safety of Sea
After the Lonesome Lady dropped its bombs, Cartwright noticed that one of its companion planes, the Taloa. was shot down. One of those killed in the crash of the Taloa was Lt. Robert C. Johnston, whose family learned of his fate in 2009. Shortly after the Taloa fell from the sky, another B-24 went down, though it was able to make its way toward a US held island near Okinawa. The Lonesome Lady took a hit and Cartwright thought that he could make it back to the ocean but he soon realized that the damage was to allow for that strategy. The plane became so uncontrollable that it deviated from its heading toward the sea back toward the land on its own. With an engine in flames and the hydraulics lost, the plane was completely out of control. Cartwright ordered the crew to bail out and, to the best of his knowledge, Cartwright was the last to leave the doomed bomber.


Youthful Lonesome Lady Pilot Tom Cartwright
All of the crew came to earth safely but in a very wide area. Each one was alone and each one was eventually captured and taken to a military installation for detention. On this date in 1945, the crew of the Lonesome Lady found themselves housed in a military detention center. They later found out that the detention center was on a military base in Hiroshima, Japan. While the base was one of many in Hiroshima, none were intended to be military detention centers and so they had no experienced interrogators. It is quite interesting that Cartwright said that, at that point in the war, air crews were briefed to tell the Japanese the correct answers to anything that they asked. Apparently, US military officials felt that whatever the captured crews told their captors, the Japanese already knew the information so there was no sense it risking torture or undue harrassment. So, Cartwright said that he answered all of the questions put before him truthfully. Nevertheless, the Japanese thought he was lying so they sent him to the Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo for further questioning. Normally, such a trip may result in terrific torture and pain for the unfortunate POW who was sent to such an interrogation facility. It was not uncommon for prisoners to be beheaded. For Cartwright, the moved proved to be a lifesaver.


Durden W. Looper
On the morning of August 6, 1945 the US B-29 Bomber called the Enola Gay dropped, “Little Boy”, the first atomic bomb used in warfare on Hiroshima, Japan. The target was the Aioi Bridge crossing the Ota River. About a half mile from the target was the crew of the Lonesome Lady along with the survivors of two other flight crews that had been shot down. One of those flight crews is suspected to have included three men from the Taloa. Amazingly, the solid brick walls somewhat withstood the force of the initial blast. Nevertheless, only 3 of the prisoners are known to have survived the initial blast. Included in the list of dead was Lonesome Lady crewman Lt. Durden W. Looper. US Navy pilot Normand Brissette and Lonesome Lady gunner Ralph Neal managed to get to a cesspool, where they remained nose deep in the muck until the flames died down. When they emerged from their ghastly position, they were quickly recaptured by their guards. That alone indicates the loyalty and fanaticism of the Japanese soldiers. The city was totally destroyed by a nuclear weapons and they were still keeping an eye on a couple of US flyers who had hidden in a cesspool.


"Little Boy" Detonated 1870 Ft Above Aioi Bridge in Hiroshima
But, their hiding place could not escape their captors or the lasting effects of the atomic bomb. With oozing sores and constant vomiting, the two men both died a terrible and slow death. The third American prisoner who survived was not as lucky. He was made a scapegoat for the destruction of the city. No one knows for certain whom the flyer was but an eyewitness is said to have described him as “the handsomest boy I ever saw.” He was tied to what was left of the Aioi Bridge with a sign hanging from him that read, “Beat This American Soldier Before You Pass.” Lonesome Lady pilot Tom Cartwright survived the war. Cartwright said that 50 POW’s were beheaded after the Japanese surrender but he was spared. On August 28, a month after he was shot down, the POW camp where Cartwright was being housed was liberated by US Marines. Of the 3000 Japanese Americans who were stranded in Hiroshima at the beginning of the war, about 1000 survived the atomic bomb and returned to the United States.


Andersonville Plaque Commemorating Flight Crews Killed Inadvertantly at Hiroshima
War often has unintended consequences. The crew of the Lonesome Lady was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Quite often, such stories are filled with “what ifs.” What if the Cartwright had been able to control the plane just a little longer? What if the plane went out of control toward the ocean instead of turning around back toward land? Why did the Japanese spare the life of the pilot of the Lonesome Lady but subject a crewman to beating and torture while tied to the Aioi Bridge? If any of these instances were altered, the story might have turned out differently. But, alternative history is fantasy and it is what it is. While the story of the tragic loss of the crew of the USS Indianapolis, which secretly delivered the bomb to Tinian Island is well known, the story of the Lonesome Lady is not. There is however, a commemorative plaque at a memorial located at the infamous site of the Civil War Andersonville Prison in Georgia.

reply to post by Havick007


I went back over this thread, and am still wondering what US "war crimes" were never addressed?

Can the OP help me here?

Thanks!

innocent Civi's? lol.. there were none.. just as you wouldn't find any in the U.S, U.K. U.S.S.R or any other country that was part of the War. You try and paint them as people who didn't know what the hell was going on. maybe 1% of the pop didn't or was not for the wars. that still leaves 99% for the wars. had the situation been reversed and the Jap's invaded the U.S or the U.K do you not think we would not have fought to the last man women and child? do you not think our children would not have fought? even you in auussie town would have fought to your last against the japs at the time? I'd hardly call any one in that war innocent. to state such is sadly uneducated. I'm just asking you to look at them. do you not think the two city's in question wouldn't have lost more people had the u.s invaded? the simple answer is yes. it would have been a total loss

reply to post by MMPI2


Dropping an Atomic Weapon on a Civilan City..twice