Japanese War Crimes

The Japanese war crimes are some of the most alarming things I have ever heard of. They were a series of crimes committed by Japan during their periods of imperialism, primarily World War Two. Traditionally these extreme acts of violence were committed by army personnel.

Many have referred to this event as the Asian Holocaust because it closely resembles the European Holocaust, taking place at the exact same time, but on the other side of the world. Instead of the Jews being targeted, in this case it was most heavily impacting the lives of the Chinese. Like Hitler in Europe, Emperor Hirohito is ultimately responsible for the events transpiring.

The video I watched about the Japanese War Crimes by the History Channel series World War II in HD was definitely not sugar coated. It showed the bloody gruesome reality of the Japanese war crimes, the way it should be. I’m glad it showed us the brutal reality instead of making it seem “not so bad”. I was appalled at the things I saw, and that was just through a television screen. I cannot imagine what it would be like in real life. I can fully understand how horrible the conditions were for the survivors and I admire their courage, fight and tenacity.

The single most horrendous part of the entire video was the Bataan Death March. Prisoners of war from the Philippines were marched 80 miles by the Imperial Japanese Army. Initially there were 76,000 POWs that began the march and thousands did not make it to the destination. The fact that POWs were being assaulted with weapons such as golf clubs just speaks out about how the Japanese were beating the POWs out of enjoyment, and no real reason.

All of these War Crimes were used back in America as tools for Propaganda. The Japanese soldiers were referred to as “Murdering Jap”. This is an appropriate title as some of the crimes committed were executions on the surrenders. It wasn’t until the 1950’s when former Japanese Army officers started to release public apologies for the incidents that happened. But no number of public apologies can undo the ruthless war crimes committed by the Japanese.


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