After the Doolittle B-25 raid on Japan

Dave Homewood · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 8:25 am

I was watching a bit of The Colour of War III: The American Story today and it showed some nice coloured footage of the Jimmy Doolittle lead B-25 raid on Tokyo. The narrator Patrick McNee mentioned at the end of the sequence, almost as an aside, that as retribution towards Chinese people who'd helped the US airmen downed in the raid, the Japanese executed a quarter of a million Chinese people.

That's 250,000!

I'd never picked up on that fact before. It makes my mind boggle as to just how this could be done, logistically. Was it a general order to all units across occupied China to select x-number of peasants and kill them?

I also wonde why this isn't more well known as one of the worst attorcities ever committed. Was it a fact that was swept under the carpet when all the publicity and flag waving was being done about the succes of the raid? Or is it actually well known and I have just missed it all this time?

cozmo · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 8:41 am

Much of what happened in China is not widely known.

Most Europeans who know anything about WWII think it started in 1939. Americans think it started in 1941. And most folks think the USSR was a virtuous ally.

As for the the retribution on the Chinese civilians after the Doolittle raid, they would have been committed anyway and were already taking place. The raid was just an excuse.

JDK · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 8:46 am

Sad to say there were so many Japanese atrocities that it's a question of which massacre is top of the news this week (in the 1930s and 1940s) and then what more could the US and Allies do to a) defeat Japan and b) assist (Nationalist) China at the time? Not much.

I'd also suspect that Western attitudes to Chinese deaths was pretty robust; after all, the 'Yellow Peril' the Canadians, Australians and so on had been worrying about and mistreating from the 1880s to the 1940s was the Chinese, for the most part.

As to Japanese hypocrisy, then and now, and western disinterest, start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

WARNING - graphic images.

JDK · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 8:50 am

I'd agree with Cozmo. Having tried to make sense of some Chinese (warlord) history of the 1920s recently for a project, it's certainly very hard to get a grip on.

mustangdriver · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 8:56 am

Hey this can't be true. I just read a Japanese history book and it said from the years 1938-1945 everyone was on vacation.

Mgawa · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 10:17 am

I will try to give answer from some other angle, angle of view of somebody who have practice martial arts [Wing Chun Kung Fu in my case]. During that time I have contacted with many people and I have hear some of info uncommon for me. For excample in the Asia masters of martial art we from West are treaten as savages so they did not wanted to share their knowledge with us. During the time I also get info that similar things are with people there- some nations like the Chinesse [actually there is 52 nations, not one] and Viet Nams are treated as "not human" in the way similar to the German "ubermansch" theory. In this way there was happen some brutal crimes and as I know in the mind of the excecutirs this is not taken as crime, more like the pest termination.

Please apologize for this writings and I hope that this will not offend at all. Personaly I would like to hear if anybody can give me more info about the mentality and so on. Life is in front of me [I hope so] and I would like to learn.

Thank you

Holedigger · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 10:36 am

The book series "Shogun" by James Clavell gives a pretty good insight into Japanese culture and their attitude towards other nations and peoples in general. They are a good read. The TV mini series did not do it justice!!! Others are uncultured barbarians, hardly better than animals. At least that was then....what it is now......hmmmmm have to ponder that one!

cozmo · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 11:32 am

JDK wrote:

Having tried to make sense of some Chinese (warlord) history of the 1920s recently for a project, it's certainly very hard to get a grip on.

Were you able to make any sense out it? Looked into it once while studying the Chinese communists v. nationalists. Figured brain surgery would be easier.

While not defending the Japanese, especially since they're revising their history to such an extent as to make soviets envious, many cultures and countries were as hostile to the people on "the other side of the hill" as the Japanese. They just did it on a larger scale than most, and got a later start.

jet1 · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 4:10 pm

That's why I will never own a scubaroo or a hondaiy or a tiota....well you get the idea...

Mgawa · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 4:43 pm

cozmo is right! This is not sole with Japanese only. We have similar situation here. You know well that I am Serb. But maybe somebody said Serbian. Well- it all start in 19. century as the Austro Hungarian propaganda where is stated that there is Serbs and Serbians. The principal idea was to make distance and they make it. Believe or not all Serbs who are live out of Serbia think that they are Serbs and we here are Serbians. And worst at all it is taken as bad category.

In 1940 regarding to statistics small town in Serbia had 10.000 citizens. During the war, from 1941 to 1944, Germans were shoot 1600 people. When communist units get there in autumn 1944, they shoot 6400 people in just three nights and on four places. The units who do that are Serbs out of Serbia, in the case of Krusevac the unit was from Knin [today in Croatia]. From those 6400 people, 17 was Germans. The same situation was in whole Serbia. Serbs out of Serbia has killed in short time more people in Serbia then Germans during whole war! And to add this massive robery, abuse and criminal they bring. Simply we are under level with them. They still think today in same way.

So.... maybe Japanese crime are not sole....

Holedigger · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 5:10 pm

You are quit right Mgowa in that discrimination against other ethnic groups happened then and is still happening now. This thin veneer of civilization is easily rubbed through when it is turned into an "us against them" scenario. Hitler played that card. Stalin played it, Castro played it, Mao played it, Sadam played it. It is a sad commentary on how "civilized" we really are! Did Japan and Germany learn anything from the war? Just what do they teach in their history classes? If we do not learn from our history, we are bound to repeat it!!!

Garth · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 5:53 pm

When the Smithsonian decided to kill the original Enola Gay exhibit and retool it into something less inflamatory, many of the Hiroshima artifacts had already been sent over here and prepped for display.

One of the local DC universities put the artifacts, along with placards containing the intended text for the Smithsonian exhibit, on display in a show of "defiance" against the powers working to keep the "truth" away from the public.

The folks responsible for the university exhibit had a small "oops" in selecting for their counter-display the DC university with the largest and most active Chinese-American student population. The Chinese-American Student Union promptly put up its OWN display right across the hall. Called "Japan and the Asian Holocaust". The Doolittle retaliations featured heavily. It ended up drawing much higher numbers than the A-bomb one.

Dave Homewood · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 6:17 pm

What I'd be interested in knowing is when did it become known to the Allies about the massacre of 250,000 people? Did the Japanese gloat about it on their propaganda radio just afterwards? Or was it not discovered till after the war ended? If it was known during the war, was it released to the general public?

cozmo · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 6:29 pm

It was known right after it began. There were atrocities in even in the early 30's. There were missionaries that let the world know at great danger to themselves.

It has been a while, so I may remember some details wrong. But the Japanese didn't hide what they were doing. It is the way they were.

If countries wouldn't take a ship full of Jewish refugees, what would they care what happened to Asians?

One of the things that really grates on me is; there were some American pilots shot down during the battle of Midway who were picked up by some retreating Japanese ships. They were beaten and then tied to scrap metal and tossed back overboard...they were pretty proud of themselves and if they had kept it quiet, no one would have known.

Matt Gunsch · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 6:29 pm

to get a idea of the Japanese mindset at the time, read these 2 books if nothing else,
The Rape of Nanking

Flyboys
http://www.amazon.com/Rape-Nanking-Forg ... 767&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Flyboys-Story-Cou ... 902&sr=1-1

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