After the Doolittle B-25 raid on Japan

mustangdriver · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 9:09 pm

I read flyboys. Good book.

Robbie Roberts · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 9:39 pm

mustangdriver wrote:

I read flyboys. Good book.

If you are referring to that book by the guy who wrote "Flags of our Fathers", James Bradley, I have to tell you that I hate to disagree with you, but "Flyboys" was one of the worst books I ever read! He wandered all over the place, tried to be a Japanese apologist, and just really got up my nose with his way of telling the whole thing. And his use of the term "Flyboy" was sickening! He used it so much, trying to prove what he "knew" that he just made it seem as if he was using the term to show his own ignorance. Many of the WWII pilots would refer to themselves, among themselves, jokingly as "Flyboys", but most of the time it was considered derogatory in the way it was said... Hollywood used the term to excess, but when a dogface met an airman, and called him "Flyboy", it often was not meant kindly...

I could not stand the book, and have no intentions to ever read it, or any of his other books, again.

Robbie

Jack Cook · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 10:01 pm

I'm with Robbie on this one.
A big problem was that he didn't have a ghost writer for this
one and had to do the writing himself :shock:

mustangdriver · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 10:21 pm

It did jump around alot, but it was the first book I read that gave some insight as to what the Japanese did with POW's in WWII. I am sure there maybe be better books out there.

bdk · **Joined:** Sun May 02, 2004 1:16 am **Posts:** 11324

I have been to Nanjing (formerly Nanking) and visited the memorial there to the atrocities. Very sobering. Only in the past 10 years however are the people able to openly discuss the atrocities commited by Mao and the other communist leaders on themselves.

RyanShort1 · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 11:01 pm

Jack Cook wrote:

I'm with Robbie on this one.

Ditto. I skimmed the copy at the book store, found the brief section on the Doolittle Raiders and decided not to buy the book from that impression.

Ryan

JDK · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 11:33 pm

Dave Homewood wrote:

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?

I'm not sure what you are getting at Dave? A quick look shows mention of the quarter million figure on Wiki, sourced to PBS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid#Aftermath

And here, likewise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhejiang-Jiangxi_Campaign

It was well known that the Japanese were committing multiple atrocities across the area in their control; have a look at the history of Korea, for a longer-term example of why 'another atrocity' of even a quarter million wasn't major news. I'm afraid a good deal of western attitudes of the time would be along the lines of 'who cares about yellow-fellahs killing each other'.

There certainly were contemporary Japanese boasts of atrocities, not all of which were actually true:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to ... ng_a_sword

Large losses in China were not without precedent; in the Central Plains War of 1930 (which I'd never heard of) over 300,000 were probably lost:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Plains_War

bdk's point re- the appalling actions of Mao and the Communists re-entering history in China is an important one. we tend to overlook that we (the Allies) backed Chiang Kai-shek, whose leadership and government were not lily white either (although the Communist version isn't accurate either) just as we allied with the Soviet Union; Stalin being one of the most vicious dictators in all history; but it was a messier war than 'good guys versus bad guys'.

Cozmo, Holdigger and Garth's points I all agree with; and no, I didn't manage to make much sense of Chinese history.

Regards,

Dave Homewood · **Posted:** Thu May 07, 2009 11:55 pm

I'm wasn't particularly "getting at" anything.

The history of China is not a field that greatly interests me at all, and though I had heard of course of the mass attrocities that Japan caused there, I had not heard of this case involving the retribution for the US B-25 Mitchell bombing raid in which 250,000 people lost their lives, because of a handful of people helped the downed Americans. All I was wondering was if this was a well known consequence to the fabled story of the Doolittle Raid. It seems it is well known and always has been.

Now that it is quite clear to me that America and the world were aware after the massacre that it took place, and of other such massacres and attocities, I have to ask why is it that Nazis were put on trial for war crimes and even right now there are Jewish groups still hell bent one bringing 90 years olds to justice for what they did, but nothing of this nature seems to have been done to adress the war crimes of Japan. Where is the justice? Japan's monsters were never punished it seems and their crimes have been swept under the rug and forgotten within their country. Or am I wrong? Were some brought to trial?

JDK · **Posted:** Fri May 08, 2009 12:10 am

OK, so it was just a 'I didn't know' question.

Dave Homewood wrote:

Now that it is quite clear to me that America and the world were aware after the massacre that it took place, and of other such massacres and attocities, I have to ask why is it that Nazis were put on trial for war crimes and even right now there are Jewish groups still heck bent one bringing 90 years olds to justice for what they did, but nothing of this nature seems to have been done to adress the war crimes of Japan. Where is the justice? Japan's monsters were never punished it seems and their crimes have been swept under the rug and forgotten within their country. Or am I wrong? Were some brought to trial?

Er, no? First - Wrong war. It's easy to regard W.W.II as a single 'war'; it wasn't, and certainly not when you look at China and Japan; an area the western allies fought Japan and only supported the Chinese Nationalists; while Chinese warlords and the communists followed their own agenda.

Secondly, there were significant war crimes trials for Japanese atrocities, as cited in the previous references in this thread, and numerous Japanese were tried and numbers executed when convicted. I'm surprised you have the impression there wasn't.

Crimes against the Chinese were harder to deal with due to the Civil War China found itself in post W.W.II; the western allied responsibility for trying Japanese soldiers for Chinese atrocities does seem to have occurred; remarkable considering the difficulties in the matter.

In all three cases, like justice in general, the prosecution and conviction rate was much lower than the number of atrocities. And there are pragmatic, good and bad reasons for that.

McArthur chose to reinstate the Emperor and build a stable, democratic Japan; to do that he drew a line under some of the areas of responsibility, such as the Emperor's. I'm no fan of McArthur's, but on a pragmatic basis for a stable country, it was not 'just' but it was effective.

For a useful article insight to much of the context, this article rounds out some of the issues, starting with the museum bdk mentioned earlier:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ ... 810x1.html

Mgawa · **Posted:** Fri May 08, 2009 12:21 am

Dave Homewood- I have chance long time ago to watch on TV some WW2 age movies from the excavations of the victims of the Japanese terror in China. Thrust me- there was piles of skulls and bones! I don't know have you seen that movies on west, in time I watch that was still influence of cold war.

Cruelty was most hardest in Balkans I think. I know for the many West pilot rescued by partisans and Draza Mihailovic troops but also know for one when two US airmans are trown to the river bank and cut throat with knifes. The excecutor was Vojislav Rajicic- Pozarevac, who was member of Kosta Pecanac chetnics. He was find out in '80 and excecuted to death due to his crimes.

Forgotten Field · **Posted:** Fri May 08, 2009 4:05 am

Quote:

Secondly, there were significant war crimes trials for Japanese atrocities

Which were questionable in their own light. I am not a Japanese apologist, but Tomoyuki sugar was railroaded for the Bataan Death March. You should read his biography. Of course, he was the only Japanese General who fought a successful offense against MacArthur, which some feel was the real reason he was convicted.

The complexities of WWII are akin to the complexities of the aircraft we all love. It is very easy to look at the conflict in terms of black and white, but at the time, there were many un-resolved issues which people of the time tried to come to grips with. Signifigant issues which come to mind are the British civilian repulsion to the bombing campaigns against Germany, the corrupt nature of the Kuomintang which made it very difficult to prosecute a war against Japan, and then impossible to save China from Communism, Germany's record of occupation in France (pretty good).

It is easy to look through the lenses of history and simplify all of it. But if you spend some time looking up what really happened, and can read between the lines a bit, the machinations, twists, turns, personalities, and politics of the times are there for your education. China is an especially difficult subject- it is a huge nation and its revolutions and civil wars have causes and lineages going back thousands of years. Here is another point of view about the 'repercussions' against China for the Doolittle Raid; the CBI theatre had already been assigned a secondary status for supplies and personnel. Chiang Kai Shek, who had been painted as one of the four great allies of WWII, and his advisors had threatened several times to make a separate peace with Japan if their theatre did not receive more attention. If the 'repercussions' were no more than the usual number Chinese being killed at the time, their use as a publicity tool to paint the poor peasants as victims of poor planning on the part of the US was certainly a good way to politic for more support. I don't know that for a fact, but I would guess that the situation was used for as much effect as possible.

cozmo · **Posted:** Fri May 08, 2009 6:41 am

Yep, there were war crimes trials.

There were also pardons for a lot of those convicted.

Like in Germany, there were medical experiments performed on civilians and POW's. They are as gruesome a story as you can find. IIRC, lots to do with hypothermia, pregnancy and how the body works and reacts.

A lot of these crimes were hushed up and the papers used to advance medicine. The powers that be were afraid that if the information were released, the public would demand that all the papers be destroyed.

Ian Quinn · **Posted:** Fri May 08, 2009 6:52 am

Many thousands of Chinese civilians were murdered after the raid.

A similar occurrence happened along the coast after the Lisbon Maru was torpedoed. It was carrying POWs from Hong Kong to Japan, with nothing to indicate that there were POWs on board and also without notification through the Red Cross, and was sunk by a US Navy sub.
Civilians helped many who made the shore but whole villages were eradicated and thousands murdered as 'punishment'...

On the whole though, a lot of China was unoccupied and later in the war the chances of returning to base after bailing out or a forced landing were very high. Complete B-24 crews would bail out after getting lost at night and by morning be gathered together and start their journey back being guided through occupied and unoccupied areas.

The British Army Aid Group and the OSS operated escape routes as did a small USNavy land detachment. Unfortunately, like many things in the war they were not in complete harmony with each other...

Two small vignettes...During a USNavy Task Force raid in Jan 1945 on Hong Kong, many aircrew were rescued by fishing junks in the harbour and nearby. Civilians who helped a Helldiver gunner who bailed out and landed in what is now downtown Hong Kong were shot the next day.

Incidentally, a 118th TRS P-51 pilot flying from a base in China was shot down over Hong Kong that day. He was executed by firing squad a few months later on trumped up charges.

Although they had proved themselves to be resourceful and courageous unfortunately after the war many Chinese who helped the Allies were treated quite shabbily.

The Japanese committed many atrocities. Many were tried in Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai and Manila as well as Tokyo but the investigations and trials were stopped by MacArthur in 1950 - much to the fury of the investigators.

Holedigger · **Posted:** Fri May 08, 2009 6:52 am

It is indeed a complicated thing to try to get "justice" as it turns into a justice for who issue. For the victors only or for all? The Bataan Death March, indeed a terrible thing, 28-30% mortality. Some justice was inflicted for those that were in charge of that. Stalin's treatment of the German prisoners that surrendered at Stalingrad? Over 90% of those troops that surrendered to the Russians never made it home.....but no war crime there!? It was a complicated world post-war and it still is. We became involved in Superower squabbles for world domination.....justice took a back seat. It is what it is.

Mgawa · **Posted:** Fri May 08, 2009 8:52 am

Quote:

Stalin's treatment of the German prisoners that surrendered at Stalingrad? Over 90% of those troops that surrendered to the Russians never made it home

Maybe will be betre to find out what was German troops doing in Soviet Union. I was wonder that any of them survived. Germans was extremly brutal in this theater.

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After the Doolittle B-25 raid on Japan

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