This book documents Japanese atrocities in World War II, including cannibalism, the slaughter and starvation of prisoners of war, rape and enforced prostitution, the murder of noncombatants, and biological warfare experiments.
Estimates of the number of deaths range from 3 to 30 million through sexual slavery, massacres, human experimentation, starvation, and forced labor directly perpetrated or condoned by the Japanese military and government.
While they're not often discussed when highlighting the atrocities of World War II, Japan committed some of the most misanthropic, sadistic, and evil acts in human history. Many WWII experts even argue they were more brutal than the Nazis.
Compared to the Western-European Theater, combat in the Pacific was brutal, marked by illness, disease, and ferocity. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) typically fought alone in these engagements, often with very little naval or aerial support, and the IJA quickly garnered a reputation for their unrelenting spirit.
The Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan) were some of the most systematic perpetrators of war crimes in modern history.
Major Alliances during World War II (1939-1945)
The three principal partners in what was eventually referred to as the Axis alliance were Germany, Italy, and Japan. These countries were led by German dictator Adolf Hitler, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and Japanese Emperor Hirohito.
Later in his book, Rantamaa credited Häyhä with a total of 542 kills. Some of Häyhä's figures are from a Finnish Army document, counted from the beginning of the war, 30 November 1939: 22 December 1939: 138 sniper kills in 22 days.
The Allies punished Japan for its past militarism and expansion by convening war crimes trials in Tokyo. At the same time, SCAP dismantled the Japanese Army and banned former military officers from taking roles of political leadership in the new government.
Regardless, Japan was a difficult enemy to defeat due to the commitment of its soldiers to fight to the death and resist surrender.
Japan set up a government in Korea with the governor-generalship filled by generals or admirals appointed by the Japanese emperor. The Koreans were deprived of freedom of assembly, association, the press, and speech. Many private schools were closed because they did not meet certain arbitrary standards.
Japanese conservatives typically harbor negative feelings toward South Korea due to their perception that the complaints and accusations made by Koreans are baseless. This way of thinking is partially derived from their fundamental misunderstanding of the reality of Japan's colonial rule.
One of the biggest mistakes the Japanese made was not destroying the smallest American ships in Pearl: our submarines. They survived and put to sea to destroy more Japanese tonnage during the war than the Americans lost at Pearl Harbor. And the biggest mistake of all? Underestimating the American public.
The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are the most turbulent period in Japanese history, as military warlords clash violently and frequently in attempts to increase their own power and territory.
The Sengoku period (Japanese: 戦国時代, Hepburn: Sengoku Jidai, lit. 'Warring States period') is the period in Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Leaflets dropped on cities in Japan warning civilians about the atomic bomb, dropped c. August 6, 1945. TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE: America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet.
And although the Japanese government never believed it could defeat the United States, it did intend to negotiate an end to the war on favorable terms. It hoped that by attacking the fleet at Pearl Harbor it could delay American intervention, gaining time to solidify its Asian empire.
The previous spring Japan in fact had almost experienced a military coup. As he mulled it over, Hitler envisaged an alliance with Tokyo primarily for what it meant in the struggle against “Jewish” Bolshevism. This was to be a pact emphatically denouncing Marxist revolution.
Japan's wartime actions and atrocities are historical facts and justly demand atonement and historical accountability. They cannot be denied or glamorized. They cannot be forgotten in the name of anti-communism as when Japanese war criminals were pardoned after show trials by the US.
In addition to the central Tokyo trial, various tribunals sitting outside Japan judged some 5,000 Japanese guilty of war crimes, of whom more than 900 were executed. HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content.
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery was one of the most prominent and successful British commanders of the Second World War (1939-45). Affectionately known as 'Monty', he commanded the Allies in North Africa and in the subsequent invasions of Italy and Normandy.
But both Hitler and Stalin were outdone by Mao Zedong. From 1958 to 1962, his Great Leap Forward policy led to the deaths of up to 45 million people—easily making it the biggest episode of mass murder ever recorded.