World war 2 - War crimes - Unit 731 - Japan

Very brutal Joe..

Yes indeed the Japanese were just as bad as their partners in war.. Sad to say we will probably find out more in the future... Thanks for sharing LTC Stephen C.

Interestingly, the Japanese and the Germans both had their idea of what were undesirable/sub-human people and both felt that their respective theatres (PTO/ETO) would "thank them" for removing the sub-humans from Asia/Europe. Where the two differed is that Germany (preparing for her oscar nomination) cataloged all of the dead, whereas the Japanese just simply didn't give a crap. Most of the SS were sentenced/executed based on photographic evidence THEY THEMSELVES TOOK. The Japanese couldn't care less what your name was.

SMSgt Lawrence McCarter - The other issue was concept. Germany was going for a pure weapon whereas Japan was angling for a dirty weapon. Japan's goal was a quick airburst over Ulithi Atoll which would have infected 1000 ships and virtually all of our invasion force for Okinawa which Japan believed was a diversion for a raid on Honshu.

PO3 Donald Murphy - Guess between that and biological weapon development and use Japan at that time proved there was no level they would not stoop to. We made the German civilians in the aftermath aware of what their military had done in this regard but never did so with Japan. I'm tankful that bomb was dropped, My Father in Law was to be part of the invasion force and the chances of survival would not have been good. He had already hit three Japanese Islands via landing craft and survived. If that bomb had not been dropped My wife may well not have been born. My Dad was part of the occupation force so who knows what may have happened to Him esp as He met and married My mother in the post war period although He was still in Navy uniform.

SMSgt Lawrence McCarter - Sadly, Japan would have been burnt to a crisp before the first allied serviceman stepped foot! The Army was told by the Navy to clean up the air (Kamikaze) threat or they were going to pull out leaving the Army on Okinawa un-defended and without supplies. General Marshall "suggested" that the USAAC "do a little more to lighten the Navy's concern." It filtered down and Curtis Le May came up with the idea of just plain old fire bombing. He figured, cause casualties so great that the Japanese would have to divert Kamikaze planes into air defense planes. Going in at low level at night, they firebombed Tokyo killing too many people all for the loss of a dozen or so bombers out of a force of 120.

Official estimates state 150000 - 200000, but later Japanese record keeping puts the total at close to 400000. And that was with JUST firebombs. So had the atom bomb not been used, Le May would have systematically torched one city a night during the month long preliminary bombing. At 400000 dead per night, Japan would have ceased to exist by the second week. Millions were made homeless during the Tokyo raid as well which clogged Japan's road network similar to the German Luftwaffe scaring refugees onto the roads in Europe. The atom bomb saved more Japanese than people want to let on.

PO3 Donald Murphy - Yep, and as Curtis LeMay said when they did fire bomb, " We will bomb them back to the stone age !" More died from those firestorms from the super heated air from that firebombing bombing that from the atomic bombs.