2202: February 2022: Japan: A WWII Enemy

Bill Hillman's Monthly Military Tribute
AS YOU WERE . . .
WAR YEARS ECLECTICA :: FEBRUARY 2022
2022.02 Edition

JAPAN
A FORMIDABLE WWII FOE

JAPANESE SUICIDE BOATS NEAR HONG KONG.
AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER 1945, PICNIC BAY ~ Ref
Covered and cornered in Picnic Bay, Japanese explosive motor boat pilots raise their arms in surrender
as men from the British destroyers WHIRLWIND and QUADRANT close in to investigate the base.
Some of the suicide craft are on the beach, ready on their trolleys for launching.

WHEN JAPANESE TROOPS USED
BRITISH ARMY PRISONERS AS TARGET PRACTICE
Horrifying moment British POWs were used for target practice by Japanese WWII soldiers:
Rare images show barbaric execution... before captives were bayoneted to ensure their deaths
Reference: Daily Mail ~ November 2017

British Indian Army soldiers from Sikh Regiment can be seen sitting blindfolded with targets on their hearts
After being savagely murdered by the Japanese soldiers, the British troops were then impaled with a bayonet
Pictures were found among Japanese records when Allied troops returned Singapore to British rule in 1945
Tens of thousands of British servicemen died in Japan's prisoner of war camps during the Second World War

The Japanese treatment of prisoners in the war was infamously barbaric
and this scene from Singapore in 1942 tallies with other instances of their degenerate behaviour.
The pictures were found among Japanese records
when Allied troops entered Singapore in 1945 and returned it to British rule.
Tens of thousands of British servicemen died from starvation, overwork, torture and disease
in Japan's prisoner of war camps during the Second World War.
These pictures reveal the full scale of the brutality suffered upon the helpless prisoners.

In the first image of the set, the Sikh prisoners of the British Indian Army are seen seated blindfolded
with target marks on their hearts and stakes placed in the ground in front of them bearing the butt numbers of each 'target'.
They sit with dignity awaiting their end.
The vast majority of Indian soldiers captured when Singapore fell to Japan in February 1921 were Sikhs.
In the photograph, all of them sit in traditional cross-legged position - reciting their final prayers.
The Japanese treatment of prisoners in the war was infamously barbaric
and this scene from Singapore in 1942 tallies with other instances of their degenerate behaviour

It is clear in these photographs that this is a target practice not a straightforward military execution by a firing squad.
A firing squad usually has six or more shooters per condemned to guarantee a near-instant death.
But in this case, the Japanese shooters are carefully assigned one prisoner each and
each victim has a demeaning target mark on his heart.
Tens of thousands of British servicemen died from starvation, overwork, torture and disease
in Japan's prisoner of war camps during the Second World War.
These reveal the full scale of the inhuman brutality practised by the Japanese upon their helpless prisoners

In this picture, the Japanese troops can be seen readying their rifles before shooting the helpless prisoners.
General Tomoyuki Yamashita captured Singapore from the British in 1942,
which Winston Churchill described as the 'worst disaster in British military history.'
Yamashita was later charged with war crimes after overseeing atrocities
such as the ones in Singapore and many other massacres across South East Asia.
He was sentenced to death by hanging in 1946

In the final haunting image, the prisoners are seen dead on the ground
while the Japanese troops impale their corpses with a bayonet.
The pictures were found among Japanese records
when Allied troops entered Singapore in 1945 and returned it to British rule.
During the war, Japan captured nearly 140,000 Allied military personnel
from Australia, Canada, Great Britain, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United States

Japan failed to follow the Geneva Convention rules of war governing prisoner treatment,
which led to tens of thousands of Allied PoWs enduring barbaric conditions
in which they were starved, beaten, murdered or used as forced labour.
Many were ordered to help construct railways, roads and airfields
while others endured savage conditions in coal mines, shipyards and factories.
Pictured left: Australian POW Sergeant Leonard Siffleet, who was captured in New Guinea
and photographed seconds before his savage beheading in 1942.
Right: General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who was in charge of Japanese forces when they conquered Singapore

One of the most notorious examples of Japanese troops forcing prisoners to work themselves to death
was during the construction of the Burma - or 'Death' - Railway.
Of the 60,000 Allied servicemen forced to work on the railroad,
more than 12,000 died from maltreatment, sickness and starvation.
Pictured: Emaciated Australian and Dutch prisoners of war
held by the Japanese at Tarsau (close to the railway) in Thailand, 1943

CONTINUED IN OUR MARCH 2022 ISSUE

UNBELIEVABLY INHUMANE
JAPANESE TORTURE METHODS
USED DURING THEIR INVASION OF CHINA
AND DURING WORLD WAR II
Referenec: Ranker.com ~ February 19, 2019
Many nations committed many terrible acts during WWII.
However, Japanese transgressions in that period stand out as especially horrific and brutal.
Not only did the Japanese use inhuman methods as part of their interrogations,
but full units were set up for experimenting on living human beings.
The following is a list of truly sickening methods and human experiments
committed by the Japanese Imperial Army

Japanese Soldiers Ate Prisoners Alive
There have been many well-documented reports of Japanese soldiers dining on their enemies.
Supplies were running low throughout the Pacific Theater, so the Japanese began selecting prisoners at work camps to consume.
In some cases, soldiers cut flesh from still-living prisoners.
While some cannibal soldiers were themselves starving, others had ample provisions and
only engaged in cannibalism as a means to terrorize prisoners or strengthen the soldiers' bonds
with one another by engaging in this taboo act as a group.

Women Were Assaulted, Forcibly Impregnated,
Then Dissected Alive
Soldiers forcibly impregnated female prisoners,
whose condition was then used to "study" pregnant women and fetuses.
The Japanese were keen on knowing if syphilis could be transmitted between mother and child,
so pregnant prisoners were intentionally infected with the disease.
Pregnant women were vivisected, and female prisoners were also subjected to grisly sexual experimentation.

Japanese Doctors Removed
'Fresh' Organs from Living Prisoners
At the infamous Unit 731 where Japanese scientists conducted abhorrent acts on mainly Chinese POWs,
it was common practice to remove subjects' organs or to cut off their limbs
without the administration of painkillers or anesthetics.

One particularly ghastly act was the removal of a prisoner's stomach,
after which the esophagus and small intestine would be directly linked.
Others had their limbs removed and then reattached elsewhere on their body as a pointless, cruel "experiment."
Some had samples of their brains and livers removed while they were still alive.

Prisoners Were Slowly Impaled
On Growing Bamboo Shoots
Quick-growing bamboo provided a natural tool to slowly harm and eventually end prisoners.
Japanese soldiers tied Allied prisoners down over a bed of sharpened bamboo shoots.
Bamboo can grow a couple of inches per day, and the persistent plant can penetrate flesh.
Over days, the bamboo climbed right through the soldiers, impaling them, until they expired.

Prisoners Were Terminated In Centrifuges
Or High-Pressure Chambers
How long can a person survive without food and water?
In addition to dehydration and nutrition deprivation, Japanese scientists
toyed with the fragility of prisoners' lives
by spinning them in centrifuges until their insides could no longer handle it.
They were also curious about the amount of pressure that human bodies could withstand,
so prisoners were placed into high-pressure chambers while the pressure dial was cranked up.

The Japanese Froze Prisoners' Limbs
And Then Stripped Them To The Bone
To run "tests" on frostbite's effects, doctors froze the prisoners' appendages,
then doused the limbs with hot water to observe the painful results.
In some cases, the flesh would be stripped away,
revealing only bare bone, with the prisoner still alive.
Doctors would then amputate the limb and move on to the next.

The Japanese Army Used The Plague
As A Biological Weapon
Prisoners were intentionally infected with syphilis and gonorrhea,
sometimes by means of forced sexual contact.
Meanwhile, plague-carrying fleas and diseased items
were dropped on various civilian Chinese targets.
Historians believe that the deliberate outbreaks,
which afflicted whole towns, ended the lives of at least 30,000 people.
These citizens were also subjected to approximately a dozen diseases,
including cholera and anthrax.
Plague-carrying fleas were bred at Unit 731
and elsewhere as part of biological warfare programs.

Human Prisoners Were Injected
With Animal Blood
Horse blood was administered to prisoners to determine if wounded Japanese soldiers
could be given animal blood as a substitute for human blood.
Of course, this did not work, and prisoners perished.
In another blood-based "experiment," prisoners were injected with sea water,
but that too proved to abruptly end their lives.

Prisoners Were Subjected
To Water-Based Torment
During interrogations, Japanese soldiers would place tubes down a prisoner's throat
and turn on the water spigot until water leaked from the victim's nostrils.
In addition to inducing a terrifying feeling of drowning, water intoxication can be fatal.

Prisoners Were Burned Alive
Japanese scientists curious about human resilience to extreme temperatures
exposed living prisoners to heat to "study" the effects of heat and burns on the human body.

Japanese Scientists Exposed Prisoners
To X-Rays Until They Perished
Japanese "scientists" also subjected prisoners
to high dosages of X-rays until they passed from radiation poisoning.

Prisoners Were Crucified
According to Iris Chang, an American-born Chinese journalist and historical writer,
the Japanese would crucify some of their prisoners,
nailing them to trees, electrical posts, or wooden boards.

People Were Hanged
But Not In The Traditional Way
Hanging is a fairly common and well-known form of execution.
The method can be used as a form of systematic harm
when the drop isn't enough to break the neck.
As a result, the person suffers drawn-out asphyxiation.
The Japanese would hang prisoners by their tongues or thumbs
and leave them for days - or until whatever appendage they'd been hung by broke apart.

Japanese troops marching into Singapore in 1942 after defeating the British.
Tens of thousands of British servicemen died from starvation, overwork, torture and disease
in Japan's prisoner of war camps during the Second World War.
These reveal the full scale of the inhuman brutality practised by the Japanese upon their helpless prisoners

The Pacific War in the Second World War
was fought over a vast area encompassing the Pacific islands and Southeast Asia.
It began in December 1941 when Japan invaded Thailand
and attacked the British possessions of Singapore and Hong Kong
as well as U.S. military bases at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and the Philippines.
More than 50,000 British forces personnel surrendered to the Japanese
between the fall of Hong Kong in December 1941 and March 1942
when the vast territories of the Dutch East Indies surrendered.
Pictured: Not long after the moment Britain surrendered island territory to Japan in 1942,
leading to three years of hell for 80,000 prisoners of war

After the fall of Hong Kong, tens of thousands more Allied troops
were captured on 15 February 1942, when Singapore fell.
These prisoners of war were used as slave labour
by their captors over the next three and a half years,
with almost one in three dying due to untreated disease, malnutrition and brutality.
Many civilians were also interned and forced into labour.
Pictured: The surrender of Singapore

While the war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945 (now celebrated as VE Day),
Japan's military leaders refused to accept surrender,
despite the country's isolation and the fact that their countrymen -
and several thousand Allied prisoners - were starving to death.
By the summer of 1945, a multinational Allied fleet
had joined the vast US Navy in the Pacific ready to invade Japan.
Pictured: A Japanese soldier using a dead Chinese man for bayonet practice

After final warnings of dire consequences,
the United States unleashed an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6.
Still Japan refused to accept unconditional surrender.
Three days later, on August 9, the second atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki.
Only then did the Emperor intercede
to bring the war in the Far East to an end on August 15, 1945,
celebrated as VJ (victory over Japan) Day.
Japan signed an unconditional surrender on September 2.
Pictured: Herbert Edwards, an Australian prisoner of war
who suffered horrific abuses at the hands of the Japanese.
Edwards survived three years of brutal Japanese captivity,
including being crucified for 63 hours.
Edwards was also sentenced to death during the war but escaped the punishment
because his last meal request, chicken and beer, could not be fulfilled

Pictured: Japanese General Yamashita, second right, at his war crime hearing in Manila, the Philippines.
Yamashita captured Singapore from the British in 1942,
which Winston Churchill described as the 'worst disaster in British military history.'
Yamashita oversaw savage treatment of prisoners while occupying Singapore
and other parts of South East Asia, crimes for which he was later executed

Horrific Japanese Crimes In WWII That History Forgot

What Happened Immediately After the Bombs Were Dropped on Japan

The Most Haunting Photos Of Hiroshima, Taken In The Aftermath Of The Atomic Bomb

11 Haunting Photos Of Shadows Permanently Burned Into The Ground By The Hiroshima Nuclear Blast

The Horrifying And Lethal Experiments Of Unit 731

11 Fascinating Details About The Lives Of Kamikaze Pilots

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