Japanese cruelty in World War II. Atrocities of the harmless Japanese

Most likely, it will be: Japanese cuisine, high technology, anime, Japanese schoolgirls, hard work, politeness, etc. However, some may remember far from the most positive moments. Well, almost all countries have dark periods in their history that they are not proud of, and Japan is no exception to this rule.

The older generation will certainly remember the events of the last century, when Japanese soldiers who invaded the territory of their Asian neighbors showed the whole world how cruel and merciless they could be. Of course, a lot of time has passed since then, however, in the modern world there is an increasing tendency towards deliberate distortion of historical facts. For example, many Americans fervently believe that they were the ones who won all historical battles, and strive to instill these beliefs in the whole world. And what are pseudo-historical opuses like “Rape Germany” worth? And in Japan, for the sake of friendship with the United States, politicians try to hush up inconvenient moments and interpret the events of the past in their own way, sometimes even presenting themselves as innocent victims. It got to the point that some Japanese schoolchildren believe that the USSR dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There is a belief that Japan became an innocent victim of US imperialist policy - although the outcome of the war was already clear to everyone, the Americans sought to demonstrate to the whole world what a terrible weapon they had created, and defenseless Japanese cities became only a “great opportunity” for this. However, Japan was never an innocent victim and may have truly deserved such a terrible punishment. Nothing in this world passes without a trace; the blood of hundreds of thousands of people who were subjected to brutal extermination calls for vengeance.

The article brought to your attention describes only a small fraction of what happened once and does not pretend to become the ultimate truth. All the crimes of Japanese soldiers described in this material were recorded by military tribunals, and the literary sources used in its creation are freely available on the Internet.

— A short excerpt from Valentin Pikul’s book “Katorga” well describes the tragic events of Japanese expansion in the Far East:

“The tragedy of the island has been determined. On Gilyak boats, on foot or on pack horses, carrying children, refugees from Southern Sakhalin began to get out through the mountains and impassable swamps to Aleksandrovsk, and at first no one wanted to believe their monstrous stories about samurai atrocities: “They kill everyone. They show no mercy even to small children. And what unchrists! First he will give you some candy, pat him on the head, and then... then your head will hit the wall. We gave up everything we had to earn just to stay alive...” The refugees were telling the truth. When earlier bodies of Russian soldiers mutilated by torture were found in the vicinity of Port Arthur or Mukden, the Japanese said that this was the work of the Honghuz of the Chinese Empress Cixi. But there were never Honghuzes on Sakhalin, now the inhabitants of the island saw the true appearance of the samurai. It was here, on Russian soil, that the Japanese decided to save their cartridges: they pierced military or combatants who were captured with rifle cutlasses, and cut off the heads of local residents with sabers, like executioners. According to an exiled political prisoner, in the first days of the invasion alone they beheaded two thousand peasants.”

This is just a small excerpt from the book - in reality, a complete nightmare was happening on the territory of our country. Japanese soldiers committed atrocities as best they could, and their actions received full approval from the command of the occupying army. The villages of Mazhanovo, Sokhatino and Ivanovka fully learned what the real “way of Bushido” is. Mad occupiers burned houses and people in them; women were brutally raped; they shot and bayoneted residents, and cut off the heads of defenseless people with swords. Hundreds of our compatriots fell victims to the unprecedented cruelty of the Japanese in those terrible years.

— Events in Nanjing.

Cold December 1937 was marked by the fall of Nanjing, the capital of Kuomintang China. What happened after this defies any description. Selflessly destroying the population of this city, the Japanese soldiers actively applied the favorite policy of “three to nothing” - “burn everything clean,” “kill everyone clean,” “rob everything clean.” At the beginning of the occupation, about 20 thousand Chinese men of military age were bayoneted, after which the Japanese turned their attention to the weakest - children, women and the elderly. Japanese soldiers were so mad with lust that they raped all women (regardless of age) in the daytime right on the city streets. When finishing the bestial intercourse, the samurai gouged out the eyes of their victims and cut out the hearts.

Two officers argued who could kill a hundred Chinese faster. The bet was won by a samurai who killed 106 people. His opponent was only one corpse behind.

By the end of the month, approximately 300 thousand residents of Nanjing were brutally killed and tortured to death. Thousands of corpses floated in the city river, and the soldiers leaving Nanjing calmly walked to the transport ship right over the dead bodies.

— Singapore and the Philippines.

Having occupied Singapore in February 1942, the Japanese began to methodically capture and shoot “anti-Japanese elements.” Their blacklist included everyone who had at least some connection to China. In post-war Chinese literature, this operation was called "Suk Ching". Soon it moved to the territory of the Malay Peninsula, where, without further ado, the Japanese army decided not to waste time on inquiries, but simply to take and destroy the local Chinese. Fortunately, they did not have time to implement their plans - in early March the transfer of soldiers to other sectors of the front began. The approximate number of Chinese killed as a result of Operation Suk Ching is estimated at 50 thousand people.

Occupied Manila had a much worse time when the command of the Japanese army came to the conclusion that it could not be held. But the Japanese could not just leave and leave the inhabitants of the Philippine capital alone, and after receiving a plan for the destruction of the city, signed by high-ranking officials from Tokyo, they began to implement it. What the occupiers did in those days defies any description. Residents of Manila were shot with machine guns, burned alive, and bayoneted. The soldiers did not spare churches, schools, hospitals and diplomatic institutions that served as refuges for unfortunate people. Even according to the most conservative estimates, Japanese soldiers lost at least 100 thousand lives in Manila and its environs.

— Comfortable women.

During the military campaign in Asia, the Japanese army regularly resorted to the sexual “services” of captives, the so-called “comfort women”. Hundreds of thousands of women of all ages accompanied the aggressors, subjected to constant violence and abuse. The morally and physically crushed captives could not get out of bed due to terrible pain, and the soldiers continued their fun. When the army command realized that it was inconvenient to constantly carry hostages of lust with them, they ordered the construction of stationary brothels, which were later called “comfort stations.” Such stations have appeared since the early 30s. in all Japanese-occupied Asian countries. Among the soldiers, they were nicknamed "29 to 1" - these numbers denoted the daily proportion of service to military personnel. One woman was obliged to serve 29 men, then the norm was increased to 40, and sometimes even rose to 60. Some captives managed to go through the war and live to an old age, but even now, remembering all the horrors they experienced, they cry bitterly.

- Pearl Harbor.

It is difficult to find a person who has not seen the Hollywood blockbuster of the same name. Many American and British WWII veterans were unhappy that the filmmakers portrayed the Japanese pilots as too noble. According to their stories, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the war were many times more terrible, and the Japanese surpassed the most brutal SS men in cruelty. A more truthful version of those events is shown in a documentary called “Hell in the Pacific.” After the successful military operation at Pearl Harbor, which claimed a huge number of lives and caused so much grief, the Japanese openly rejoiced, rejoicing in their victory. Now they won’t tell this from TV screens, but then the American and British military came to the conclusion that Japanese soldiers were not people at all, but vile rats who were subject to complete extermination. They were no longer taken prisoner, but were killed immediately on the spot - there were often cases when a captured Japanese exploded a grenade, hoping to destroy both himself and his enemies. In turn, the samurai did not value the lives of American prisoners at all, considering them despicable material and using them to practice bayonet attack skills. Moreover, there are cases when, after problems with food supplies appeared, Japanese soldiers decided that eating their captured enemies could not be considered something sinful or shameful. The exact number of victims eaten remains unknown, but eyewitnesses of those events say that Japanese gourmets cut off and ate pieces of meat directly from living people. It is also worth mentioning how the Japanese army fought cases of cholera and other diseases among prisoners of war. Burning all prisoners in the camp where the infected were encountered was the most effective means of disinfection, tested many times.

What caused such shocking atrocities by the Japanese? It is impossible to answer this question unequivocally, but one thing is extremely clear - all participants in the events mentioned above are responsible for the crimes committed, and not just the high command, because the soldiers did this not because they were ordered, but because they themselves liked to cause pain and torment. There is an assumption that such incredible cruelty towards the enemy was caused by the interpretation of the military code of Bushido, which stated the following provisions: no mercy to the defeated enemy; captivity is a shame worse than death; defeated enemies should be exterminated so that they cannot take revenge in the future.

By the way, Japanese soldiers have always been distinguished by their unique vision of life - for example, before going to war, some men killed their children and wives with their own hands. This was done if the wife was sick, and there were no other guardians in the event of the loss of a breadwinner. The soldiers did not want to condemn their family to starvation and thereby expressed their devotion to the emperor.

Currently, it is widely believed that Japan is a unique Eastern civilization, the quintessence of all that is best in Asia. Judging from the standpoint of culture and technology, perhaps this is so. However, even the most developed and civilized nations have their dark sides. In conditions of occupation of foreign territory, impunity and fanatical confidence in the righteousness of his actions, a person can reveal his secret, hidden for the time being, essence. How spiritually have those whose ancestors selflessly stained their hands with the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent people changed, and will they repeat their actions in the future?

When talking about the crimes of Nazism during World War II, many often overlook the Nazi allies. Meanwhile, they became famous for their cruelty no less. Some of them - for example, Romanian troops - actively participated in pogroms against Jews. And Japan, which was an ally of Germany until the last day of the war, has stained itself with such cruelties that even some of the crimes of German fascism pale in comparison.

Cannibalism
Chinese and American prisoners of war repeatedly alleged that Japanese soldiers ate the bodies of prisoners and, even worse, cut off pieces of flesh for food from people who were still alive. Often the guards of the prisoner of war camps were malnourished, and they resorted to such methods to solve the food problem. There are testimonies from those who saw the remains of prisoners with the flesh removed from the bones for food, but not everyone still believes in this terrible story.

Experiments on pregnant women
At a Japanese military research center called Unit 731, captured Chinese women were raped into becoming pregnant and then subjected to cruel experiments. Women were infected with infectious diseases, including syphilis, and monitored to see whether the disease would be passed on to the child. Women were sometimes subjected to abdominal dissection to see how the disease affected the unborn child. However, no anesthesia was used during these operations: the women simply died as a result of the experiment.

Brutal torture
There are many known cases where the Japanese tortured prisoners not for the sake of obtaining information, but for the sake of cruel entertainment. In one case, a captured wounded Marine had his genitals cut off and stuffed into the soldier's mouth before he was released. This senseless cruelty of the Japanese shocked their opponents more than once.

Sadistic curiosity
During the war, Japanese military doctors not only carried out sadistic experiments on prisoners, but often did this without any, even pseudoscientific, purpose, but out of pure curiosity. This is exactly what the centrifuge experiments were like. The Japanese were interested in what would happen to the human body if it was rotated for hours in a centrifuge at high speed. Tens and hundreds of prisoners became victims of these experiments: people died from bleeding, and sometimes their bodies were simply torn apart.

Amputations
The Japanese abused not only prisoners of war, but also civilians and even their own citizens suspected of spying. A popular punishment for spying was cutting off some part of the body - most often a leg, fingers or ears. The amputation was carried out without anesthesia, but at the same time they carefully ensured that the punished survived - and suffered for the rest of his days.

Drowning
Immersing an interrogated person in water until he begins to choke is a well-known torture. But the Japanese moved on. They simply poured streams of water into the prisoner's mouth and nostrils, which went straight into his lungs. If the prisoner resisted for a long time, he simply choked - with this method of torture, literally minutes counted.

Fire and Ice
Experiments on freezing people were widely practiced in the Japanese army. The limbs of prisoners were frozen until they were solid, and then skin and muscle were cut from living people without anesthesia to study the effects of cold on tissue. The effects of burns were studied in the same way: people were burned alive with burning torches, skin and muscles on their arms and legs, carefully observing tissue changes.

Radiation
All in the same notorious unit 731, Chinese prisoners were driven into special cells and subjected to powerful X-rays, observing what changes subsequently occurred in their bodies. Such procedures were repeated several times until the person died.

Buried alive
One of the most brutal punishments for American prisoners of war for mutiny and disobedience was burial alive. The person was placed upright in a hole and covered with a pile of earth or stones, leaving him to suffocate. The corpses of those punished in such a cruel way were discovered more than once by Allied troops.

Decapitation
Beheading an enemy was a common execution in the Middle Ages. But in Japan this custom survived until the twentieth century and was applied to prisoners during the Second World War. But the most terrible thing was that not all executioners were skilled in their craft. Often the soldier did not complete the blow with his sword, or even hit the executed man on the shoulder with his sword. This only prolonged the torment of the victim, whom the executioner stabbed with a sword until he achieved his goal.

Death in the waves
This type of execution, quite typical for ancient Japan, was also used during World War II. The executed person was tied to a pole dug in the high tide zone. The waves slowly rose until the person began to choke, and finally, after much suffering, drowned completely.

The most painful execution
Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world; it can grow 10-15 centimeters per day. The Japanese have long used this property for ancient and terrible executions. The man was chained with his back to the ground, from which fresh bamboo shoots sprouted. For several days, the plants tore apart the sufferer’s body, dooming him to terrible torment. It would seem that this horror should have remained in history, but no: it is known for certain that the Japanese used this execution for prisoners during the Second World War.

Welded from the inside
Another section of experiments carried out in part 731 was experiments with electricity. Japanese doctors shocked prisoners by attaching electrodes to the head or torso, immediately giving a large voltage or exposing the unfortunate people to a lower voltage for a long time... They say that with such exposure a person had the feeling that he was being fried alive, and this was not far from the truth : Some of the victims' organs were literally boiled.

Forced labor and death marches
The Japanese prisoner of war camps were no better than Hitler's death camps. Thousands of prisoners who found themselves in Japanese camps worked from dawn to dusk, while, according to stories, they were provided with very little food, sometimes without food for several days. And if slave labor was needed in another part of the country, hungry, exhausted prisoners were driven, sometimes a couple of thousand kilometers, on foot under the scorching sun. Few prisoners managed to survive the Japanese camps.

Prisoners were forced to kill their friends
The Japanese were masters of psychological torture. They often forced prisoners, under threat of death, to beat and even kill their comrades, compatriots, even friends. Regardless of how this psychological torture ended, the will and soul of a person were forever broken.

Now there is a lot of talk about helping the Japanese, they are almost proposing to settle them in RUSSIA. They really look harmless. These are such positive, cheerful sweethearts who honor their culture and history. They idolize the Japanese army. All over the country there are monuments to heroes of various wars. And here are the deeds of these heroes:

"...Let us remember the tragedy of the Chinese city of Nanjing, which took place in December 1937. The Japanese, having captured the city, began by taking 20 thousand men of military age out of the city and bayoneting them so that in the future they “could not raise arms against Japan "Then the occupiers proceeded to exterminate women, the elderly, and children. The maddened samurai gouged out the eyes and tore out the hearts of people still alive. The murders were carried out with particular cruelty. Firearms, which were in service with the Japanese soldiers, were not used. Thousands of victims were bayoneted and their heads were cut off , people were burned, buried alive, women had their bellies ripped open and their insides turned out, small children were killed, not only adult women, but also little girls and old women were raped and then brutally killed.

Witnesses say that the sexual ecstasy of the conquerors was so great that they raped all the women in a row, regardless of their age, in broad daylight on busy streets. At the same time, fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons were forced to rape their mothers. In December 1937, a Japanese newspaper describing the exploits of the army enthusiastically reported on a valiant competition between two officers who bet who would be the first to kill more than a hundred Chinese with their sword. A certain samurai Mukai won, killing 106 people against 105.

In just six weeks, about 300 thousand people were killed and more than 20,000 women were raped. Terror exceeded all imagination. Even the German consul, in an official report, described the behavior of the Japanese soldiers as “brutal.”

Almost the same thing happened in Manila. In Manila, several tens of thousands of civilians were killed: thousands of people were shot with machine guns, and some were burned alive by dousing them with gasoline in order to save ammunition. The Japanese destroyed churches and schools, hospitals and residential buildings. On February 10, 1945, soldiers who broke into the building of the Red Cross hospital committed a massacre there, not sparing doctors, nurses, patients and even children. The same fate befell the Spanish consulate: about 50 people were burned alive in the diplomatic mission building and bayoneted in the garden.

The atrocities, survivors reported, were countless. Women's breasts were cut off with sabers, their genitals were pierced with bayonets, and premature babies were cut out. Men trying to save their belongings from burning houses were burned in the fire - they were driven back into the burning buildings. Few escaped death.

According to the most conservative estimates, the number of civilians killed during the massacre in Manila is more than 111 thousand people.

When the Japanese experienced food shortages in New Guinea, they decided that eating their worst enemy could not be considered cannibalism. It is now difficult to calculate how many Americans and Australians were eaten by the insatiable Japanese cannibals. One veteran from India recalls how the Japanese carefully cut off pieces of meat from people who were still alive. Australian nurses were considered a particularly tasty catch by the conquerors. Therefore, the male staff working with them was ordered to kill nurses in desperate situations so that they would not fall alive into the hands of the Japanese. There was a case when 22 Australian nurses were thrown from a wrecked ship onto the shore of an island captured by the Japanese. The Japanese attacked them like flies to honey. After raping them, they were bayoneted, and at the end of the orgy, they were driven into the sea and shot. Asian prisoners suffered an even sadder fate, since they were valued even less than the Americans.

One can, of course, say that all these horrors are in the past, that they have nothing to do with today’s Japanese - cultured and civilized people. But, alas, experience shows that culture and civilization are by no means a barrier to inhuman cruelty and barbarity. Despite the fact that after the war a number of Japanese soldiers were convicted of the Nanjing massacre, since the 1970s the Japanese side has pursued a policy of denying the crimes committed in Nanjing. Japanese school history textbooks simply write vaguely that “many people were killed” in the city.

War criminals are considered national heroes in modern Japan; monuments are erected to them, and schoolchildren are taken to their burial sites. Their memory is publicly honored by the country's top officials. What can I say - in the Tokyo cemetery there is a monument to the employees of Unit 731 of a secret Japanese military laboratory, where for 12 years the detachment developed bacteriological weapons using bacteria of plague, typhus, dysentery, cholera, anthrax, tuberculosis, etc. and tested them on living people.

More than 5 thousand prisoners of war and civilians became “experimental subjects”. Well, the definition of “experimental subjects” is purely ours, European. The Japanese preferred to use the term "logs". The detachment had special cells where people were locked. Individual organs were cut out from the living body of the experimental subjects; they cut off the arms and legs and sewed them back, swapping the right and left limbs; they poured the blood of horses or monkeys into the human body; exposed to powerful X-ray radiation; left without food or water; scalded various parts of the body with boiling water; tested for sensitivity to electric current. Curious scientists filled a person's lungs with large amounts of smoke or gas, and introduced rotting pieces of tissue into the stomach of a living person.

And these non-humans are worshiped by the Japanese today. They bring flowers to their graves, bring their children to them so that they can learn from these “heroes” the notorious “greatness of the Japanese spirit.” The same one that reporters today admire when transmitting materials from devastated Japan, amazed that the Japanese talk about their dead relatives with a smile, without tears or trembling in their voices.

But they would hardly have been surprised if they had known that before leaving for the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. some soldiers killed their children if there was a sick wife in the house, and there were no other guardians, because they did not want to condemn the family to starvation. They considered this behavior to be a sign of devotion to the emperor.

According to Tomikura and other authors, such actions were considered praiseworthy, since killing a child and a sick wife was seen as an expression of devotion and sacrifice towards one's country and Emperor Meiji.
And during the Second World War, Japanese newspapers wrote about similar manifestations of “greatness of spirit.” Thus, the wife of a Japanese pilot, who was not accepted into the suicide squad because he had five children, was set as an example to other subjects of the emperor. Seeing her husband's grief, the wife, wanting to help his grief, drowned all five children in the bathing pool, and hanged herself. The obstacles to entering the kamikaze were removed, but at that moment, as luck would have it, Japan capitulated.

Absolute inhumanity, both towards “friends” and “strangers,” was and remains one of the main “virtues” in Japan and is referred to as “a strong, unshakable spirit.”

It should also be noted that the Japanese are by no means ready to be content with technical, economic, scientific and cultural expansion. They dream of revenge, of territorial conquests, of “restoring historical justice.”

So, is it reasonable to invite people with such morals and such traditions to live with us?

This is what the unlimited power of money leads to... Why are Japanese hated in neighboring countries?

During World War II, it was common for Japanese soldiers and officers to cut down civilians with swords, bayonet them, rape and kill women, kill children and the elderly. That is why, for the Koreans and Chinese, the Japanese are a hostile people, murderers.

In July 1937, the Japanese attacked China, starting the Sino-Japanese War, which lasted until 1945. In November-December 1937, the Japanese army launched an attack on Nanjing. On December 13, the Japanese captured the city, there was a massacre for 5 days (the killings continued later, but not as massive), which went down in history as the “Nanjing Massacre.” During the massacre carried out by the Japanese, more than 350 thousand people were slaughtered, some sources cite the figure as half a million people. Tens of thousands of women were raped, many of them killed. The Japanese army acted on the basis of 3 “clean” principles:

The massacre began when Japanese soldiers took 20,000 Chinese of military age out of the city and bayoneted them all so that they would never be able to join the Chinese army. The peculiarity of the massacres and abuses was that the Japanese did not shoot - they conserved ammunition, killed and maimed everyone with cold steel.

After this, massacres began in the city; women, girls, and old women were raped and then killed. Hearts were cut out from living people, bellies were cut, eyes were gouged out, they were buried alive, heads were cut off, even babies were killed, madness was happening in the streets. Women were raped right in the middle of the streets - the Japanese, intoxicated with impunity, forced fathers to rape their daughters, sons to rape their mothers, samurai competed to see who could kill the most people with a sword - a certain samurai Mukai won, killing 106 people.

After the war, the crimes of the Japanese military were condemned by the world community, but since the 1970s, Tokyo has been denying them; Japanese history textbooks write about the massacre that many people were simply killed in the city, without details.

Singapore massacre

On February 15, 1942, the Japanese army captured the British colony of Singapore. The Japanese decided to identify and destroy “anti-Japanese elements” in the Chinese community. During Operation Purge, the Japanese checked all Chinese males of military age, the execution lists included Chinese men who participated in the war with Japan, Chinese employees of the British administration, Chinese who donated money to the China Relief Fund, Chinese natives of China, etc. d.

They were taken out of the filtration camps and shot. Then the operation was extended to the entire peninsula, where they decided not to “ceremoniously” and, due to the lack of people for the inquiry, they shot everyone. Approximately 50 thousand Chinese were killed, the remaining ones were lucky, the Japanese did not complete Operation Purge, they had to transfer troops to other areas - they planned to destroy the entire Chinese population of Singapore and the peninsula.

Massacre in Manila

When in early February 1945 it became clear to the Japanese command that Manila could not be held, the army headquarters was moved to the city of Baguio, and they decided to destroy Manila. Destroy the population. In the capital of the Philippines, according to the most conservative estimates, more than 110 thousand people were killed. Thousands of people were shot, many were doused with gasoline and set on fire, the city's infrastructure, residential buildings, schools, and hospitals were destroyed. On February 10, the Japanese carried out a massacre in the Red Cross building, killing everyone, even children, and the Spanish consulate was burned along with its people.

The massacre also took place in the suburbs; in the town of Calamba, the entire population was destroyed - 5 thousand people. Monks and nuns of Catholic institutions and schools were not spared, and students were also killed.

Comfort station system

In addition to the rape of tens, hundreds, thousands of women, the Japanese authorities are guilty of another crime against humanity - the creation of a network of brothels for soldiers. It was common practice to rape women in captured villages; some of the women were taken away, few of them were able to return.

In 1932, the Japanese command decided to create “comfortable home stations”, justifying their creation by the decision to reduce anti-Japanese sentiment due to mass rape on Chinese soil, by caring for the health of soldiers who needed to “rest” and not get sick from venereal diseases. First they were created in Manchuria, in China, then in all the occupied territories - in the Philippines, Borneo, Burma, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and so on. In total, from 50 to 300 thousand women passed through these brothels, and most of them were minors. Before the end of the war, no more than a quarter survived, morally and physically disfigured, poisoned with antibiotics. The Japanese authorities even created the proportions of “service”: 29 (“clients”): 1, then increased to 40: 1 per day.

Currently, the Japanese authorities deny this data; previously, Japanese historians spoke about the private nature and voluntariness of prostitution.

Death Squad - Squad 731

In 1935, as part of the Japanese Kwantung Army, the so-called. "Detachment 731", its goal was to develop biological weapons, delivery vehicles, and testing on humans. It worked until the end of the war; the Japanese military did not have time to use biological weapons against the United States, and indeed the USSR, only thanks to the rapid advance of Soviet troops in August 1945.

Shiro Ishii - Commander of Unit 731

victims of unit 731

More than 5 thousand prisoners and local residents became “experimental mice” of Japanese specialists; they called them “logs.”

People were cut alive for “scientific purposes”, infected with the most terrible diseases, then “opened” while still alive. They conducted experiments on the survivability of “logs” - how long would they last without water and food, scalded with boiling water, after irradiation with an X-ray machine, withstand electrical discharges, without any cut out organ, and much more. other.

The Japanese command was ready to use biological weapons on Japanese territory against the American landing force, sacrificing the civilian population - the army and leadership had to evacuate to Manchuria, to Japan’s “alternate airfield”.

The Asian people have still not forgiven Tokyo, especially in light of the fact that in recent decades Japan has refused to acknowledge more and more of its war crimes. Koreans recall that they were even forbidden to speak their native language, ordered to change their native names to Japanese (the “assimilation” policy) - approximately 80% of Koreans adopted Japanese names. Girls were taken to brothels; in 1939, 5 million people were forcibly mobilized into industry. Korean cultural monuments were taken away or destroyed.

Sources:
http://www.battlingbastardsbataan.com/som.htm
http://www.intv.ru/view/?film_id=20797
http://films-online.su/news/filosofija_nozha_philosophy_of_a_knife_2008/2010-11-21-2838
http://www.cnd.org/njmassacre/
http://militera.lib.ru/science/terentiev_n/05.html

Massacre in Nanjing.

Like any crime of capitalism and state ambitions, the Nanjing massacre should not be forgotten.

Prince Asaka Takahito (1912-1981), it was he who issued the order to “kill all prisoners”, giving official sanction to the “Nanking Massacre”

In December 1937, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army brutally murdered many civilians in Nanjing, then the capital of the Republic of China.

Despite the fact that after the war a number of Japanese soldiers were convicted of the Nanjing massacre, since the 1970s the Japanese side has pursued a policy of denying the crimes committed in Nanjing. Japanese school history textbooks simply write vaguely that “many people were killed” in the city.

The Japanese began by taking 20 thousand men of military age out of the city and bayoneting them so that in the future they “could not take up arms against Japan.” Then the occupiers moved on to exterminating women, old people, and children.

In December 1937, a Japanese newspaper describing the exploits of the army enthusiastically reported on a valiant competition between two officers who bet who would be the first to kill more than a hundred Chinese with their sword. The Japanese, as hereditary duelists, requested additional time. A certain samurai Mukai won, killing 106 people against 105.

Mad samurai completed sex with murder, gouged out eyes and tore out the hearts of still living people. The murders were carried out with particular cruelty. Firearms that were used by Japanese soldiers were not used. Thousands of victims were stabbed with bayonets, their heads were cut off, people were burned, buried alive, women had their bellies ripped open and their insides turned out, and small children were killed. They raped and then brutally killed not only adult women, but also little girls and old women. Witnesses say that the sexual ecstasy of the conquerors was so great that they raped all the women in a row, regardless of their age, in broad daylight on busy streets. At the same time, fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons were forced to rape their mothers.

A peasant from Jiangsu province (near Nanjing) tied to a post to be shot.

In December 1937, the capital of Kuomintang China, Nanjing, fell. Japanese soldiers began to practice their popular "three out" policy:

“burn it clean,” “kill everyone clean,” “rob it clean.”

When the Japanese left Nanjing, it turned out that the transport ship could not land on the shore of the river bay. He was disturbed by thousands of corpses floating along the Yangtze. From memories:

“We just had to use the floating bodies as a pontoon. To board the ship, we had to walk over the dead.”

The Japanese bury living Chinese in the ground.

A Japanese soldier entered the monastery courtyard to kill Buddhist monks.

In 2007, documents from one of the international charitable organizations operating in Nanjing during the war were made public. These documents, as well as records confiscated from Japanese troops, show that Japanese soldiers killed more than 200,000 civilians and Chinese troops in 28 massacres, and at least another 150,000 people were killed on separate occasions during the infamous massacre in Nanjing. The maximum estimate of all victims is 500,000 people.

According to evidence presented at the Tokyo war crimes court, Japanese soldiers raped 20,000 Chinese women (an underestimate), many of whom were later killed.

During a meeting between the foreign ministers of China and Japan on May 7, 2005, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura reproached China, saying that Chinese school textbooks contained descriptions of the “cruelty and inhumanity” of Japanese soldiers. At the same time, the Japanese government itself recently reviewed and approved a draft school history textbook, in which Japan’s aggressive past is distorted, whitewashed and embellished in every possible way. During a meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Machimura “went on the offensive,” calling the aggressors “victims.” There is a typical case - a thief shouts: “Stop the thief!” Machimura's performance demonstrates his lack of basic historical knowledge, as well as his distorted perception of history.

Firstly, during the years of the Japanese occupation of China, the Japanese indeed proved themselves to be cruel and inhumane aggressors. Assessing the Japanese as cruel and inhumane aggressors is not just information in a textbook, it is a real assessment. Secondly, Chinese school textbooks do not fully talk about the cruelty and inhumanity of the Japanese, and do not describe all historical events. Thirdly, information about the cruelty of the Japanese invaders is included in Chinese history textbooks in order to recall one of the most important events of our era, to prevent a repetition of the tragic past and to strike a blow at Japanese right-wing radical forces seeking to distort the historical truth.

Unlike the situation in Germany, in Japan the right-wing forces openly regret defeat in the war and are proud of their militaristic past. They oppose "historical self-deprecation" and for the "revival of the Japanese spirit."

From the late 19th century to the mid-20th century, Japan committed an astonishing number of crimes against the Chinese people. After the Sino-Japanese Chia-Wu War in 1894, Japan occupied Taiwan and received silver in the form of indemnities amounting to 4 and a half times the budget revenue of that year. After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan captured the Chinese ports of Lushun and Dalian. After annexing Korea in 1910, Japan annexed Manchuria, the Chinese northeast, in 1931. In 1937, the Japanese directed the spearhead of aggression into Northern, Eastern and Southern China, and then occupied Southeast Asia. Wherever the Japanese invaders appeared, they spread death and violence. The unprecedented atrocities of the Japanese continued throughout the war of aggression, which became a national tragedy for the Chinese people, claiming 35 million lives and causing damage in the amount of St. 600 billion US dollars.

Chinese history textbooks do not fully reflect the cruelty and inhumanity of the Japanese in China. Below is a brief description of the most serious crimes of the Japanese invaders.

1. Repeated cases of large-scale massacres

After the occupation of the port city of Lushun on November 21, 1894, the commander of the Japanese 1st Army Corps and the regimental commander of the 1st Division ordered a large-scale massacre of the Lushun people. Over the course of 4 days, over 20 thousand Chinese were killed.

From May 3 to May 11, 1928, the Japanese, who attacked the Chinese province of Shandong for the second time, killed 6,123 people in Jinan. Chinese diplomats and civilians, injured 1.7 thousand people, and caused property damage in the amount of 29.57 million yuan.

In Pingdingshan (not far from the Fushun coal mines) on September 16, 1932, the Japanese aggressors carried out a massacre of civilians, killing more than 3 thousand people.

Having captured Nanjing on December 13, 1937, the Japanese, within 6 weeks, by order of their command, destroyed more than 300 thousand civilians of the city and disarmed prisoners of war. This atrocity, which shocked the whole world, is not inferior in scale and character to the atrocities of the German fascists.

2. “Three out” policy

In the war against China, the Japanese aggressors carried out a brutal policy of “three to nothing” - “burn everything clean,” “kill everyone clean,” “rob everything clean.” Thus, in May 1942, Japanese fascists carried out a punitive campaign against the village of Beitun in central Hebei. During the punitive operation, they poisoned more than 1,000 peasants and militias with poisonous gas. It is simply impossible to list similar Japanese atrocities - punitive campaigns were a common practice of the occupiers.

3. Bacteriological warfare

After the incident provoked by the Japanese on September 18, 1913, military doctor S. Ishii took the initiative to create a special unit engaged in the development of bacteriological weapons. The Japanese command approved this initiative and entrusted Ishii with this task. In 1932, Ishii's laboratory was moved from Japan to Northeast China - to Erbeiyin County, south of Harbin. In 1935, the base was moved to Pingfang County and was transformed into "Detachment 731" of the Kwantung Army - the largest special unit for the development of bacteriological weapons created by the Japanese in China. For 12 years, the detachment developed bacteriological weapons using bacteria from plague, typhus, dysentery, cholera, anthrax, tuberculosis, etc. and tested them on living people. More than 5 thousand prisoners of war and civilians became “experimental subjects”.

Bases for the development of bacteriological weapons were located in the Chinese cities of Changchun, Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, as well as in the countries of Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia); the Japanese also created corresponding units and laboratories in 53 large and medium-sized cities of China. For example, in 1939, the Togo 1644 detachment, subordinate to S. Ishii, was formed in Nanjing, and in October 1939, the Beiping Jia Di 1855 detachment was formed.

From 1931 to 1945, the Japanese used bacteriological weapons on a large scale at least 16 times - during offensives, retreats, punitive campaigns, executions of local populations, extermination of partisans, attacks on air bases, etc. The use of the bacteria cholera, anthrax, paratyphoid, dysentery, diphtheria, relapsing fever, etc. led to the death of a huge number of the Chinese population. At least 270 thousand people. (not counting Chinese military personnel) died due to the use of bacteriological weapons by the Japanese fascists. There is no exact information about the countless number of “indirect” victims - people who died due to the spraying of bacteria after a direct bacteriological attack.

4. Chemical warfare

During the occupation, the Japanese used chemical weapons on a large scale, which led to numerous casualties among Chinese military personnel and civilians. In 1927, a chemical weapons production plant was established on the Japanese Islands. In 1933, work was completed to equip troops with chemical weapons, a school was created to train specialized military units, and “detachment 516” was formed, specializing in large-scale testing of chemical weapons.

Chemical weapons were used by the Japanese throughout the war for 8 years from 1937 to 1945. in 18 provinces of China. More than 2 thousand battles have been accurately recorded in which chemical weapons were used, causing the death of more than 60 thousand people. The real number of cases of the use of chemical weapons and the real number of victims is much higher - according to Japanese statistics, chemical weapons were used much more often.

In July 1938, during an attack on Woqu, Shanxi Province, the Japanese used 1000 units. chemical bombs. During the Battle of Wuhan, chemical weapons were used at least 375 times, using 48,000 poisonous gas shells. In March 1939, chemical weapons were used against Kuomintang troops stationed in Nanchang. The entire staff of two divisions died as a result of poisoning. Since August 1940, the Japanese have used chemical weapons along railway lines in Northern China 11 times, resulting in the deaths of over 10 thousand Chinese military personnel. In August 1941, 5 thousand military personnel and civilians died as a result of a chemical attack on an anti-Japanese base. In Yichang, Hubei Province, 600 Chinese troops were killed and 1,000 were injured as a result of mustard gas spraying. In May 1942, in the village of Beitang, Dingxian County, Hebei Province, over 800 Chinese, hiding in an underground shelter, were killed using chemical weapons (“Beitang Tragedy”).

5. Using women for pleasure

During the war of aggression in Asia, Japanese militarists actively used “women for pleasure” - hundreds of thousands of Asian women were held by force and deceit in army units, they were forced to accompany the Japanese army. Japanese soldiers raped these women, committing inhumane crimes against them.

6. Bombing of Chongqing

From February 18, 1938 to August 23, 1943, the Japanese continuously bombed the temporary capital of the Republic of China, Chongqing. According to incomplete statistics, during this period 9.5 thousand combat missions took place, 21.6 thousand air bombs were dropped, 11.9 thousand city residents were killed, 14.1 thousand were injured, 17.6 thousand buildings were destroyed. During the bombing, the tragedies “May 3-4,” “August 19,” and “June 5 tragedy” that shocked the whole world took place.

For example, during the evening (approx. 9 o'clock) on June 5, 1941, 24 aircraft in three batches bombed the city for three hours. More than 10 thousand citizens hid in a bomb shelter designed for 4.5 thousand people. As a result of the bombing, a fire broke out in the air-raid shelter, as a result of which 9992 adults and 1151 children, 1510 people, died. were seriously injured.

In recent years, Japanese officials have renewed their efforts to downplay Japanese aggression during World War II. China and other Asian countries must do more to spread the truth about Japan's aggressive past.

(China Internet Information Center.China.org.cn) 05/24/2005