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Title: U.S. Air Crew Shot Down over Japan Were Dissected Alive
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URL Source: http://downtrend.com/admin/u-s-air- ... d-alive?utm_source=Outbrain_C6
Published: Apr 17, 2015
Author: Downtrend
Post Date: 2015-04-17 09:14:32 by Jethro Tull
Keywords: None
Views: 1009
Comments: 69
A Japanese university has opened a museum acknowledging that its staff dissected downed American airmen while they were still alive during World War II. A gruesome display at the newly-opened museum at Kyushu University explains how eight U.S. POWs were taken to the center’s medical school in Fukuoka after their plane was shot down over the skies of Japan in May 1945. The flyers were subjected to horrific medical experiments. Doctors dissected one soldier’s brain to see if epilepsy could be controlled by surgery, and removed parts of the livers of other prisoners as part of tests to see if they would survive. Another soldier was injected with seawater, in an experiment to see if it could be used instead of sterile saline solution to help dehydration. Poster Comment: Just one small piece of the WWII Japanese war atrocities committed against American servicemen. 
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 69.
#4. To: Jethro Tull, Cynicom (#0)
B-29 crewmembers were told that they should expect torture/execution/etc. if forced to bail out over Japan. Unlike Germany, I think (without available historical documents to prove otherwise) American/allied POW's in Japan were facing immediate execution once Operation Olympic commenced.
Yes, from all I've read the Germans treated downed Americans far better than the Japanese did. Japan had not signed the Geneva Convention, so there was that.
Only by comparison. The Germans considered airmen as war criminals (as indeed they are) and did shoot them. OTOH they were more lenient with spies than the allies where--they did not shoot them but the allied forces did.
2% or 3% of American POWs died in German camps but ,50% in Japanese camps.
Very few Japanese were prosecuted for war crimes. Believe it or not, the explanation for the discrepancy was that the Germans were expected to know better.
Quite a few Japs were tried and hung after the war, but it was no "Nuremberg Tribunal!" with a parade of Jews spewing bullshit about gas chambers with wood doors. Many more committed ritual suicide in order to avoid allied retribution and/or public humiliation (saving face).
I was at Wake Island after the war. It was littered with Japanese tanks, gun emplacements etc etc. The Japanese took 98 civilians out and machine gunned them. Wake back then was most eerie place I ever visited, so much history. One could not stand there at sunset and not feel the past. Never forget it.
Got to know one of the in-laws on my wife's side of the family. Man was a marine who fought in the Pacific theater during WWII. He'd once recounted how they were mopping up after taking one of the stepping stone islands on the way to invading the Japanese islands themselves. I believe it was Iwo Jima. He's gone now, so there's no way to check the story, but that is neither here nor there. I remember being shocked at how matter of factly he told the story of taking the surrender of a Japanese soldier on the beach. They disarmed him, searched him and sent him on his way. They let him walk on down the beach toward nowhere until he was about 25 yards away and let one fly out of a Garand. Hit him in the back. That was the end of that particular infantryman. I must have registered my surprise at the end of the tale, because the old man offered that there was no way to take prisoners on that occasion. It's still kind of hard for me to stomach shooting a man in the back, but hey, island hopping was a vicious affair in those days, and there was little hope of mercy at the business end of a Japanese Imperial bayonet.
Lowest basic premise of all military, kill or be killed. There are times and places for mercy to be extended, often not. Friend of mine, 101st airborne on his way down was under gun of German soldier. He could have shot him in parachute, he did not. Why not???? Circumstances and human nature.
That German soldier was probably my dad. He once told me while we were watching a WWII movie that his officers instructed him that it was against the laws of war to fire on a man suspended from a parachute.
My friend told me the soldier was older man. He took my friends rifle then helped him out of harness etc. He spoke English. He took my friend to the Command Post, turned him over to others, when he walked away he said good luck to my friend. War? No,, not at all.
Great stuff, thanks for sharing.
The Tokyo War Crimes Trials (1946-1948) Occupation official turned historian Richard B. Finn notes, "World War II was the first major conflict in history in which the victors carried out trials and punishment of thousands of persons in the defeated nations for 'crimes against peace' and 'crimes against humanity,' two new and broadly defined categories of international crime." For most people, this calls to mind the trials of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. But an equally difficult, fascinating, and controversial set of trials occurred in Tokyo, under the watchful eye of Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur. The Tokyo trials were not the only forum for the punishment of Japanese war criminals, merely the most visible. In fact, the Asian countries victimized by the Japanese war machine tried far more Japanese -- an estimated five thousand, executing as many as 900 and sentencing more than half to life in prison. But with Japan under the control of the Americans, the most prominent Japanese war leaders came under MacArthur's jurisdiction. The Potsdam declaration of July 1945 had called for trials and purges of those who had "deceived and misled" the Japanese people into war. That was the simple part; there was major disagreement, both among the Allies and within the U.S., about whom to try and how to try them. Despite the lack of consensus, MacArthur lost no time, ordering the arrest of thirty-nine suspects -- most of them members of General Tojo's war cabinet -- on September 11, just over a week after the surrender. Perhaps caught off guard, Tojo tried to committ suicide, but was resuscitated with the help of American doctors eager to deny him even that means of escape. On October 6 MacArthur received a directive, soon approved by the other Allied powers, granting him the authority to proceed with the major trials and giving him basic guidelines for their conduct. As they had done in Germany, the Allies set up three broad categories. "Class A" charges alleging "crimes against peace" were to be brought against Japan's top leaders who had planned and directed the war. Class B and C charges, which could be leveled at Japanese of any rank, covered "conventional war crimes" and "crimes against humanity," respectively. In early November, the supreme commander was given authority to purge other war time leaders from public life. Again, MacArthur moved quickly: by December 8 he had set up an international prosecution section under former U.S. assistant attorney general Joseph Keenan, which began gathering evidence and preparing for the high-profile Class A trials. On January 19, 1946, MacArthur announced the establishment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMFTE), and a few weeks later selected its eleven judges from names submitted to him by the governments sitting on the Allied Far Eastern Commission. He also named Keenan the chief prosecutor and Australian Sir William Webb the tribunal's president. Twenty-eight high-ranking political and military leaders were indicted on 55 counts of "crimes against peace, conventional war crimes, and crimes against humanity." The Tokyo trials began on May 3, 1946, and lasted two and a half years. Although an improvement over the hasty Manila trials, which were also organized by MacArthur and resulted in the executions of Generals Yamashita and Homma, the Tokyo trials have been criticized as another example of "victors' justice." One of the more authoratative studies condemns them strongly: "We have found its foundation in international law to be shaky. We have seen that its process was seriously flawed. We have examined the verdict's inadequacy as history." On November 4, 1948, Webb announced that all of the defendants had been found guilty. Seven were sentenced to death, sixteen to life terms, two to lesser terms, two had died during the trials and one had been found insane. After reviewing their decisions, MacArthur expressed his regrets but praised the work of the tribunal and upheld the verdicts. Although calling the duty "utterly repugnant to me," MacArthur went on to say, "No human decision is infallible but I can conceive of no judicial process where greater safeguard was made to evolve justice." On December 23, 1948, General Tojo and six others were hung at Sugamo prison. MacArthur, afraid of embarrassing and antagonizing the Japanese people, defied the wishes of President Truman and barred photography of any kind, instead bringing in four members of the Allied Council to act as official witnesses.
Americans may have hated MacArthur but all Japanese respected him.
Admired him too. The Japanese had expected to be treated the way they treated others but the axe did not fall on them thanks to MacArthur.
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#5. To: X-15, 4 (#4)
#23. To: Jethro Tull (#5)
Yes, from all I've read the Germans treated downed Americans far better than the Japanese did. Japan had not signed the Geneva Convention, so there was that.
#55. To: Ada (#23)
#56. To: Turtle (#55)
#58. To: Ada (#56)
#59. To: X-15 (#58)
#60. To: Cynicom (#59)
(Edited)
#61. To: randge (#60)
#62. To: Cynicom (#61)
#63. To: randge (#62)
#64. To: Cynicom, randge, 4 (#63)
#65. To: Lod, Ada, Cynicom, Jethro Tull, randge, scrapper2, Neocons Nailed (#64)
#66. To: X-15 (#65)
#69. To: Cynicom (#66)
all Japanese respected him.
Replies to Comment # 69.