Could the Japanese have captured Hawaii if they had won the battle of Midway?

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Hey guys,

Sorry to have to say this, and hard as it may be to believe (I know I was surprised), the killing of large numbers of prisoners (by execution) and other harsh treatment (allowing to starve to death or not providing medical care, for example) was specifically allowed in the Geneva Convention up until 1949.

The key to some of these acts not being war crimes revolved around 2 principles/conditions.

The 1st condition that made executing enemy POWs allowable was if the prisoners were from an enemy who had previously seriously violated the laws of war relative to your own soldiers in captivity, non-combatants, or civilians. The concept was that of allowing reprisal against the enemy for their acts, in the hope that (as a last resort) it would deter further such acts by your enemy.

The 2nd condition allowing the killing or other harsh treatment of POWs was if there was no reasonable recourse. In other words, if taking care of the POWs as required under the Geneva Convention would place your own personnel, ship, or chance of winning the battle or war at serious risk, it was permissible to execute the POWs or otherwise treat them harshly at a level commensurate to the problem.

The laws of war do not require you to allow your own troops to go without food or medicine in order to provide food or medicine to POWs.

The US submarine force sank 3 of the first few (3 out of 4?, 3 out of 5?) Japanese hospital/refugee ships that set sail from the front line areas. 2 of the ships held Japanese civilians, wounded Japanese military personnel, and Allied prisoners (wounded and un-wounded) heading for the Japanese rear areas and the mainland. The 3rd ship held Japanese civilians and a few wounded. All three of the ships sunk were properly marked for their duty, which should have protected them from attack. A result of the immediately ordered unrestricted submarine warfare by the US. After this the Japanese began painting some of their regular freighters as hospital ships and sent civilians, wounded (Japanese and Allied), and POWs on unmarked freighters.

The US bombing campaign against Japanese cities started in January 1944.

After these incidents the Japanese forces would have been justified (legally) in killing US POWs. (The incident above and further up thread mentioned by The Basket involving the IJN cruiser Tone and the execution of survivors and prisoners took place in March 1944.)

Another factor, is that before the post-war trials, for the Geneva Conventions to apply to a nation, the nation's internationally recognized government had to sign and ratify the individual articles.

The Japanese government did not ratify the 1929 Geneva Convention, and officially withdrew from some of the earlier articles during the late-1930s. This justified (legally) some of their bad behavior concerning Allied POWs.

The US and UK had never signed the article making aerial bombing of cities illegal, hence by the rules concerning war crimes their actions could reasonably (in their own minds anyway) be considered (legally) OK. Other nations might not think so but they would have to win the war to be able to do anything about it.

Post-war, of course, the Tokyo war crime trials took place. Some of the behavior put on trial unquestionably met the standard of war crimes due to Japan's acceptance of the earlier 1st Geneva Convention, other actions/behavior did not meet this standard. Some were enforced anyway by the Allies.

Subsequent to the Tokyo and Nuremberg trials, the Allied governments received a lot of grief due to this "double standard" or "no standard" and some of the convictions came under international scrutiny and were questioned as to their legality, which led to the idea of the validity of the basic concept of a war crime trial. This resulted in some of the changes in the 3rd Geneva Convention, which removed some of the behavior legally allowed in regard to POWs in 1949.

Today, most of the concepts embodied in the Geneva Convention and some other laws and principals have become largely recognized (at least by the countries who see it as in their interest) as universal and no agreeing, signing, or ratifying by a country is necessary for the laws to be enforced against said country.

Again, I am in no way excusing the bad behavior of any of the participants, just trying to put some historical perspective on the thinking of the times particularly relative to the laws of war.


Incidentally, this link to a Wikipedia article concerning the capture and treatment of Japanese POWs by the Allies is interesting:

"Japanese prisoners of war in World War II - Wikipedia"


I have depressed myself with this stuff enough for today, so I think I will look at funny cat pictures for a while.
 
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Astounding the Anglo-American-Commonwealth-ANZAC forces only captured 20-50,000 Japanese troops in the Pacific during the whole war. That really puts it into perspective. The contrast in treatment of Japanese POWs between the Soviets and Western-Allied forces really points up another reason why the Soviets reentering the war pushed the Japanese to surrender.

On the one hand I remember reading many accounts of Japanese troops and sailors floating in the sea refusing rescue after their ship was sunk, even shooting at rescuers... on the other hand I also remember many accounts of the Allied military men no longer even trying to rescue them, and just machine-gunning survivors or leaving them to the sharks.

Dan Carlin described some rare footage he saw of a G.I. with a corncob pipe walking around casually shooting wounded Japanese soldiers with a .45. It was a really brutal war.
 
On his deathbed, my father told a story about a boatmate (he was on PT boats) who visited with some Australian soldiers. They were sitting around, chewing the fat, when a Japanese soldier came walking up, hands raised in surrender. The Aussie soldier shot him. The US sailor said what the hell...then the Aussie undid the dead soldier's tunic. He was wearing a suicide vest.

Suicide bombers weren't invented by the PLO
 
We can sit here with our colour TVs and our full bellies and tell of sad stories of the death of Kings.

But if you were there and you were in that situation it's you who gets the chop or they get the chop. So decide wisely. When the fox is in the hen house, it's chicken dinner every time.

This is a quote from Star Trek which is very apt.

*Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes.*
 
Can you imagine a British captain being ordered to execute prisoners? Maybe in the days of slavery.

Many of the WW2 British Officer class had blooded themselves throughout the 1920-30's empire in Africa and the Middle East, interestingly Lt-General Percival that many blame for the fall of Singapore due to his "weakness" was known for personally torturing and beating Irish prisoners.
 

The more I look at our Imperial armies advance to the sea at Singapore, the more I see no alternative. There is no observer corps and except for a radar at Kuala Lumpur Malaysia the only real radar coverage is around the South in and around Singapore. We needed to have recruited the 40000 strong Malayan Communist Party as observers rather than waiting for them to offer us unconditional support on December 8th 1941. Plus of course building Handley Page Harrows instead of Herefords so that we could have resupplied our army in Kota Bharu, and enabled them to retreat south rather than surrender.
 
Well put, but executing prisoners to save resources for yourself may be understandable to some. Killing POWs for no reason, well...
 
I'm not sure how much of that mentality was related to Bushido vs how much was a warped version of 'modern' thinking - how different is that mindset really than "the Slavic races / Jewish people / Gypsies are inferior and not really human - therefore shoot the prisoners" or "the enemy must be 'de-housed' to inhibit their war machine and bring about a more rapid and efficient end to the war therefore incinerate their cities" or "our Comrades who were captured by the enemy have been contaminated by their proximity to fascism and should now be shot by the Cheka or sent to the Gulag."
 
I'm not sure how much of that mentality was related to Bushido vs how much was a warped version of 'modern' thinking...
Not much, actually.
The 8 Virtues of Bushido does not condone many of the actions that Imperial officers permitted.

1. Rectitude or Justice
2. Courage
3. Benevolence or Mercy
4. Politeness
5. Honesty and Sincerety
6. Honor
7. Loyalty
8. Character and Self Control
 
I'm not sure how much of that mentality was related to Bushido vs how much was a warped version of 'modern' thinking
Bushido and "modern thinking" are totally incompatible, thus destined from the get-go for a horrific collision.
Even more so when warped versions of both are involved.
 
Bushido and "modern thinking" are totally incompatible, thus destined from the get-go for a horrific collision.
Even more so when warped versions of both are involved.

My point is that by the second quarter of the 20th Century many nations (not just Japan) were struggling between postmodern and Ancien Regime thinking. Spain was teetering between Monarchists who wanted to bring back the inquisition and probably serfdom too, vs. Soviet style Communists vs. anarchists who wanted to abolish government and religion altogether. Turkey was recreating itself (quite brutally) as a secular, centralized nationalist State after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Russia was in it's dystopian post revolution Stalinist phase. France was deeply divided and couldn't decide whether to go Napoleonic Imperial, pre-Napoleon Republican, or Monarchy (which is a big part of why they weren't ready for the German invasion in 1940). Italy was still trying to figure out how to be a nation State and in a death struggle between anarcho-syndicalism, nationalim and fascism until the latter took over. Germany - also a new State, was between communism and fascism (or however you want to characterize the SD). The US was still struggling over the issue of chattel slavery and it's aftermath with the KKK in it's heyday- and had it's own syndicalist movement making waves. England was still based on a Colonial Empire and still deep in the mentality of the "White mans Burden". And so on. The Great Depression did nothing to firm up confidence in Capitalism at this time either.

Chiang Kai Check by the way was more than a little bit interested in Fascism and the Nazis.

WW2 took place at a major transition point between the mentality old world and what was to come, the problem was nobody really knew what was to come. I'm not sure we still do today. But many of the worst ideas in WW2 were new ones. Far too many of the new ideological systems were quite comfortable with mass-murder, concentration camps, ethnic cleansing and so forth. One thing both Fascism and Stalinism had in common was the notion that "the ends justify the means" and a contempt for "Bourgeois" concepts of ethics.

Most of the modern ideologies were simplistic in that respect and lacked the ancient concept of moderation, which existed in Bushido and in Europe going back to ancient Greece.
 
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These are the kind of things that are difficult to codify and all too easily get edited out when new ideologies are forged...
 
Col. Jessup: Have you ever spent time in an infantry unit, son?

Kaffee: No, sir.

Col. Jessup: Ever served in a forward area?

Kaffee: No, sir.

Col. Jessup: Ever put your life in another man's hands, ask him to put his life in yours?

Kaffee: No, sir.

Col. Jessup: We follow orders, son. We follow orders or people die. It's that simple. Are we clear?

If you served in the military then you know the answer. And if you served in the IJA you certainly knew the answer.

If an officer orders you to do something, then you do it. It would certainly not be in the best interest to get sassy. Cos he can pull out his Nambu and shoot you between the eyes. Or his sword. If its a Type 14 then sword is more reliable.

When I was in the military, taking orders from an officer was like been told by the Queen herself. And the Queen is law. So pardon me if I do as they say. So an order from an officer was legal cos officers don't give illegal orders. And the RAF was a hippy commune in comparison to the IJA.

So if told to do bad things. Your options for open insubordination amount to 10% of nothing good.
 
In the IJA, disobeying an order was a great way to die, agreed.

In the West on the other hand you also had things like the Morotai Mutiny...
 
On the one hand, without radical thinking, how would anyone come out of the 1920s and 30s ready for carrier warfare or blitzkrieg?

On the other, throwing out tradition too much could put your head in a noose...
 
A comment on the Japanese supply system if I may. Certainly in Burma they relied on capturing supplies from their enemies. Once the high command figured this out and put procedures in place to prevent it happening the Japanese really started to suffer. If they couldn't get a quick victory and capture supplies then they stood very little chance.
I don't know about Malay and the Philippines but I see no reason they would be any different there.
 

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