Japanese perspective

[GrauGeist]

I grew up hearing the accounts first hand from those who were there. But the interesting point is what I heard.

One Uncle held absolutely no appreciation for the Japanese at all. He carried this attitude from his first battles in the Solomons all the way to his grave. My other Uncle (as well as my Great Uncle) held no grudge against them at all and never had anything unkind to say about the Japanese people in general.

Two very different (and emotional) perspectives on the same subject.

 

[pbehn]

Because the situation was not in British interests to do so. We lacked the strength and the will to go to war at those earlier times, and we still trusted Hitler as an honourable man. After the debacle of the Czech crisis, we trusted him no more and knew that war was inevitable. Britsih are a bit funny like that. they tend to give people the full benefit of the doubt, until that person is caught out, red handed, lying to us. Then we tend to become a little intransigent and obstinate. Something about the British the Germans never quite understood.

There are many facets to the discussion, Chamberlain was vilified for his "peace in our time speech and his worthless piece of paper, but what other choice did he have. If any one in Britain had really believed we had peace in our time then we wouldn't have wasted time and money building spitfires and hurricanes. The traditional "British perspective" on the build up to WW" is not quite the way it happened. At the time there were more pacifists appeasers and defeatists than the British would like to admit. Similarly from Shinpachis posts Japan was being pushed down the road to war and there were those in Japan who felt war would bring disaster.

 

[Shinpachi]

Thank you very much my friends for so many warm words.
I will take care and try to be more polite especially for seniors anyway.
Thanks tyrodtom for your generosity

Imperial Japanese Army also began study for the military operation in the tropic area like Malay from January to June, 1941.
They printed 400,000 copies of combat manual to hand soldiers when they got aboard the transport crafts.

 

[Shinpachi]

Seeing from today's Japanese eye, this is a very shameful message from Japanese Embassy in US to the US government.
This could have been a good lesson for us.

******************************************

The Japanese Embassy to the Department of State Protesting the Ban on Exports of Iron and Steel Scrap, October 7, 1940

No. 235

The Japanese Government has taken note of the regulations governing the exportation of iron and steel scrap, dated September 30, 1940, amending the construction and definition of the term "iron and steel scrap" included in the regulations of July 26, 1940, and the announcement of September 26, 1940 to the effect that, under the new regulations, licenses will be issued to permit shipments to the countries of the Western Hemisphere and Great Britain only.

The above-mentioned regulations refer to the Presidential authority derived from the provisions of section 6 of the Act of Congress approved July 2, 1940, entitled "An Act to expedite the strengthening of the national defense", thereby suggesting that it was determined to be necessary in the interest of national defense to curtail the exportation of iron and steel scrap.

In view iron the situation of iron and steel scrap markets, the supply and demand of these materials and the volume shipped to Japan, the Japanese Government finds it difficult to concede that this measure was motivated solely by the interest of national defense of the United States.

In the note of the Japanese Ambassador of August 3 the Japanese Government pointed out that the measure announced on July 26, 1940, in regard to the exportation of aviation gasoline, was tantamount to an export embargo as far as countries outside the Western Hemisphere were concerned. Compared to that announcement, the announcement under review may be said to have gone a step further toward discrimination by specifically excluding Great Britain from the virtual embargo.

In view of the fact that Japan has been for some years the principal buyer of American iron and steel scrap, the announcement of the administrative policy, as well as the regulations establishing license system in iron and steel scrap cannot fail to be regarded as directed against Japan, and, as such, to be an unfriendly act.

The Japanese Government hereby protests against the measures taken by the United States Government in connection with the exportation of iron and steel scrap.

Source: U.S., Department of State, Publication 1983, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S., Government Printing Office, 1943), p. 578

 

[tyrodtom]

From the Japanese perspective they wanted to compete with the western powers and expected them to continue selling them the materials and fuel to do it, or at least continue to supply them until Japan was able to seize those resources for themselves.

From the American perspective, that was a unrealistic perspective.

 

[razor1uk]

Perhaps, well in my view;

...though I think that the Control Clique's assination of the PM in '31 (or '32) that paved the way for the military to coerce and bully the imperial house(s) civilian government towards the cliques goals of acting like the rest of the big 5 naval/military members did in there expansionist, arrogant superior-race/colour-ness with those outside the club that Japan was admitted into following the Battle of Tsukashima/Port Arthur.

The West then prior to the 1990's was still quite racist/supremacist/super-nationalist, some developed nations still are too, say in their less travelled and lesser schooled areas, and things were much more blatant and worse that-wise back then before during WW2.

The Japanese, ignoring for the argument those killed in less than glorious circumstances, were the last 'power' to be admitted to the naval club, and they felt naturally somewhat theat they should have the same rights as they other members enjoyed, but being a new member, and too some, being a different colour, culture Pacific rival meant they to stay in the club they bled their forces to get into, they had to accept a lower status that would seem racist to them.

No wonder in some part perhaps that some horrible things happened as a collective knee jerk and stand against those whome were related to or part those who imposed the naval treaties and taught them how to be so racist, but not so racist enough to send all of a group of male genital mutilation obsessed religous persons to holding/prison/death camps whom were living within Japan, even against the wishes of the farting corporals regime ambassadors - although for those jewish living in Japan, they didn't have it easy during the war, they had it easier than the interred Japanese Americans did.

They from the western view, were that last power trying to be imperialist to get there hand caught in th trap, the trap of being spotted last, and so have been sometimes truthfully, sometimes politcally painted as the 'evil' ones, but that just means the west are just as bad, if not more so for getting away with it and passing it off as someone elses cause effect.

I am frequently wrong and often on the unliked/non-sheep side of discussions, but I don't mean this as an apology or a denial of events that did happen, but as another aspect of history to be taken into account; I abhore revisionism revisionists. History is never just one side or the other, it has many facets like the compound eye of an insect that must be acknowledged to get closer to an accurate truth than the stereotypically marketed/accepted political, social nationally adhered-to truth.

 

[oldcrowcv63]

It is no wonder that the US Government had its own propaganda for the people like you mentioned in above but Japan did not want war with the US when they were busy in China. Here is my summary classified by the event and its year. Sorry to say but, after classification, I was obliged to think that the US did want war with Japan first.

From Wikipedia:

"On September 18, 1931, a small quantity of dynamite was detonated by Lt. Kawamoto Suemori[4] close to a railway line owned by Japan's South Manchuria Railway near Mukden (now Shenyang).[5] Although the explosion was so weak that it failed to destroy the track and a train passed over it minutes later, the Imperial Japanese Army, accusing Chinese dissidents of the act, responded with a full invasion that led to the occupation of Manchuria, in which Japan established its puppet state of Manchukuo six months later. The ruse was soon exposed to the international community, leading Japan to diplomatic isolation and its March 1933 withdrawal from the League of Nations."

"The Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – September 9, 1945) (called so after the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95) was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1941. China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. The Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century.[8] It [is reputed to have] made up more than 50% of the casualties in the Pacific War if the 1937–1941 period is taken into account.

The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy aiming to dominate China politically and militarily and to secure its vast raw material reserves and other economic resources, particularly food and labour. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements, so-called "incidents". In 1931, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria by Japan's Kwantung Army followed the Mukden Incident. The last of these incidents was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, marking the beginning of total war between the two countries.
Initially the Japanese scored major victories in Shanghai after heavy fighting.

US Economic Sanctions Blockade against Japan (1937-1941)
==============================================

October, 1937......."Quarantine Speech" by Roosevelt

From wikipedia:

"The Quarantine Speech was given by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on October 5, 1937 in Chicago, calling for an international "quarantine of the aggressor nations" as an alternative to the political climate of American neutrality and non-intervention that was prevalent at the time. The speech intensified America's isolationist mood, causing protest by non-interventionists and foes to intervene. No countries were directly mentioned in the speech, although it was interpreted as referring to Japan, Italy, and Germany.[1] Roosevelt suggested the use of economic pressure, a forceful response, but less direct than outright aggression."

From wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War

"By the end of 1937 captured the Chinese capital of Nanking. After failing to stop the Japanese in Wuhan, the Chinese central government was relocated to Chongqing in the Chinese interior. By 1939 the war had reached stalemate after Chinese victories in Changsha and Guangxi. The Japanese were also unable to defeat the Chinese communist forces in Shaanxi, which performed harassment and sabotage operations against the Japanese using guerrilla warfare tactics.
In August 1937, the Japanese army invaded Shanghai where they met strong resistance and suffered heavy casualties. The battle was bloody as both sides faced attrition in urban hand-to-hand combat. By mid-November the Japanese had captured Shanghai with the help of naval bombardment. The General Staff Headquarters in Tokyo initially decided not to expand the war due to heavy casualties and low morale of the troops.

However, on December 1, headquarters ordered the Central China Area Army and the 10th Army to capture Nanking, then-capital of the Republic of China."

The USN Gunboat Panay is sunk by IJN aircraft on December 12, 1937.

Nanking Massacre begins as the sack of the city on or about December 13, 1937.

July, 1939................Notice of discarding US-Japan Treaty of Commerce and Navigation

It seems to me that the Russo Japanese war (1905) set up both the eventual large conflict with the West in at least a couple of ways. Newly modern Japan in its first confrontation with European imperial ambitions was wildly successful and opened the path that allowed the annexation of Korea and prompted certain military extremists to promote conquest as a legitimate means of national expansion. Subordinate commanders (or perhaps I should say, insubordinate commanders) acted independently and used their troops, stationed on the Korean-Manchurian border to invade and subsequently annex the Chinese province.

This whole scenario is disputed by both sides: from wikipedia: Mukden Incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Different opinions still exist as to who blew up the Japanese railroad at Mukden. Strong evidence points to young officers of the Japanese Kwantung Army having conspired to cause the blast, with or without direct orders from Tokyo. Post-war investigations confirmed that the original bomb planted by the Japanese failed to explode, and a replacement had to be planted. The resulting explosion enabled the Japanese Kwantung Army to accomplish their goal of triggering a conflict with Chinese troops stationed in Manchuria and the subsequent establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo.

The 9.18 Incident Exhibition Museum at Shenyang, opened by the People's Republic of China on September 18, 1991, takes the position that the explosives were planted by Japan. However, the Yūshūkan museum, located within Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, places the blame on Chinese militias.

David Bergamini's book Japan's Imperial Conspiracy (1971) has a detailed chronology of events in both Manchuria and Tokyo surrounding the Mukden Incident. Bergamini concludes that the greatest deception was that the Mukden Incident and Japanese invasion were planned by junior or hot-headed officers, without formal approval by the Japanese government. However, historian James Weland has concluded that senior commanders had tacitly allowed field operatives to proceed on their own initiative, then endorsed the result after a positive outcome was assured.[14]

In August 2006, the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's top-selling newspaper, published the results of a year-long research project into the general question of who is responsible for the "Showa war". With respect to the Manchurian Incident, the newspaper blamed ambitious Japanese militarists, as well as politicians who were impotent to rein them in or prevent their insubordination.[15][16]

Debate has also focused on how the incident was handled by the League of Nations and the subsequent Lytton Report. A.J.P. Taylor wrote that "In the face of its first serious challenge," the League buckled and capitulated. The Washington Naval Conference (1921) guaranteed a certain degree of Japanese hegemony in the Far East. Any intervention on the part of America would be a breach of the already mentioned agreement. Furthermore, Britain was in crisis, having been recently forced off the gold standard. Although a power in the Far East, Britain was incapable of decisive action. The only response from these powers was "moral condemnation"."

Shin, Please understand, the point I am trying to make is not to discredit anything you've said but rather to give some depth and to suggest that a statement that "the US wanted war with Japan" is a simplification of complex series of events that predate FDR's speech in 1937 or the embargoes of 1940. Those elements of each nation that saw war as inevitable were assisted by events. Those that desired peace were overwhelmed by events.

 

[oldcrowcv63]

They from the western view, were that last power trying to be imperialist to get there hand caught in th trap, the trap of being spotted last, and so have been sometimes truthfully, sometimes politcally painted as the 'evil' ones, but that just means the west are just as bad, if not more so for getting away with it and passing it off as someone elses cause effect.

I am frequently wrong and often on the unliked/non-sheep side of discussions, but I don't mean this as an apology or a denial of events that did happen, but as another aspect of history to be taken into account; I abhore revisionism revisionists. History is never just one side or the other, it has many facets like the compound eye of an insect that must be acknowledged to get closer to an accurate truth than the stereotypically marketed/accepted political, social nationally adhered-to truth.

Amen brother...

 

[michaelmaltby]

"...It seems to me that the Russo Japanese war (1905) set up both the eventual large conflict with the West in at least a couple of ways. Newly modern Japan in its first confrontation with European imperial ambitions was wildly successful and opened the path that allowed the annexation of Korea and prompted certain military extremists to promote conquest as a legitimate means of national expansion..."

The Japanese out-fighting the Russians was a geo-political tsunami in the Caucasian western world .... even an internationalist (Red) like Jack London was dumbfounded that an Asian nation had so clearly mastered the white man's warfare.

But the other lesson the Japanese took from this important war was the Peace process ... in Portsmouth MA. The courtly Russians courted the peace makers and the Japanese were left feeling they had won the war but lost the peace .... not a great future motivator for international behavior.

The lessons from Japan are similar (but with racial overtones) to those of unified Germany ..... it's all about territory and markets ... and the incumbents don't like to be challenged. These contests play out in the wild naturally ... but the consequences aren't as grave as world warfare. The world has to learn accommodation .... .... and not what is Politically Correct 'accommodation' ....

 

[VBF-13]

Seeing from today's Japanese eye, this is a very shameful message from Japanese Embassy in US to the US government.
This could have been a good lesson for us.
******************************************

[...]In view iron the situation of iron and steel scrap markets, the supply and demand of these materials and the volume shipped to Japan, the Japanese Government finds it difficult to concede that this measure was motivated solely by the interest of national defense of the United States.

In the note of the Japanese Ambassador of August 3 the Japanese Government pointed out that the measure announced on July 26, 1940, in regard to the exportation of aviation gasoline, was tantamount to an export embargo as far as countries outside the Western Hemisphere were concerned. Compared to that announcement, the announcement under review may be said to have gone a step further toward discrimination by specifically excluding Great Britain from the virtual embargo.[...]

Source: U.S., Department of State, Publication 1983, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S., Government Printing Office, 1943), p. 578

I suppose I can see that, casting the policy off as discrimination, and not related to national defense.

 

[Shinpachi]

Thank you VBF-13. I have had a good chance to understand American perspective better with you all so knowledgeable gents.

A few years ago, I also had a chance to know what it was well in Manchukuo between 1935 and 1945 from an elderly lady, born in 1920. She used to live in Changchun and now lives in my town Osaka. She said "Manchukuo was a westernised advanced, beautiful and fertility country. Japan had no worry of starvation with it".

Photo: The lady explaining me details with the old Changchun replica map.

 

[VBF-13]

Shin, what a nice experience for you!

 

[oldcrowcv63]

I saw this episode of the old (1973-74) British documentary World at War tonight (it's running now at 8:30 PM US East Coast time. ) It is episode 6 entitled "Banzai" of the series and covers the period 1931 thru early 1942 in the Pacific and features interesting interviews with IJN Naval Aviators Minoru Genda and Mitsuo Fuchida among many other officials, those of both East and West. It is certainly a Western-slanted view of events in some of the language used but with that caveat it is more balanced than one might expect. For example, it suggests a lack of sincerity on both sides regarding late-1941 peace initiatives. One might even interpret the dialogue to suggest that the Japanese were more hopeful of peace in Late 1941 than the USA.



Even nearly 30 years afterward, the presentation certainly echoes in its retrospective look, the shock of the West at the succession of crushing defeats inflicted on the allies in the first months of the war.

 

[swampyankee]

I think there were multiple Japanese perspectives; one of these was the perspective of the ultra-nationalists under the Showa Imperiate. The ultra-nationalists were not entirely rational, and would find threats and insults in a change in the number of sunspots.

 

[parsifal]

I think there were multiple Japanese perspectives; one of these was the perspective of the ultra-nationalists under the Showa Imperiate. The ultra-nationalists were not entirely rational, and would find threats and insults in a change in the number of sunspots.

Couldnt agree more, however, i would make one cautionary response to this. what I would be looking for is the national mood.....the attitudfe of the Japanese people. whilst there are indeed a multitude of different vie2s and perspectives, there was only one tht stood in the majority. Trying to fathom what that majority view was is not so easy. To what extent did the Japanese government impose its will on its own people, or was the government or official stance on various issues an accurate refelection of the wishes of the Japanese people?

 

[michaelmaltby]

"....To what extent did the Japanese government impose its will on its own people, or was the government or official stance on various issues an accurate refelection of the wishes of the Japanese people?"

A valid question ... for which I'm not sure there is a clear answer .... but, consider the suffering the Japanese civilian population undertook stoically ... this is some measure of the national will ... just as the response of Londoners to the Blitz (no comparison of scale intended, here) ... is taken as a positive measure of Britain's resolution. Or Leningraders resisting the siege.

Is it wrong to assume that the average Japanese, in 1941, would have been happy to win the war ...?

 

[swampyankee]

"....To what extent did the Japanese government impose its will on its own people, or was the government or official stance on various issues an accurate refelection of the wishes of the Japanese people?"

A valid question ... for which I'm not sure there is a clear answer .... but, consider the suffering the Japanese civilian population undertook stoically ... this is some measure of the national will ... just as the response of Londoners to the Blitz (no comparison of scale intended, here) ... is taken as a positive measure of Britain's resolution. Or Leningraders resisting the siege.

Is it wrong to assume that the average Japanese, in 1941, would have been happy to win the war ...?

Whenever a nation is under threat, they will tend to close ranks and try to reject the outsider. A more recent example of that is the Second Gulf War, where Iraq was invaded and the predictions (usually by hawkish neocons) was that the Iraqi people would strew roses, vs IEDs in the path of US forces.

As to whether the aggressive actions of the Japanese government which led to war with the US were an accurate reflection of the desires of the people of Japan, that's certainly indeterminate. One must remember, though, that Japan did not have a free press and did have a "Peace Preservation Law" (Peace Preservation Law) which made any criticism of a policy approved, even tacitly, by the emperor to be a crime. So, when the Japanese Emperor named an aggressively expansionist person to the premiership, criticizing the premier was indirect criticism of the emperor, therefore a crime. Indeed, there was a specific police agency, the Tokko, to enforce the Peace Preservation Law. It certainly did not help that the Japanese constitution required the Ministers of the Navy and of War to be serving military officers: it gave the admirals and generals entirely too much control over the government, as no government could be formed without filling those two cabinet posts.

 

[razor1uk]

No nation has a really true free press, as their are always people and their personalities involved in the media gathering inforning process, certainly the closer to governmental requirements/restrictiond, pressures of public-opinion marketeers-investors etc means there is always less freedom. But few seem to realise or care about this. Mmm 'Congressionals' anyone?

Anyway, back to the topic...

 

[Shinpachi]

I agree with MM. That war was a Jihad for the Japanese.
A former Japanese leader, if not Hideki Tojo, said after the war "We certainly imposed patriotism on the people to let them obey but their approval was far stronger than we had expected. We leaders were unable to step back any more".

 

[swampyankee]

No nation has a really true free press, as their are always people and their personalities involved in the media gathering inforning process, certainly the closer to governmental requirements/restrictiond, pressures of public-opinion marketeers-investors etc means there is always less freedom. But few seem to realise or care about this. Mmm 'Congressionals' anyone?

Anyway, back to the topic...

Avoiding a derail ... always difficult. In the pre-ww2 UK and US, it's unlikely that an editorial opposing the government's action would result in arrest and imprisonment; with the increasingly restricted ownership of the media, the press is probably controlled by far fewer people now than in the 1930s, when just about every city of any size in the US had two or more independently owned newspapers.

Before WW2, there were precious few countries which had reasonably good democratic credentials: the US, the white Commonwealth countries (probably excluding South Africa), France, and maybe as many as a dozen more.