Yeah that is a paradox about the Japanese, and a major difference between them and the Germans and Italians.. I know people roll their eyes when I bring up ancient history but quite a few of the German pilots had a Von prefix before their name and not a few were Graf Von... they flew with the feudal coats of arms of their families or their town on their planes. Those men would have grown up hearing and reading stories about the exploits of their ancestors in Centuries past, and one of the most common features of those stories in the genaeology was the routine capture and eventual ransom (or more rarely, escape or rescue) of the ancestor in question. The idea of being captured certainly wasn't relished, it usually meant a fairly major financial setback, and they faced some enemies, like the Mongols and Ottomans, with whom captivity was often worse than death. But captivity and an eventual release was very routine in the constant day to day squabbling that went in in Central Europe between the Latinized people. Not just Germans and Italians but also with the Poles, Czechs, Scandinavians, Flemish and so on. For a German knight or burgher to be captured was certainly a setback, but it was by no means annihilated the Ehren (honor / reputation) of the person involved. It was just a fact of life.
For the Japanese, the incredible discipline and hard attitude that served them so well also had this rigidity which could be a downside. Captivity was nigh unthinkable. Even escape could be looked at as suspect. In South Pacific Air War there is an anecdote about a bomber crew, I think of a Betty, which had been shot down and presumed dead. The crew were posthumously promoted as was customary and listed as KiA. But then after a few weeks of struggling through the jungle, they showed up. This caused such embarrassment and eventually resentment among their colleagues that they were (according to the book) sent out on a solo mission to attack Port Morseby so as to get decently killed.
On a more pragmatic and less ideological level, even a less hardened Japanese pilot or flight crewman was aware that not much effort was being made to rescue downed pilots, so if captivity wasn't unthinkable, dying of thirst and fever deep in a Tropical jungle or floating forlorn in the open ocean until the sharks ate you also probably didn't seem worth considering.
For the Japanese, the incredible discipline and hard attitude that served them so well also had this rigidity which could be a downside. Captivity was nigh unthinkable. Even escape could be looked at as suspect. In South Pacific Air War there is an anecdote about a bomber crew, I think of a Betty, which had been shot down and presumed dead. The crew were posthumously promoted as was customary and listed as KiA. But then after a few weeks of struggling through the jungle, they showed up. This caused such embarrassment and eventually resentment among their colleagues that they were (according to the book) sent out on a solo mission to attack Port Morseby so as to get decently killed.
On a more pragmatic and less ideological level, even a less hardened Japanese pilot or flight crewman was aware that not much effort was being made to rescue downed pilots, so if captivity wasn't unthinkable, dying of thirst and fever deep in a Tropical jungle or floating forlorn in the open ocean until the sharks ate you also probably didn't seem worth considering.
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