War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War

This is a remarkable book filled with information about the impact of race in World War II as far as it related to Japan. There is a wealth of information in this book, among which are the following items.

Casting Stones

While the US condemned what the Nazi's were doing as far as their Aryan supremacy concept goes, at the same time the US was highly segregated, with blacks still subject to the “Jim Crow” laws. They were kept in separate military groups; white and black blood was kept separate, and the US put around 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry, 2/3rds of which were American citizens, into internment camps without charges, trials or legal representation.

First-generation Japanese could not become citizens, nor could Chinese nor Indians. So while the US condemned the idea of the Germans being a superior people, the country held on to its concepts that whites were superior people and all others were second-class citizens, if even that much.

The Japanese capitalized on this racial discrimination in their own propaganda for the Asian area.

The US also overlooked its own history of racial hatred, conveniently forgetting the white takeover of Indian lands and the forcing of Indians onto reservations; the entire issue of slavery, and the history of anti-Chinese hatred in the country.

Apparently many people in the South thought there was a possibility of a black-Japanese alliance developing.

Who did Japan actually “invade?”

When Japan invaded countries in the Pacific area, they were not, generally, invading actual independent countries. Most of the countries were under colonial rule by other, white, countries. India, for example, was still under English rule. There was French Indo-china, the Dutch East Indies, etc., so when the Japanese attacked these countries they appeared, at least at first, to be liberators for the people in the countries.

It was later when the countries found out that Japan was itself going to become a colonial power, replacing white rule with Japanese rule.

The Japanese considered it a holy mission of theirs to “stabilize Asia and emancipate its people.”

War in Europe vs. war in Asia

The Hearst newspapers declared that the two wars were different, saying that Japan was a “racial menace”, and also a cultural and a religious menace.

Japanese view of race

A document from the Imperial Army, from the summer of 1942, discussed the races in Asia. It said there were “master races”, “friendly races”, and “guest races,” with the Japanese race at the very top of the ladder. The Japanese were considered to be the world's leading race.

Pre-war hatreds

There was no actual massive pre-war hatred of the Germans or the Italians. Although Germans in the US in World War I faced some discrimination, that had ended during the inter-war years. What had not ended was a racial hatred for the Chinese and the Japanese that had been going on for decades before the first World War, and had continued unabated since then. In effect, many in the US hated the Japanese even before the second world war started.

The Japanese were seen to be a “subhuman” group. They were pictured as inherently inferior, and compared to rodents and monkeys. This did a massive change, though, after the sweeping Japanese victories early in the war, leading to the Japanese to be considered some sort of “supermen,” although they were still pictured in a negative way in the media.

An Australian general said that the Japanese were a “cross between the human being and the ape.”

Results of the hatred

When a group of people is hated as much as the Japanese were, it makes it easier for the military to use extreme measures against them, since the civilian population will, in all likelihood, support the measures, so the firebombing of the cities, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, was accepted by the US civilians as necessary, as was the dropping of the atomic bombs.

Wartime atrocities by the Japanese (unit 731, the Bataan death march, the Nanking massacre, the murder of US prisoners-of-war) made it easier for soldiers in the US army to commit atrocities themselves, and thus the fighting in the Pacific became more and more brutal as the war continued.

Pearl Harbor, of course, was perhaps the main source of hatred against Japanese during the war. A Marine saying was “Remember Pearl Harbor-keep 'em dying.” One admiral told his troops to “Kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs.”

After the atomic bombs were dropped, a poll was conducted of Americans, and over 20% wanted more atomic bombs to be used before the Japanese had a chance to surrender. The President's son, Elliott Roosevelt, said that the allies should continue bombing Japan “until we have destroyed about half the Japanese civilian population.”

Atrocities and Things beyond understanding

Note: some of the things talked about in the book in relation to atrocities are rather upsetting, to say the least.

The Japanese treatment of civilians in China, and the Japanese murder of Allied Prisoners-of-War were viewed as “proof” of the barbarity of the Japanese. On the other hand, the fact that some American soldiers too skulls of Japanese soldiers, gold teeth, and ears from them and made decorations and sent them back home “proved” to the Japanese just how barbaric the American soldiers were. Some Japanese skulls apparently were used as hood ornaments on jeeps.

The book compares reactions to German and Japanese activities. The Germans themselves attacked without warning (Poland, for example); they killed millions of civilians (in Russia and in the death camps), they used slave labor), and they killed civilians in retaliation for the deaths of German officers, and they killed prisoners of war.

(The book says some 670,000 Koreans were brought to Japan for slave labor, and about 60,000 of them died in the work places, and another 10,000 died in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)

The Japanese attacked without warning (Pearl Harbor being the most famous example;) they killed millions of civilians (the Rape of Nanking and other areas in China), they used slave labor (both prisoners of war and Koreans, for example), and they also killed civilians in retaliation; their propaganda even caused many civilians to commit suicide rather than be freed by American troops, because they had been led to believe the American troops would rape the women and kill the men, and the Americans at times killed prisoners of war.

So both sides basically were doing the same kind of things, yet the Japanese were hated as a people, but the German leadership was hated and not all the German people in general.

One of the things that got Americans mad was the bombing of Chinese civilians by the Japanese, starting in 1937, but as the second world war went on the Americans did exactly the same thing, firebombing cities and killing tens of thousands of civilians, culminating in the two atomic bombs which were not aimed at major military targets.

The Japanese civilians did not find out about many of the Japanese atrocities until later because of the effectiveness of the censorship of Japanese media by the government and the Japanese secret police. Even some Japanese officials did not fight out what had been done until after the war.

Radio Tokyo referred to the attacks on cities as “slaughter bombing.”

Also, as the war neared its end, many Americans became outraged by the Japanese doggedly hanging on, trying to resist the American advance, and causing so many American deaths and injuries.

One of the incomprehensible things that got Americans mad were the “banzai charges” by Japanese troops late in the war, where they would charge fortified Allied positions using regular soldiers and even wounded soldiers, sometimes with little armament, only to be mowed down and killed to the last man.

Something like this happened in the batle of Attu in the Aleutians in May, 1943. 2500 Japanese were outnumbered five to one and they fought to the last man, yet they would still charge American positions. This battle definitely caused people to think of the Japanese as fanatic.

Gyokusai became a word to be known; it meant choosing to die heroically in battle rather than surrendering, and this led to the deaths of numerous Japanese in suicidal banzai charges, and even in committing suicide rather than surrender.

Then, of course, there were the kamikaze, which were considered another incomprehensible thing and a sign of the madness of the Japanese. Unlike the banzai charges, though, the kamikazes proved, at times, somewhat effective fighting forces and their attacks killed many American sailors and sank a fairly good number of ships.

Internment Camps

The book does have a small amount of material on the internment campson p. 79 and 80, and 82. There is a little more later in the book around page 113-114.

Characterization of Japanese

The Japanese were pictured as monkeys and apes. One term used was “monkeynips.” They were also compared to rats.

Rumors

These are quite interesting rumors.

The Chinese roasted their captives and cut out their hearts.

American men qualified to become Marines by killing their parents.

Marines routinely raped and killed Asian women.

The Americans killed prisoners by putting them on the ground and running them over with tanks. (If I remember correctly from what else I've read, this has some ring of truth to it; it wasn't prisoners, though, it was Japanese soldiers who were still fighting who were sometimes run over.)

The Allies planned to kill all Japanese but 5,000 attractive women and then turn the entire country into an international park.

Japanese propaganda

There was a 70 page book called Read This and the War is Won that was given to Japanese troops. It covered how to fight in a tropical war zone, and why they were fighting there.

One of the effects of Japanese propaganda was to convince civilians that Japan had to go to war to defend herself from being “strangled” by “white imperialists” who were trying to control the riches of Asia themselves.

Office of War Information

This government office determined that the Japanese home-front morale was falling rapidly, and that an intense psychological campaign used against Japan, along with assurances that the Emperor would not be killed, could turn the people against the militarist leaders and quicken the surrender. None of the findings were read by any US official in a policy-making position.

Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page