Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley, Ron Powers Page A
Authors: James Bradley, Ron Powers
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1937. As the Japanese entered the capital, only unarmed civilians remained. The victorious troops plastered the city with billboards featuring a smiling Japanese soldier handing a bowl of rice to an appreciative Chinese child. The poster proclaimed the peaceful intentions of “co-prosperity.” But instead the Chinese suffered an orgy of torture and death.
In less than a month Japanese troops, with the encouragement of their officers, killed up to 350,000 Chinese civilians. Pregnant women were marched to one killing field where Japanese placed bets on the sex of the fetus about to tumble from its mother’s womb, cut by a samurai sword. In another area of town drunken soldiers laughed and tossed babies in the air to be skewered on the ends of their buddies’ bayonets. Dogs grew too fat to walk, feasting on the corpses in the streets.
Three hundred fifty thousand: That amounted to more civilians dying in one city in one month than died in entire countries during the entire war. In six years of combat France lost 108,000 civilians; Belgium 101,000; the Netherlands 242,000. The Japanese in Nanking killed even more than the atomic bombs later would. (Hiroshima had 140,000 dead, Nagasaki 70,000.) The Japanese “loot all, kill all, burn all” scorched-earth policy in North China would eventually reduce the population from forty-four million to twenty-five million. Co-prosperity indeed.
The U.S. Army had encountered the Japanese army’s ways in the Philippines and Burma. Stories of buddies found trussed like pigs, disemboweled with their severed genitals in their mouths circulated, as did horrifying accounts of boys staked in the hot sun, forced to endure the voracious bugs who savored the honey rubbed into the prisoner’s eyes and mouth.
However, the Marines on Guadalcanal had not experienced the atrocities firsthand and found them hard to believe. Until they mistakenly extended a hand of mercy to the Japanese.
On August 11, Frank Goettge led a patrol to rescue a Japanese unit on an isolated spit of ground on Guadalcanal. Marine intelligence had reported sighting a white flag, and a captured Japanese sailor said the unit was unable to maintain itself and inclined to give up.
Goettge called for volunteers to rescue the Japanese unit. Twenty-five, including an interpreter and a Navy surgeon, stepped forward.
Landing on the beach identified by the informant, Goettge announced he was there to help the trapped Japanese. His offer was met by withering gunfire. After hours of fighting only one Marine managed to escape and swim away. As he looked back at the bloody shore, he could see the glint of Japanese swords hacking his buddies’ bodies.
A Marine patrol later found the mutilated corpses. They had been violated in the worst possible manner. Chunks of flesh with the Marine Corps symbol tattooed on them had been hacked off arms and stuffed into their mouths. The Marines began to realize they were fighting a war of no rules.
What shocked Marine sensibilities the most was the Japanese treatment of their noncombatant corpsmen. U.S. Navy medics would respond to calls for help from wounded Japanese who would cry “Corpsman! Corpsman!” in English. When the corpsmen came to their aid, they were then either treacherously shot by the wounded Japanese or blown up by hand grenades concealed on their bodies.
America’s War in the Pacific would be a war without quarter, fought with no rules. It would be a primitive battle, a fight to extinction.
The Japanese fighting man believed he was fighting in the proud tradition of ancient samurai. But this was not the case.
Bushido, the “Way of the Warrior,” had for centuries been the honored code of Japan’s proud samurai caste. In the first half of the twentieth century the military romanticized the “Way,” calling upon all young men to be willing to die for their Emperor. It was this interpretation of Bushido that motivated the Japanese soldiers to fight to the death in a
In less than a month Japanese troops, with the encouragement of their officers, killed up to 350,000 Chinese civilians. Pregnant women were marched to one killing field where Japanese placed bets on the sex of the fetus about to tumble from its mother’s womb, cut by a samurai sword. In another area of town drunken soldiers laughed and tossed babies in the air to be skewered on the ends of their buddies’ bayonets. Dogs grew too fat to walk, feasting on the corpses in the streets.
Three hundred fifty thousand: That amounted to more civilians dying in one city in one month than died in entire countries during the entire war. In six years of combat France lost 108,000 civilians; Belgium 101,000; the Netherlands 242,000. The Japanese in Nanking killed even more than the atomic bombs later would. (Hiroshima had 140,000 dead, Nagasaki 70,000.) The Japanese “loot all, kill all, burn all” scorched-earth policy in North China would eventually reduce the population from forty-four million to twenty-five million. Co-prosperity indeed.
The U.S. Army had encountered the Japanese army’s ways in the Philippines and Burma. Stories of buddies found trussed like pigs, disemboweled with their severed genitals in their mouths circulated, as did horrifying accounts of boys staked in the hot sun, forced to endure the voracious bugs who savored the honey rubbed into the prisoner’s eyes and mouth.
However, the Marines on Guadalcanal had not experienced the atrocities firsthand and found them hard to believe. Until they mistakenly extended a hand of mercy to the Japanese.
On August 11, Frank Goettge led a patrol to rescue a Japanese unit on an isolated spit of ground on Guadalcanal. Marine intelligence had reported sighting a white flag, and a captured Japanese sailor said the unit was unable to maintain itself and inclined to give up.
Goettge called for volunteers to rescue the Japanese unit. Twenty-five, including an interpreter and a Navy surgeon, stepped forward.
Landing on the beach identified by the informant, Goettge announced he was there to help the trapped Japanese. His offer was met by withering gunfire. After hours of fighting only one Marine managed to escape and swim away. As he looked back at the bloody shore, he could see the glint of Japanese swords hacking his buddies’ bodies.
A Marine patrol later found the mutilated corpses. They had been violated in the worst possible manner. Chunks of flesh with the Marine Corps symbol tattooed on them had been hacked off arms and stuffed into their mouths. The Marines began to realize they were fighting a war of no rules.
What shocked Marine sensibilities the most was the Japanese treatment of their noncombatant corpsmen. U.S. Navy medics would respond to calls for help from wounded Japanese who would cry “Corpsman! Corpsman!” in English. When the corpsmen came to their aid, they were then either treacherously shot by the wounded Japanese or blown up by hand grenades concealed on their bodies.
America’s War in the Pacific would be a war without quarter, fought with no rules. It would be a primitive battle, a fight to extinction.
The Japanese fighting man believed he was fighting in the proud tradition of ancient samurai. But this was not the case.
Bushido, the “Way of the Warrior,” had for centuries been the honored code of Japan’s proud samurai caste. In the first half of the twentieth century the military romanticized the “Way,” calling upon all young men to be willing to die for their Emperor. It was this interpretation of Bushido that motivated the Japanese soldiers to fight to the death in a
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