"An unfathomably brutal place": Much like Nazi Germany, the Japanese Empire was one of the most genocidal in world history

Japanese troops burying Chinese people alive during the Nanjing Massacre

The phrase “Nazi Germany” inspires a horrific set of images in the minds of most Westerners

writes the All That's Interesting history website in Andrew Lenoir's article on The Japanese Empire, One Of The Most Genocidal Regimes In History. (No Pasarán continues its yearly tradition of presenting an article on Hiroshima, Japan, and/or World War II every anniversary of the atomic bombing of that city — see previous entries at the bottom of this post.)

But when it comes to “Shōwa Japan” — the term used to designate the wartime Japanese Empire under Emperor Shōwa (or Hirohito) — the same phenomenon tends not to occur. And yet, Japanese war crimes during World War II were just as appalling as Nazi ones. [Actually, the Imperial Japanese Army was not just every bit as evil as the Nazi SS, they were far more lethal during Japan's "Reign of Terror", i.e., far worse.]

In the 1930s and 1940s, Japanese troops committed a number of atrocities across Asia. Some events are well documented, like the Rape of Nanking — also called the Nanjing Massacre — which left as many as 300,000 Chinese civilians dead. But there are also many lesser-known events, like the Bataan Death March, the Rape of Hong Kong, and the Manila Massacre.

[Tokyo's] tactics made World War II-era Japan an unfathomably brutal place. By some estimates, there were upwards of 40 million deaths in the Pacific Theater — about half of whom were civilians killed by Japan’s military. [During WWII, Japan Killed 7 Times More People (Most of Them Civilians) than They Lost, reports Victor Davis Hanson.]

 … Following Japan’s opening to the West [in 1853], the Japanese launched one of the most rapid modernization efforts in history — and planted many seeds that would later mutate into Japanese war crimes during World War II. 

 … [In 1937], tensions between the Japanese and Chinese escalated into the Second Sino-Japanese War. This would be followed by the Pacific Theater of World War II (though some argue that the Pacific War essentially began at the same time the Second Sino-Japanese War did). The ensuing battles would lead to some of the worst war crimes of the century.

 … the Japanese Empire fought on [despite international condemnation], often resorting to brutal tactics to obtain victory. Their determination to win by any means was gruesomely illustrated when Japanese troops marched on the city of Nanking.

The city — today better known as Nanjing — was then the capital of China, as well as one of its wealthiest cities. But when Nanking fell on December 13, 1937, forces under the command of Emperor Hirohito’s uncle, Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, surrounded the Chinese troops. The Japanese soldiers were allegedly commanded to “kill all the captives.” And then, the Rape of Nanking began.

What followed was a six-week massacre that may have killed over 300,000 people in the city. Up to 80,000 women and girls were raped, and many of these rape victims did not survive their assaults. Those who did live were often left mutilated. Indeed, the horrific stories of murder, rape, and torture are so numerous, one cannot possibly cover all of them in one article.

 … Another infamous story from the Nanjing Massacre is the “Contest to Kill 100 People Using a Sword.” As the name suggests, it was a competition between two Japanese officers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda, to see who would be the first person to kill 100 Chinese people with a sword.

 … From accounts throughout the campaign in China, Japanese soldiers routinely slaughtered captured soldiers and civilians. As reported by Daqing Yang in an essay titled Diary of a Japanese Army Medical Doctor, 1937, this was an open secret. One doctor’s diary entry from 1937 described the machine-gunning of 80 “men and women of all ages” near Nanking.

Clearly acts of terrorism, these mass rapes and massacres can also be seen as a facet of genocidal violence perpetrated by the Japanese Empire. In many cases, the mutilated bodies of victims were left out for others to see, which undoubtedly had a horrific impact on the survivors left behind. 

 … In other war crimes, … it seems the cruelty had other practical purposes, like further advancing Japan’s scientific knowledge. Certain prisoners of war and civilians — most of whom were Chinese — were transported to facilities like Unit 731, where Japanese medical officers performed inhumane experiments on human beings before killing them.

 … One lingering accusation heard most often by American World War II veterans is that the Japanese were the worst to their captives of any Axis Power. Upon examination, there does seem to be some truth here. According to the MacArthur Memorial Education Programs, prisoners of war suffered a 4 percent death rate in Europe and a 27 percent death rate in the Pacific.

 … In one particularly brutal case of Japanese war crimes against Western prisoners, staff members at a Japanese university dissected downed American pilots — while they were still alive — as reported by the Daily Mail.

 … Though most people in the West understand the magnitude of the Nazi Holocaust and the European Theater in modern times, few grasp the extent of Japan’s brutality during World War II. Much like Nazi Germany, the Japanese Empire was one of the most genocidal in world history.

However, in the years since the war ended, Germany has made strides to confront its history. This includes prosecuting former Nazis, erecting memorials to Holocaust victims, preserving death camps, and making it illegal to deny that the systematic mass murder of 6 million Jews happened. But Japan has done comparatively little to address its war crimes.

Jeff Jacoby had this to say about the "

unfathomably brutal place"

:

Horrific as the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, President Truman’s other options would have cost more lives; in the Boston Globe,

Jeff

addresses the bloodiest land battle in the Pacific Theater for U.S. forces which ended only after the Nazi surrender and therefore after the end of the war in Europe.

Long before he won fame for his biographies of Douglas MacArthur, John F. Kennedy, and Winston Churchill, William Manchester was a young Marine corporal serving in the Pacific theater during World War II. He was severely wounded in the fighting on Okinawa, Japan, in June 1945, an experience he described in his wartime memoir, “Goodbye, Darkness.”

The violence on Okinawa was unimaginably savage. During the 12-week battle for the island, more than 12,500 Americans were killed and nearly 37,000 wounded. Japan’s losses were even more appalling. Determined to fight to the death rather than surrender the remote southern island, well over 100,000 Japanese soldiers were killed. The US Navy suffered the worst losses in its history. Waves of suicide attacks by Japanese aircraft resulted in the sinking of 34 American ships and the deaths of 5,000 US sailors. Bloody as the fighting was, however, everyone knew that it was only a foretaste of the losses Americans would sustain in a few months, when the climactic assault on Japan itself was expected to begin.

 … the bombings were the least deadly of the choices America faced. Every other option — invading Japan, increased firebombing, starving the Japanese into defeat, or letting the Soviet Union invade — would have killed even more people. The Bomb brought a quick end to the worst war in history. Awful as it was, Truman was right to use it.

As more and more shipwrecks from World War II are discovered (such as three sunken aircraft carriers from the Battle of Midway, one American, two Japanese), debate never ends regarding the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Related:
• Hiroshima 15: Examining the Issues Surrounding the Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Japan (Erik Svane) 

• Hiroshima 21: Didn't the Atomic Bombs Prevent the Red Army from Sweeping Through Western Europe and the Entire Continent from Falling Under Stalin's Iron Fist? 

• Hiroshima 17: During WWII, Japan Killed 7 Times More People (Most of Them Civilians) than They Lost (Victor Davis Hanson) 

• Hiroshima 18: The Imperial Japanese Army was every bit as evil as the Nazi SS, and more lethal (Trent Telenko)

• Hiroshima 19: The Horrific Treatment of Civilians During Japan's "Reign of Terror"

• Hiroshima 14: "I regard Hiroshima revisionism as the greatest hoax in American history" (Robert Maddox)

• Hiroshima 13: Although It Is Not Said Openly, Hiroshima Also Played a Purifying Role, IE the Baptism of a New Japan, the Event that Put an End to 50 Years of Crimes (Le Monde)

• Hiroshima 20: The Day the Pilot Who Led the Attack on Pearl Harbour Met the Pilot of the Enola Gay

• Hiroshima 12: Political Correctness in Japan: The comment "tramples on the feelings of victims", so… Shut the F**k Up and Lose Your Job! (re the forced resignation of Japan's defense (!) minister)

• Hiroshima 11: If Western elites cannot find perfection in history, they see no good at all; most never learned the narrative of WWII, only what was wrong about it (Victor Davis Hanson)

• Hiroshima 10: If Not for the Atom Bombs, Japan, as we know it today, would not exist (S L Sanger, author of “Working on the Bomb”)

• Hiroshima 9: Over one million warning leaflets were dropped over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 33 other Japanese cities 5 days before the Hiroshima bombing (Bill Whittle)

• Hiroshima 8: Was It Wrong to Use the Atom Bomb on Japan? (Father Wilson Miscamble)

• Hiroshima 7: Some Facts About Hiroshima and World War II That You Hear Neither From America's MSM, University Élites, and History Books, Nor From Japan's (New York Times)

• Hiroshima 16: Did Japan's top officers know a bomber was approaching Nagasaki, 5 hours beforehand, and do nothing?

• Hiroshima 6: "Lance or spear practice was a regular women's exercise to practice for the anticipated U.S. landing" (a Japanese American)

• Hiroshima 5: Japan's plans for defense involved mobilizing the civilian population, including women and children, for the customary suicidal battle tactics (Thomas Sowell)

• Hiroshima 4: "Les 300 000 morts d'Hiroshima ont épargné bien davantage de Japonais, qui auraient été écrasés sous des bombes ordinaires" (Charles de Gaulle)

• Hiroshima 3: A mainland invasion could have resulted in millions of Japanese deaths—and that's not counting civilians (Wall Street Journal)

• Hiroshima 2: Hand-wringing over Hiroshima is just virtue-signaling by people who never said a bad word about Stalin or Mao’s mass murders (Glenn Reynolds)

• Hiroshima 1: Unlike the ends of the majority of conflicts, World War II in the Pacific grew increasingly bloody as U.S. forces approached the Japanese homeland (Erik Svane)