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  • A Quora about WWII, IJN being ordered to murder all POWS, US, UK etc.

    From a425couple@21:1/5 to All on Thu Mar 23 19:19:17 2023
    XPost: sci.military.naval, aalt.war.world-war-two

    History of World War 2 and it's aftermath ·
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    Posted by
    Onlyme

    Mon
    On this day 20th March 1943

    The Japanese Navy was ordered to execute all Allied personnel captured
    at sea.

    On 20 March 1943, the commander of the Japanese First Submarine Force at
    Truk issued an order to all of his submarine commanders to murder all
    crew members of merchant ships after their ships had been sunk and
    relevant information obtained. This order to murder survivors of
    merchant vessels had been officially sanctioned and prescribed at the
    highest level of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and indeed, it emanated
    from the Japanese government itself.


    From early 1943, Japanese submarine crews routinely murdered all
    survivors of merchant ships sunk by them. Lifeboats were machine-gunned
    and rammed, and survivors in the water were machine-gunned.


    Sixty survivors of the American merchant ship SS Jean Nicolet were taken
    aboard the Japanese submarine that torpedoed their ship in the Indian
    Ocean. They were brutally beaten and stabbed repeatedly on the deck of
    the submarine before their bloodied bodies were thrown into the
    shark-infested sea. Under the circumstances, it is astonishing that a
    handful of Americans reached their sinking ship and survived to bear
    witness to this atrocity. The Japanese government denied that its navy
    was responsible for this atrocity.


    The order to murder survivors of merchant ships extended beyond the
    submarine service to Japanese surface warships. Following a sortie by
    the heavy cruisers Aoba, Chikuma and Tone into the Indian Ocean in
    February 1944 for the purpose of disrupting Allied merchant shipping, seventy-two merchant seamen were taken aboard Tone from MV Behar and
    murdered by command of Vice Admiral Sakonju. Sakonju was executed as a
    war criminal in 1947 for this atrocity. Vice-Admiral Sakonju pleaded in
    vain that the order to murder survivors of merchant ships had come from
    the highest level of the Imperial Japanese Navy.


    An interesting aspect of the war crimes of the Imperial Japanese Navy is
    that Japan's "hero" of Pearl Harbor, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, might
    well have found himself charged as a war criminal in respect of the
    officially sanctioned murders of Allied merchant seamen if he had
    survived the war.


    According to British historian Mark Felton, "officers of the Imperial
    Japanese Navy ordered the deliberately sadistic murders of more than
    20,000 Allied seamen and countless civilians in cold-blooded defiance of
    the Geneva Convention." At least 12,500 British sailors and 7,500
    Australians were murdered.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Jim Wilkins@21:1/5 to All on Fri Mar 24 06:55:18 2023
    XPost: sci.military.naval

    "a425couple" wrote in message news:GM7TL.295504$[email protected]...

    Mon
    On this day 20th March 1943

    The Japanese Navy was ordered to execute all Allied personnel captured
    at sea.

    ---------

    Gregory Boyington was shot down in January 1944 and picked up by a Japanese sub. He wrote that the crew treated him well but warned him that
    imprisonment in Japan would be very harsh.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From a425couple@21:1/5 to Jim Wilkins on Sat Mar 25 08:10:56 2023
    XPost: sci.military.naval

    On 3/24/23 03:55, Jim Wilkins wrote:
    "a425couple"  wrote in message news:GM7TL.295504$[email protected]...

    Mon
    On this day 20th March 1943

    The Japanese Navy was ordered to execute all Allied personnel captured
    at sea.

    ---------

    Gregory Boyington was shot down in January 1944 and picked up by a
    Japanese sub. He wrote that the crew treated him well but warned him
    that imprisonment in Japan would be very harsh.



    Very harsh indeed.
    They planned to kill them all, but the sudden events after
    the A bombs shocked Hirohito into his announcement were
    quick enough that it did not happen.

    "Prisoners of the Japanese, POWs of WWII in the Pacific"
    by Gavin Daws is a very good and informative read.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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