Bataan Death March - US Soldiers tell Japan to Shove it

[tallcoolone 102]

It's too late to apologize

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...an.3616105.html

Wounds from Bataan Death March still sting former prisoners of war in Dallas-Fort Worth area

01:25 AM CDT on Sunday, September 13, 2009

By SCOTT FARWELL / The Dallas Morning News

sfarwell@dallasnews.com

Henry Grady Stanley survived malaria, dehydration and dysentery. He's been beaten, nearly starved to death and slashed with a bayonet.

But those aren't the memories that disturb 89-year-old Stanley, a former POW and survivor of the Bataan Death March. He's hurt by what he sees as hypocrisy.

Next year, nearly seven decades after forcing 75,000 U.S. and Philippine troops to march 70 miles up the Bataan Peninsula, Japan is expected to invite American POWs to the island nation for an official state apology.

"It's a little late now," said Stanley, who lives in Garland with his wife, Jo Ann. "Most of the boys who were over there on Bataan are gone now, and the rest of us are about in our 90s.

"It just doesn't make any sense for us to go over there now."

About 400 survivors of the march are still alive in the U.S. Several men in North Texas said their health would prevent them from making the 14-hour trip. Others said they have no interest in reliving the painful memories of captivity.

Japan has been hosting former Allied POWs from other countries, including Great Britain and Australia, since 1995. Until now, American prisoners have been excluded from the Peace, Friendship and Exchange Initiative, which is billed as a program to bridge cultural barriers.

Ichiro Fujisaki, Japan's ambassador to the U.S., did not return several calls seeking comment last week. But in May, during the 64th and last meeting of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor in San Antonio, Fujisaki expressed regret for the way his nation treated the prisoners it captured during World War II.

"We extend a heartfelt apology for our country having caused tremendous damage and suffering to many people, including prisoners of war," he said.

"I would like to express my deepest condolences to all those who have lost their lives in the war, and after the war, and their family members."

Some former POWs said Fujisaki did not go far enough.

Only a formal state apology – a resolution debated and passed by the Japanese parliament – can codify the nation's official position on its treatment of POWs.

"This is important because 27,465 [Americans] were interned by the Japanese," said Ed Jackfert, a Bataan survivor and former commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor.

"Of those, at least 11,000 POWs died – 40 percent. If you look at similar statistics of those interned by Germany during World War II, about 1 percent of the POWs died. So, you can see why we're asking for this official apology."

Some survivors of the march said they've moved on. Others said their captors' cruelty was too great to forgive.

"To me, it's a sick joke," said Bill Adair, a 92-year-old retired Army major from Dallas. "Why in the hell are they just getting around to apologizing now?

"I'm not saying anything about the young people over there, but those people who treated us like dogs, I'll never forgive them."

By some estimates, between 10,000 and 20,000 men died on the march in the Philippines in April 1942. Japanese soldiers forced the bedraggled prisoners to walk for days without food or water and often killed captives who fell out of line or stopped to sip water out of mud puddles.

"When I surrendered, I was eaten up with malaria," Stanley said. "It was two days before we had any water at all, and after you get so thirsty, you just can't control yourself."

Stanley said the trek took POWs past freshwater springs. Many men couldn't resist.

"I saw a lot of Americans lose their heads and just run over there to those springs," Stanley said. "They just got slaughtered."

Another time, after a prisoner darted into the jungle, Japanese soldiers forced the POWs to sit on the road in front of a .50 caliber machine gun. Stanley ended up atop a mound of fire ants.

"That was as painful as anything I had to go through," he said. "I know better than to move because they were just waiting to shoot you. I had enough on the ball to just sit there and let it hurt."

Soldiers who survived the march were eventually crammed into freighter ships headed for a monthlong journey to Japan. POWs said conditions were worse than what they experienced on the march.

Men stood shoulder to shoulder, with no room to lie down – until they died of asphyxiation or starvation, and their bodies were thrown overboard. Many of the unmarked ships were sunk by Allied aircraft and submarines, often with as many as 1,000 men on board.

"It took us 38 days to go 600 miles," said Louis Read, 89, past commander of American Ex-POWs and Military Order of the Purple Heart. "I consider that experience worse than the death march."

Many POWs worked in lead, copper and coal mines for private Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi until the war ended in 1945. That work, which violated the Geneva Convention governing the treatment of prisoners of war, spawned federal lawsuits asking for penalties and back pay from the Japanese government.

Those lawsuits failed, as have three bills designed to pay reparations to POWs held in Japan. The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty between Japan and 48 countries absolves the island nation from paying financial damages to POWs.

"Some of these men, in their twilight years, are more upset with that treaty than what they endured in Japan," said Linda Goetz Holmes, author of Unjust Enrichment, which documents the forced-labor practices of Japan during World War II.

"It's heartbreaking to see these men, who are great patriots, discouraged with their own government."

[SnME 3]

We told them REAL good in 1945 though...

THE ATTACKS AND DAMAGE

1. The attacks.--

A single atomic bomb, the first weapon of its type ever used against a target, exploded over the city of Hiroshima at 0815 on the morning of 6 August 1945. Most of the industrial workers had already reported to work, but many workers were enroute and nearly all the school children and some industrial employees were at work in the open on the program of building removal to provide firebreaks and disperse valuables to the country. The attack came 45 minutes after the "all clear" had been sounded from a previous alert. Because of the lack of warning and the populace's indifference to small groups of planes, the explosion came as an almost complete surprise, and the people had not taken shelter. Many were caught in the open, and most of the rest in flimsily constructed homes or commercial establishments.

The bomb exploded slightly northwest of the center of the city. Because of this accuracy and the flat terrain and circular shape of the city, Hiroshima was uniformly and extensively devastated. Practically the entire densely or moderately built-up portion of the city was leveled by blast and swept by fire. A "fire-storm," a phenomenon which has occurred infrequently in other conflagrations, developed in Hiroshima: fires springing up almost simultaneously over the wide flat area around the center of the city drew in air from all directions. The inrush of air easily overcame the natural ground wind, which had a velocity of only about 5 miles per hour. The "fire-wind" attained a maximum velocity of 30 to 40 miles per hour 2 to 3 hours after the explosion. The "fire-wind" and the symmetry of the built-up center of the city gave a roughly circular shape to the 4.4 square miles which were almost completely burned out.

The surprise, the collapse of many buildings, and the conflagration contributed to an unprecedented casualty rate. Seventy to eighty thousand people were killed, or missing and presumed dead, and an equal number were injured. The magnitude of casualties is set in relief by a comparison with the Tokyo fire raid of 9-10 March 1945, in which, though nearly 16 square miles were destroyed, the number killed was no larger, and fewer people were injured.

At Nagasaki, 3 days later, the city was scarcely more prepared, though vague references to the Hiroshima disaster had appeared in the newspaper of 8 August. From the Nagasaki Prefectural Report on the bombing, something of the shock of the explosion can be inferred:

The day was clear with not very much wind--an ordinary midsummer's day. The strain of continuous air attack on the city's population and the severity of the summer had vitiated enthusiastic air raid precautions. Previously, a general alert had been sounded at 0748, with a raid alert at 0750; this was canceled at 0830, and the alertness of the people was dissipated by a great feeling of relief.

The city remained on the warning alert, but when two B-29's were again sighted coming in the raid signal was not given immediately; the bomb was dropped at 1102 and the raid signal was given a few minutes later, at 1109. Thus only about 400 people were in the city's tunnel shelters, which were adequate for about 30 percent of the population.

When the atomic bomb exploded, an intense flash was observed first, as though a large amount of magnesium had been ignited, and the scene grew hazy with white smoke. At the same time at the center of the explosion, and a short while later in other areas, a tremendous roaring sound was heard and a crushing blast wave and intense heat were felt.

The people of Nagasaki, even those who lived on the outer edge of the blast, all felt as though they had sustained a direct hit, and the whole city suffered damage such as would have resulted from direct hits everywhere by ordinary bombs.

The zero area, where the damage was most severe, was almost completely wiped out and for a short while after the explosion no reports came out of that area. People who were in comparatively damaged areas reported their condition under the impression that they had received a direct hit. If such a great amount of damage could be wreaked by a near miss, then the power of the atomic bomb is unbelievably great.

[thepizzadude 26]

WOW DA, Sr and DA, Jr a perfect fit...

[SnME 3]

Some people spend their time learning about things a little bit more complicated than making a pizza...

Learning is cool and history is a very good teacher!

My 12 yr old homeschool kid can figure out the 20th digit to the right of the decimal in PI with nothing more than a pencil and paper in less than 5 minutes... Can you???

(he won't be flipping pizzas when he gets older)

[thepizzadude 26]

Some people spend their time learning about things a little bit more complicated than making a pizza...

Learning is cool and history is a very good teacher!

My 12 yr old homeschool kid can figure out the 20th digit to the right of the decimal in PI with nothing more than a pencil and paper in less than 5 minutes... Can you???

(he won't be flipping pizzas when he gets older)