[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[Dan Lusthaus]

Dear Stephen,

>For example, you say that Japanese soldiers never surrendered,
> but fought to the death.  This is largely true.  But you must be aware
that
> US forces often shot unarmed Japanese prisoners

What does "often" mean? How did the Japanese treat POWs? And what does that
have to do with the Japanese considering surrender anathema?

In the context of what was on decision makers' mind in the last months of
the war I would suggest paying more attention to the message clearly
broadcast by kamikaze flights (who only appeared *after* things were already
militarily hopeless), the suicide mission of the battleship Yamamato
(biggest battleship ever built, went out virtually single-handledly to take
on the entire American fleet with 3000 crewman on board, *after* the rest of
the Japanese fleet had been largely destroyed, and was sunk by American
planes before it ever got within 200 miles of the American fleet in a
mission everyone involved knew was suicidal even before they left port), the
training of the housewife militias (well documented, and I have personally
heard some of the stories of the trainees who were ready to die on the
beaches), and countless other indications that the Japanese will to die
fighting rather than surrender was the ruling ethos. The Japanese still view
these acts with mythic awe.

Dan Lusthaus