Kamikaze remembered

[Twitch]

http://www.presstelegram.com/search/ci_6329375
I like the idea that they're remembered in a positive way.

 

[PADDY]

Tragic.

It's all too easy to villify, dehumanise and demonize an enemy. Especially from 60+ years-ago, when you are part of the victorious side.

I could demonize them ever so easily, especially with family experiences of service in Burma against the Japanese Imperial Army and from interviews I've conducted with ex PoW's who even today, are noticeably traumatised.

But, as I've said before in other pieces on the Lounge regarding human conflict and combat, on whatever side, we are talking about human beings, irrespective of the uniform, colour of skin or language.

These are sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, lovers..etc, who laugh and cry and love and pray..etc.

People often take up arms for what they feel are the best reasons (they might be deluded by themselves or their superiors in this), but in their own minds they have sound reasons, and that helps them.

Those young Japanese fellas who flew on 'one way missions' were probably as scared as any of us might be doing something like that. Humans live in 'hope,' that's what keeps us going when the chips are down. These young boys didn't have any hope when they climbed into those cockpits.

And, if they had been on the victorious side, they would be hailed today as heroes and there would be grandiose war memorials to them carved out of marble.

They should (in my mind) at least be recognised in some shape or form.

 

[AeroDillo]

Recognized - perhaps.

However, as I understand, the Japanese are undergoing a cultural shift right now. Included in the change is the omission of certain acts committed during and prior to the Second World War. In fact, I believe certain sources in the education system over there beginning to teach that Japan was merely the victim of a warmongering U.S.

So remembering kamikazes? Okay. I've no problem with that. Every nation should remember its fighting men.

But heroes?

I'll pass, thanks.

 

[dhermann1]

It's verrrry complicated

Most young Japanese today are not taught that their country attacked Pearl Harbor to start WWII (at least the American phase of it). The immediate provocation which led to this was the American embargo on Japan of a couple months earlier. The provocation for this was the Japanese aggression (you can't call naked conquest anything else) in China. The Japanese atrocities committed in China are vast and horrific. Check out the Rape of Nanking. These things always have mitigating factors which precede them, but the current "conservative" movement is a very disturbing thing, in my view.
That said, one still has to admire and pity the pathetic heroism of the flower of Japanese youth during the war, not only the Kamikaze, but the poor foot soldiers trapped in the caves of Iwo Jima, or any other location where they were ordered to fight to the death, with no meaningful benefit possible.

 

[eniksleestack]

Historical omissions and revisions are a very easy things to do. They're also very political. I'm pretty sure that if one attended a 4th of July/ American Independence Day celebration this year certain subjects were ignored, like:

1. The 400 years of Indian Wars/genocide and the reservation system
2. The 300 years of Slavery/ Jim Crow segregation and institutionalized racism
3. American imperialism, like the overthrow of Hawaii or the Philippine-American War
4. Anti-immigrant nativism of the 1790s, 1840s, 1880s, 1920s, etc.
5. Japanese-American internment during WWII
6. IBM, Coca-Cola, and Ford Motor Company doing business with the Nazis
7. The 1st and 2nd Red Scare hysteria, persecutions and war mongering
8. Biological and chemical warfare carried out by the CIA against unaware US civilians in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

And so on. I teach US History and my students are constantly surprised to find out "We did that?" "We believed that?" It can get a bit depressing if your only context is grade school flag-waving and "we're-the-greatest-country-on-earth" patriotism.

There is, however, also a danger in vilifying people from the past from our comfortable 20-20 hindsight here in the present. Just think what they'll be saying about us in 50 years!

 

[dhermann1]

I absolutely agree with every point you make. But I do get a little irritated when the US is painted as the aggressor in WWII. We have plenty of issues to look at in our history, but on balance our involvement in WWII was pretty legit.

 

[dr greg]

Bomb doubt

I've often wondered if the US would have gone to such lengths to reconstruct the Japanese economy post WW2 if the threat of the place going communist hadn't been in the wings. As to their education system: it's wrong that young Japanese tourists can come to this country totally unaware of the horrors their grandfathers inflicted upon ours, plenty of whom are still walking around...which is not to say it's their fault, or they should be held responsible, but it helps to be aware of these things in foreign climes: an American backpacker in Vietnam who was totally unaware of the mutual history there would be in a ridiculous position. Having said that; our government is hellbent on restructuring the History Syllabus in schools to stamp out any post-modern revisionism,(known here as the 'black armband view') and get back to the idea that no matter what happened in regard to the native peoples or anything else, we're always the good guys with the best of motives. We can see where this kind of thinking ends up in Japan's particularly insensitive attitude to other cultures in regard to the world's fish and whale stocks.

 

[luvthatlulu]

It's so ironic...

I was reading the article that started this thread and listening (reluctantly) to Tucker Carlson on the tube at the same time. And he said it, "Zealotry is the natural enemy of rational thought." So apropos. Normally, I disagree with Bowtie Boy, but on that....Hmmmm.

It's so ironic the things that the young men (and women) of any country will do when spurred on by self-serving zealots and war-mongering liars. And then get glorified for it.


Not the Lulu

 

[Twitch]

Good points Paddy. While the Imperial Japanese Army in asia was without peer in degenerate, animalistic behavior far beyond perversion, the IJ Navy and pilots from all Japanese services were honorable gentlemen.

Wouldn't be a bad idea- a memorial to the Kamikazes. Show the snot-nosed kids in modern techno-Japan that their grandads stood for something.

Dr. Greg- while a cognizant part of the post war assistance was to blunt communism the Marshall Plan aimed at not repeating post WW 1 with a punishing element that drove Germany to poverty and fertilized the country later for Hitler's fertilizer! Having economic trade partners seemed an important concern moreso than figurative finger wagging at vanquished enemies. While America may have had prosperous time after WW 1 most of Europe and much of the world did not.

Reparation payments demanded from a poor and devestated Germany by the European victors is one of the main causes for Germany's later path to Nazism. Where Europe suffered in the 20s the US did so in the depression of the 30s. Truman wanted to not repeat that scenario in post- WW 2 times.

 

[PADDY]

After remembrance...time to reflect.

That's probably enough remembrance for one day.

We can all go off in our own time, crack open a cold beer and reflect.

-End-X.