Taiwanese general who fought against Japan in 1930s dies at 103

[Story]

This fellow was probably the last WWII General to go, unless there's some Soviets still alive.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/112098.htm

Monday, June 11, 2007
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP)

Retired Gen. Sun Yuan-liang, who helped lead Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists in China's struggle against Japan during World War II, has died in Taiwan, a newspaper reported on Monday. He was 103.

Sun died at his home in Taipei on May 25, the United Daily News quoted his son Sun Hsiang-chung as saying. His body was cremated on Saturday, the report said.

Sun's family did not release details of his death until after the cremation, local media said.

The Nationalists led China from the 1920s until their defeat at the hands of Mao Zedong's Communists in 1949.

Born in China's Sichuan province in 1904, Sun joined the Nationalist army at the age of 19 and was among the most celebrated graduates of the prestigious Huangpu Military Academy founded by Chiang in Guangdong Province.

He came to prominence confronting Japanese efforts to gain a foothold in the Shanghai region in the 1930s.

Sun led the Nationalists in a crucial battle to beat back Japanese naval forces attacking Shanghai in 1932.

He led another famous battle in the city in 1937, holding onto the Nationalist base for 76 days despite heavy casualties.

Despite Sun's achievements, many historians have criticized the Nationalist performance during World War II, saying poor and ineffectual leadership and widespread corruption helped allow Japan to take control of wide swathes of the Chinese mainland.

Some of the historians say Chiang refused to deploy his best troops, holding them back for use against the Communists after Japan's defeat.

During that civil conflict, Sun lost a crucial battle in 1948 when more than half a million Nationalist troops were killed in eastern Jiangsu Province.

Partly because of the defeat, Sun retired shortly after he followed Chiang in his retreat to Taiwan in 1949.

Local media said Sun was survived by five sons.

 

[Story]

More news from WWII's forgotten theater

Cache of WWII bombs unearthed in China
June 13, 2007, 04:19 AM
Other news, World
DUNHUA CITY, China, June 12 (UPI) — Scavengers looking for scrap metal at an old Japanese base in China hit a dangerous jackpot in the form of 3,500 buried bombs.

Police in Jilin Province said Tuesday that munitions were found neatly buried in a pit at the site in Dunhua City, which had been a Japanese air base during World War II.

China's Xinhua news agency said the bombs were in good condition and were being hauled away for disposal. Experts said the bombs could have caused widespread damage had they exploded.

Japanese chemical weapons have been recovered in the Dunhua City area in the past; however, it appeared the latest discovery involved conventional bombs.

 

[Story]

Japan MPs play down 1937 killings
By Chris Hogg
BBC News, Tokyo

A group of MPs from Japan's governing party is claiming the Chinese have exaggerated the number of people killed by Japanese troops in Nanjing in 1937.

China claims that during the assault on the city around 300,000 people were killed by the Japanese.

In Tokyo the MPs, from the right wing of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, claimed a month-long study they organised showed 20,000 died.

At the end of the year China will mark the 70th anniversary of the attack.

They call it the 'rape of Nanking', the name of the city in English at the time of the incident.

Thousands killed

Several films will tell the story of what happened there. Nanjing was the capital city of China.

After it fell to the Japanese Imperial Army on 13 December 1937, the occupiers terrorised the city's population. Many thousands were killed.

But some in Japan want to use the anniversary to promote their view that the death toll, cited by the Chinese, is a fiction.

China says 300,000 lost their lives in Nanjing. Some experts argue a more accurate estimate is between 150,000 and 200,000.

These lawmakers say a month-long study of historical documents suggests there is no evidence that soldiers killed any more than 20,000. What is more, they say, the Japanese did not violate international law.

Clearly these are hugely provocative statements, but do they matter? The Japanese and Chinese governments are carrying out their own joint study.

The exercise is designed to try to reduce the chances that disputes over historical fact will derail efforts to improve relations between them.

Trouble ahead?

But the announcement by these lawmakers will make life difficult for Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a well-known conservative.

He will no doubt now be asked repeatedly whether he shares the views of this large contingent of his own party.

But watch for the response of the Chinese.

A measured response will signal that they are not prepared to allow history to dominate discussions between Beijing and Tokyo in the run up to this important anniversary. An angry one could signal trouble ahead.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6768847.stm

Published: 2007/06/19 16:24:12 GMT

 

[Story]

WWII Chongqing bombings victim demands apology, compensation from Japanese gover


www.chinaview.cn 2007-12-17 21:16:40 Print

TOKYO, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese plaintiff who suffered in the Chongqing bombings between 1938 and 1943 Monday demanded at a Tokyo court that the Japanese government adopt a right view on the crimes committed by the Japanese invasion army and make apology and compensation.

"The Japanese government should recognize the crimes committed by the Japanese invasion army and make apology and compensation to the victims," Qian Fangneng said at the Tokyo District Court while making his fifth court statement.

"The Chongqing bombings lawsuit plaintiffs are mostly 75 to 90 years old," the 77-year-old Qian said. "As victims and witnesses, we are responsible to tell the truth to the next generation."

Qian had been seriously wounded by one of the bombings in Chongqing on May 4, 1939 which also killed his grandfather and blasted his home.

The Japanese invasion army indiscriminately bombed Chongqing in southwest China between 1938 and 1943, killing 11,900 people and wounding 14,100 others.


Editor: Yao Siyan

 

[Twitch]

Story- I reasearched and wrote a multi-part article about much of this a while back. Chemical weapons and other munitions have been turning up since the war in China as they were dumped where ever the Japanese Army bio-chem units wanted to.

These units were truly more repugnant than the nazis in their human live subject experimentations. The more I uncovered the sicker it got. In terms of total number of deaths everyone speaks of the 6 million but the Japanese Army was responsible for many times that, yet paradoxicly the Nazis are given the evil award.

Nanking was so bad that as I toned down the events descriptions while writing after a time one becomes repulsed by the thought of their debauchry which was not a singular event but a macabre month-long perversion.

Where the best of the old samaurai class joined the Imperial Navy the peasants and ignorant were inducted into the Army. Where the Navy and Air Force conducted themselves with dedication and honor the Army was little more than a gang of homicidal perverts that sated that lust in Asia.

I've seen participants of Nanking interviewed and the sick part is that they are completely unrepentant actually describing their debauchry with a hint of pride!

The Japanese have had a long history of having problems with telling the truth about their role in the war. They have evaded explaining to their children and grandchildren who read history books with thinly veiled blaming of the war with the USA!

I respect the fact that the Germans have atoned and repented for thieir people's history involving the Nazis compared to the blame-shifting Japanese.

Go here and you can read my 3 part article
http://www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=729
http://www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=730
http://www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=732

 

[mineral]

Twitch, you deserve congratulations for bringing this subject up. I find it sad how very few here in the US understand why the Chinese and the Koreans get fired up over the textbook wordings and Yasukuni Shrine visits, when Americans also were victims of the same savagery like the Bataan Death March.

Maybe some of the Japanese posters around here can discuss what they think about all of this (outside of the "official" governmental context). The shameful position of their people high up is well captured, I think, in this picture on Wikipedia of a caption describing Roosevelt at the Yasukuni Shrine museum:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Slanted.jpg

If that's what the English caption reads, I wonder what the original Japanese one would say? Not even the most extreme of conspiracy theorists here in the US would suggest that Roosevelt picked a war with the Japanese to get the nation out of depression.

 

[Story]

Japan remains split over WWII mass suicides
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 09:32pm (Mla time) 12/27/2007


TOKYO -- Japan remained split Thursday over the military's role in mass suicides in Okinawa during World War II, following government attempts at a compromise over the controversial episode.

Faced with strong protests, the education ministry said on Wednesday it would restore references in history textbooks to note that Okinawans "committed group suicides with the involvement by the Japanese military."

But the move was denounced as insufficient by Okinawa newspapers while lawmakers from the ruling conservative party called it inappropriate.

The Okinawa Times said the ministry's action was a "political compromise which blurs historical facts."

The 83-day Battle of Okinawa, the bloodiest in the Pacific war, left 190,000 Japanese dead, half of them civilians on the southern island chain.

While many perished in the all-out US bombardment, local accounts say mainland Japanese troops forced residents of Okinawa -- an independent kingdom until the 19th century -- to commit suicide rather than surrender to US forces.

In April, the central government, then led by reputed nationalist Shinzo Abe, said it was changing textbooks to delete references to the military's forcing islanders to commit group suicides.

The decision, citing conflicting evidence, sparked off furious protests in Okinawa, including a mass rally.

On Wednesday, the ministry vowed to restore references to the military's involvement but insisted that textbooks could not say the military "forced" islanders to kill themselves as there was no evidence of military orders to do so.

The Okinawa Times recalled that until 2005 the ministry had approved textbook descriptions that the military forced islanders to commit suicide.

It asked why textbook screeners changed their minds "despite the absence of any major change in academic theories."

The Ryukyu Shimpo newspaper accused the government of failing to make efforts to investigate historical facts amid a series of witness accounts pointing to forced suicides.

It called on the ministry to start "wide-ranging research including interviews on the spot."

But a group of lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, conservative despite its name, said that the ministry's compromise was "out of place" and distorted the government's system of textbook screening.

 

[Story]

The remains of 101 Koreans who were forcibly mobilized by Japan during World War II will return to Korea on Wednesday, according to the Korean Embassy in Tokyo on Monday (Jan. 21).

The 101 Koreans who were drafted as soldiers and laborers died at various battlefronts, including Japan, China, New Guinea and the Philippines. Their remains have been stored at a Tokyo temple since their deaths.

http://www.kois.go.kr/news/news/newsView.asp?serial_no=20080122003&part=103&SearchDay=&page=1

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Thanks for your research and these reports, men. These facts are news to so many people of to-day.

 

[Story]

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/23/news/Japan-China-Weapons-Disposal.php

TOKYO: Tokyo prosecutors arrested four consulting company executives Wednesday in a high-profile corruption scandal involving Japan's removal of chemical weapons abandoned in China at the end of World War II.

Prosecutors allege Tamio Araki, former president of Pacific Consultants International, and three other company executives misused $1.17 million of government funds meant for the disposal of about 400,000 chemical weapons that Japanese troops left behind in China at the end of the war.

 

[Story]

21 photos from Nanjing, 1937
http://world.time.com/2012/12/13/th...er-75-years-ago/?iid=gs-article-morephototime

 

[Stanley Doble]

Wonder if their grandchildren are involved in the coverup of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster? The radioactivity coming from that site is equal to 112 Hiroshimas per day. Soil in Tokyo is hot enough to be considered nuclear waste anywhere else in the world. Millions are already fatally affected. But the authorities are still saying everything is OK.