Цитаты из книг — Лоуренс Рис

Despite the kamikazes, the ‘one great victory’ that Hirohito and the Japanese High Command were chasing was still proving elusive. Their plan was not proving to be a strategy so much as wishful thinking — and wishful thinking began to be the order of the day. In early October 1944, Hirohito’s advisers simply misled him —…

Singapore was an island of vital strategic importance — essential sea lanes lay either side of it — but all the gun emplacements faced out to sea. To the north of Singapore lay jungle that was thought impassable. The only problem was, by February 1942 the Japanese had marched through it. Thirty-five thousand Japanese…

«Беда современного мира заключается в том, что те, кто никогда не проходил настоящие испытания, позволяют себе судить тех, кто их прошёл».

And in China, what of the people involved in the appalling ethnic cleansing of Tibet? It is unlikely in the extreme that they will ever be brought to the International Court in the Hague to be charged with crimes against humanity. The world needs to get along with China, and the pragmatic reality is that most Western…

Similarly, the Allied fleet off Okinawa sailed virtually untroubled until the afternoon of 6 April. Then, suddenly, out of a clear sky came wave upon wave of kamikazes. ‘It was a saturation-type thing,’ says Frank Manson, a US navy communications officer. ‘I mean there was one kamikaze, and then there was two, and then…

Paul Montgomery was brought up in a deeply religious family, and still today it is obvious that he is a caring, kind man. And that is ultimately what is so disturbing about his testimony. This man who was capable of shedding tears when he saw the grave markers of US marines on Iwo Jima — a sight that still causes him to…

But Montgomery and his colleagues were not completely immune from understanding that there was a difference between bombing a military base and bombing a school or hospital. ‘We didn’t talk about bombing the cities — there was just no conversation about it. Mitsubishi — yes, the factories — yes, the naval bases — yes,…

The level of sacrifice made by the marines on Iwo Jima had a profound effect not just on public opinion in the United States but also on their fellow servicemen in the Pacific. Weeks after the island had been taken, Paul Montgomery and the rest of his bomber crew landed on Iwo Jima to refuel on their way back to base on…

In February 1945, as the Japanese leadership procrastinated, American marines landed on the tiny volcanic island of Iwo Jima, less than 700 miles (1100 km) south of Tokyo. The island was a vital strategic objective for the Allies, as use of its airstrips would allow bombing raids to be mounted more effectively against the…

The action of the kamikaze pilots was inexplicable to these American sailors. After all, wasn’t the whole point of fighting in a war to try to survive it? But the Japanese pilots had been educated in a wholly different philosophy. At the core of it was not just the belief that their supreme commander, Emperor Hirohito,…

Just as with the American view of the Japanese, the paradox was that their image of the enemy could change from one of incompetence to super-competence without altering the original bedrock of prejudice and racism.

At the start of the war the Japanese had been dismissed as ‘inferior’ warriors, but in the wake of Pearl Harbor and the swift Japanese victories in Southeast Asia that perception had changed to one of grudging acceptance that they were a tougher adversary than had first been believed — but they were still not credited as…

The atrocities committed by the Japanese during the war are common knowledge, but these atrocities committed by the Americans have received a great deal less publicity. During research for this project it became clear that many US marines had witnessed or participated in mutilation of the Japanese dead, but few wanted to…

In addition, the Geneva Convention was also utterly at odds with the whole atmosphere of brutality in which the Imperial Army itself functioned. As the survivors of Sandakan testify, the guards would often brutalize each other. As for the Taiwanese guards, at the bottom of the racial and hierarchical chain in the camp,…

Скоро последний оставшийся в живых и последний преступник из Освенцима присоединятся к тем, кто был убит в лагере. И больше на этой земле не останется никого, кто побывал там во время войны. И когда это произойдет, возникнет опасность того, что эта история канет в прошлое и станет просто еще одним ужасным событием, среди…

It was not until the 1960s that institutional racism began to be tackled in Britain and the USA — and some say it still exists today. And the situational ethic is alive and flourishing in international affairs. Slobodan Milosovic is charged as a war criminal — but only after he invades Kosovo and the West believes he must…

The controversy over the decision to use nuclear bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki has overshadowed Le May’s earlier devastating conventional bombing campaign against Japan. As a result, one astounding fact has not seeped into the public consciousness — five months before the atomic bombs were dropped, on the night of 10…

Both on land and at sea the Japanese demonstrated from the first that they were prepared to die sooner than surrender. As already seen, one reason for this devotion to duty is clear — the Imperial Military Service Code instructed members of the armed forces not to ‘bring shame’ on themselves and their families by becoming…

However, the context in which the crime was committed does offer an additional clue as to why it occurred. These Japanese soldiers had been fighting in arduous jungle conditions for many months and may have already had to eat human flesh in order to survive — they would almost certainly know that their starving comrades…

In the first three months of the war the Japanese had, much to their own surprise, captured more than 100,000 Allied prisoners. They now faced a profound dilemma — just how should they treat their captives?