Why History Overlooks How Much the Japanese Actually Feared the Americans in WW2

Many American soldiers and Marines were hesitant to accept the surrender of Japanese soldiers because it wasn't uncommon for them to feign surrender and then open fire or throw grenades at any troops foolish enough to leave cover to accept their surrender.

I'm a retired Recon Marine, and I will tell you that Admiral Yamamoto told the emperor NOT to attack Pearl Harbor, because he had lived and been educated in America, and knew the Americans were indeed brave, and would fight back with a vengeance , he said after the attack " I fear we have woken a sleeping giant, and left him with a terrible resolve", He was right.

My instructor in 1970 was Philippino and he said Japanese tourists were not welcome in the Philippines because of how badly they treated the people. The Japanese knew not to walk alone at night but in groups. War really screws people up.

I have met Filipinos, natives of Guam, and Chinese Americans who grew up in both mainland China and Taiwan. The Filipinos and Guamanians were veterans of WW2, and their only regret was that we ended WW2 too soon, as they wanted all Japanese killed. The Chinese Americans I've worked with were children and grandchildren of Chinese who suffered the horrors of Japanese occupation; they said their history lessons left it clear that the survivors of Japanese occupation felt the same way as the Filipinos and Guamanians. Based on the Japan we know today, it's hard to imagine what the Japan of the 1930s and 1940s was like.

My great granddad told me that his squad stopped taking prisoners after a couple of fake surrenders by the Japanese killed some of his friends, and really can you blame them.

Japanese Imperial Army is perfect example of "It's okay when we do it, but not okay when you do it to us"

I’ve interviewed more than a hundred WWII Pacific theater Veterans over the years. To the last man, they told me there was an unofficial rule that Japanese prisoners were not to be taken after Guadalcanal.

6:45 this couldn’t have anything to do with the Japanese tactic of faking a surrender to draw the enemy into an ambush, could it?

You left out the part about the US not taking prisoners because of the amount of prisoners that killed soldiers after acting like they were giving up.

According to the British historian Basil Liddell Hart, if you were captured by the Germans you stood a 55% chance of surviving. If you were captured by the Japanese, you stood a 5% chance of surviving.

My father was a US Marine during WW II. He fought in the Phillipines and at Okinawa. He said they never took Japanese prisoners bc of what they did to captured Marines. He never spoke another word about his experiences. He was only 18 and would have been 20 years old the day the first wave was to hit Japan. I am eternally grateful to President Truman for dropping the bomb and ending the War. The WWII generation IS the Greatest Generation. My father was my hero my whole life. Even in death he remains my hero. Love you dad ❤

Dehumanizing enemy combatants is clearly an extremely common coping mechanism, throughout all history. Whether it be by bolstering them as monsters, or demeaning them as animals.

The reason Americans didn’t take Japanese POW’s is because very few Japanese would ever actually willingly surrender alive, so the Americans believed when Japanese soldiers were trying to surrender it was always a trap. At the beginning of the war American soldiers were led into ambushes by the Japanese trying to take them as POWS.

My father was sent to the Philippines in November 1941...stationed at Clark field, the Japanese attacked the day after pearl harbor, he was in constant combat from that day until his capture on bataan in May 1942...he was in the bataan death march and spent 3 and a half years being beaten...tortured...starved...slave labor...while waiting to go work in the lead mine on August 6, 1945, he witnessed the atomic blast of the bomb that was dropped on hiroshima which was only 80 miles away...a couple of weeks later the Japanese guards at the camp fled and the next day American C47 transport planes flew low over the camp and dropped containers full of fresh baked bread with butter and lots of other good food, the first real food my father had in 3 and a half years...when American troops liberated the camp he weighed about 90 pounds...his testimony at the war crimes trials in Tokyo in1946 was instrumental in sending several Japanese guards to prison for 20 years hard labor...my beloved father, Ronald Vance Tuck...god rest your soul, dad!😔

The Japanese complaining about Colonialism while they colonized and commited genocide in Manchuria, Philipines, etc.

I have a Iwo Jima wall clock from a brother Marine who was on Iwo Jima (RIP). He was talking to a neighbor friend of mine and when he was asked about what they did with all the prisoners. "We were not interested in taking prisoners." was the reply. Ooh Rah. My mother in law who is Okinawan and was 10-13 during the Okinawan occupation of the Japanese army told me they had nothing and the Japanese took everything and treated them like crap, and when the Americans arrived they brought candy, food and CHOCOLATE. My Father in law, also Okinawan (RIP) had his whole family was wiped out and was orphaned and passed around within his extended family till he became an adult, he ended up working on Kadena Air Base and retired as a cook from there. Sorry this was a rambling post.

Judging by how the Japanese treated the Chinese and Western soldiers/civilians , it’s not surprising the Americans treated Japanese belligerents in a similar matter. Not much difference from the way the Nazis and Soviets treated each other.

My father-in-law was a young boy in Singapore when it fell to the Japanese. He's told me of seeing heads decapitated by the Japanese strung up on light poles. The Japanese were especially brutal to the European, Eurasian, and Chinese citizens. Being Chinese, his own father was put into a prison camp. He escaped and found refuge for the rest of the war among the Malays, who the Japanese left alone.

The reason the Japanese feared them so much is because of how horrendous they treated civilians and prisoners and when the Americans started to witness this they kind of became unhinged about it. Rightfully so.

One of my great grandfathers served WW1. I rarely heard him say a word. I was told it changed him. After studying WW2 I can understand what they meant. My farther server at the very end of the Korean war. The stuff he told me was unbelievable. The brutality of war and even post war was horrifying. I salute and say thank you to all that serve.