Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire A very difficult book to read

Started "First into Nagasaki" yesterday. It is by WWII correspondent George Weller, and edited by his son Anthony Weller.
Reports Weller sent in the aftermath of WWII, while in Japan. All his reports about Nagasaki were confiscated and never released, on McArthur's orders.
Not until many years had passed, were carbon copies of his dispatches found.
They are presented in this book.

The story starts out about the bomb that took Nagasaki out of the war, but the main story is about the plight of American and allied POWS, and the suffering they endured at the hands of the Japanese.

A much worse experience than allied prisoners suffered under the nazis. Much worse.

Gavan Daws wrote a book titled " Prisoners of the Japanese"�.my uncle was one, and even mentioned in the book, but until I saw that book, I did not know it was possible for the printed word to make a man weep.

Another good book on this subject is Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides. The Japanese were going to execute the POW's in an entire camp in the Philippines - Army Ranger Company freed them in late January 1945. Japanese treatment of POW's was universally poor.

Read Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking � but not too soon after you've eaten.

My uncle suffered under the hands of the Japanese during the death march. My mother had not heard from him for many months and was worried to death then saw him on the cover of LIFE magazine with a group of other GIs.

He was one of the few that escaped and lived to make it home !!!

only 3 % of allied prisoners of war actually died at the hands of the Nazis.. ( excluding Russians).. with the Japanese, it was around 40%.... of the Chinese prisoners of war under the Japanese about 85 to 90% were killed by them....

Fly Boys is another good read... in it George H Bush talks about being shot down near Chi Chi Jima, the rest of the crew on his TBF were killed...he was almost captured by the Japanese on the Island, but was rescued by a Navy Sub before they could get to him...

The book, Flyboys, lays this out very specifically, also. It regards the U.S. pilots and crews who were shot down in the South Pacific and captured by the Japanese.

In my high school summer days I worked two summers for this man who had been a prisoner of the Japs. He had some very deep, ugly scars on his back where he was beaten when in captivity.

http://projects.militarytimes.com/citations-medals-awards/recipient.php?recipientid=2690

He was one of the nicest men I ever met and I'm proud I worked with him.

L.W.

So does the book 'Unbroken', the story of Louis Zamperini. I just finished it and it was a nerve wracking read.

It was a shame we didn't have more bombs ready at that time.

Actually�..when Japan didn't capitulate immediately after Nagasaki, Curtis Lemay called Tibbets and asked " Have you got anymore of those things?" Tibbets did indeed have one more, and Lemay told him to get it ready�..

Japan surrendered before it was deployed.

IIRC, it was destined for Tokyo.

Ed

I'm not sure where they thought it would go�but after reading the books mentioned earlier in this thread I wouldn't mind if they turned that whole island into a sheet of glass�..
And all the pics of people suffering after the nuclear blasts have yet to raise a sympathetic emotion out of me.

I too would have been quite happy if it were open seas do east of Korea

in the book I was reading, before the ashes of Nagasaki cooled, before the murdering overseers and military camp guards were out of job, they were already bitching about the inhumanity of being bombed.

They shoulda spent some time in their own prison camps, on their own death march, or as a citizen of Nanking. The Japanese killed 249,000 ( yes,249K) people in China in retaliation for the Chinese harboring Doolittle Raiders.
A quarter million people�...

"General Wainwright's Story"


Another good read in the same line.

The ANZAC POW's never had anything nice to say about their captors, the Japs practiced cannibalism on them.

Yeah, that's a bad one...

To End All Wars is a superb read. POW working on the Burma road. Also a amazing story of forgiveness and grace. Incredible read.

I remember reading Saburo Sakai's story Samurai! and given the mindset and upbringing of the Japanese in that era, it is no surprise the way they treated POW's...

I have rarely read a book more than once. This is one of the very few.

I remember when I was in my teens, dad ran into an old school buddy he hadn't seen in forty years. Dad asked him if he had any children and the man said, "no, and there won't be any, I was a German pow." Dad told me later that at least the Germans would remove your plums surgically, the Japanese would simply smash them.