I think that we should also remember the thousands of ethnic Chinese civilians who are thought to have been murdered in cold blood during the first few days of Japan's occupation of Singapore, simply because they were of Chinese origin.
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I think that we should also remember the thousands of ethnic Chinese civilians who are thought to have been murdered in cold blood during the first few days of Japan's occupation of Singapore, simply because they were of Chinese origin.
There is the Banka Island massacre as well: http://www.pacificwar.org.au/JapWarC..._Massacre.html
The list goes on, and on.
That is the reason that I, personally, avoid buying anything that is made in Japan if I can possibly help it.
Awesome 4 corners, I feel the author surmising and not interviewing the Australian soldier who left Singapore re entered the fighting on Java only then to endure the captivity was a mistake on his part as he took for gospel what another author had written this I found repugnant, for a start the soldier was only 23 y/o and totally untrained I mean they gave him a Bren which he had never seen before or fired how was he to cope with a stoppage or choked gas cylinder without training!
Also the Australian soldiers acquitted themselves well killing 18,000 of the 30,000 casualties the IJA suffered in the Singapore campaign I do not think that authors book will find its way here as it is to flavoured by facts from other books and the authors spin on things.
Great story Badger thanks for that bloke.
Churchill at least once said that what was needed in the Middle East theatre was a field court martial and a firing squad. What was needed in Singapore?
For pure viciousness the atrocities at the hospital in Hong Kong beat even that; I won't recount them here. Brigadier Lawson ought to be remembered for his example.
Not sure what Percival's problem was. He certainly was not afraid of upsetting civilians when he was fighting the IRA in Cork.
If Ironside had been sent things might have been very different, but he was probably too senior for the job by then.
Even worse was Manila and the Japanese in China there are some ghastly graphic images out there of both campaigns especially where Manila was declared an open city did not phase the IJA somewhere in my library is a book where they raped the nurses for days on end and other women pregnant or not then bayoneted/hacked/shot them. Somehow this nurse survived to tell her story after the war it was god awful reading tolerance is a thing to be practiced but at times its hard to let bygones be bygones. It is not the generations following the conflicts fault or to pay penance but you have to wonder about the mindset of tradition..............if it all started again.
The BIG lesson learned from the fall of Singapore that we all learned - and still holds good today - is that there will NEVER again be a situation where you have uni-trained/uni competent soldiers as happened in backwater Singapore (and Egypt apparently.....). Where they learn their trade as cooks, bottlewashers, clerks, blanket stackers etc......... They are ALL DUAL-trained. First as soldiers who can fight, live and survive and only then will they be trade trained. This feature is still drummed into the higher echelons of the recruit training system. They call it OMNI-competent and quite right too
Peter,
Absolutely right, gone are the days of a drummer boy at the front, or a lone piper leading troops into battle (not so long ago WW2) they do need to know how to defend themselves and others first, as it is for the man beside you that you fight to survive, and Queen and country second!!
Too right. 'Every soldier is a Rifleman first.' That is as is should and must be.
It doesn't matter if you are the best paper shufflers or computer geeks in the army. Without being trained, equipped and capable as an infantryman, you are lambs for the slaughter and useless.
The father of one of my school headmasters was captured by the Japanese in the Far East during WW2. Although I don't believe that he spoke much of his time in captivity, one thing that I do recall that was mentioned by him was that the Japanese provided him and fellow P.O.W's with seeds because they were expected to grow some of their own food. How much actual food was provided and how much was expected to be grown I am not sure but judging from pictures of P.O.W. released in 1945 very little actual food was provided.