The Japanese have never at any time to my knowledge admitted to any wrongdoing or taken any responsibility for what they did except in the most limited way and only in muted tones.
It doesn't help matters that successive Australian governments have been only to happy to comply with the conspiracy of silence. At the same time the Hawke government made a million dollars available for the pursuit and prosecution of Nazi war criminals in Australia who did not carry out their crimes against Australians no mention is made of Japanese crimes such as Tol Plantation, Banka Beach or Sandakan where our people suffered atrocity. I've always found Canberra's fawning and kowtowing to Tokyo sickening.
If interested in getting an insight into the way the Japanese military conducted themselves during WW2 I highly recommend reading 'One Fourteenth of an Elephant' by Ian Denys Peak. It's an extremely powerful first hand account written by a British POW captured at Singapore and was not published until 2003. It should be compulsory reading in Japanese schools.
David
__________________
Hell no! I'm not that old!
|