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The United States participation in World War II
Americans involvement ww2
The United States participation in World War II
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Unit 731 and the American Cover-Up
The Second Sino-Japanese war began on July 7th, 1937 and ended on September 9th, 1945. It was a military conflict which was fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. As part of the struggle against fascism, Japan invaded China. It is clear that, due to the restriction of its natural resources, Japan tried to increase by robbing resources from other countries. Japan used the conquered Manchuria as a launching base for their troops. Manchuria was an enormous region that consisted of three provinces- Liaoning in the south, Jilin in the middle and Heilongjiang in the north. In 1905, when Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese war, Russia, which used Manchuria for business and industrial purposes, was forced to surrender its Kwantung leasehold to the Japanese. This leasehold gave Russia the control over Port Arthur, Dairen and much of the Kwantung headland in the southern Liaoning area. Japan was now the foreign main power in Manchuria. The new Japanese masters of southern Manchuria employed different plans to improve both their economic and their political control of the zone.
Although Japan had been one out of the 145 countries who signed the Geneva Protocol, 1925, which banned biological weapons, the Japanese believed they needed to create these weapons to become powerful and feared by other countries in the world. All their hopes came from a man some consider and genius others consider a monster, General Shiro Ishii. Shiro Ishii was born on June 25th 1892, in the village of Chiyoda Mura, Chiba region. He was born into a wealthy family, his family happened to own more land than anyone in their area, with this power of land came privilege. Because of his family’s status, ...
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...erica desperately wanted to have an advantage over the Soviets. However, the Japanese cleverly did not hand over any pieces of data for several years until they got the grant of immunity.
In the spring of 1948, the deal was done. The Japanese handed over some of their records and the US granted them freedom. Shiro returned to living his life in Japan. On the 9th October 1959, Ishii died from natural death in Tokyo. He was considered a hero in Japan.
The details of the unit were not released to the public for many years because the American Government were dealing with the matter privately. They did not release the information of the units nor their findings.
The world was shocked to find out about Unit 731 and how the Americans covered up the operation for their benefit. It is estimated that over 580,000 people died in Unit 731 and because of their experiments.
Once Executive Order 9066 was signed, with no proof that sabotage or espionage had been committed by Japanese Americans, it allowed for the relocation and summary removal of “enemy aliens” from their homes to incarceration under guard in designated areas / camps. With just one pen and piece of paper, FDR suddenly made it possible for citizens of Japanese descent to be ...
In 1864 the Geneva Convention was formed internationally. The Convention laid down rules concerning the treatment and protection of prisoners during wartime. The Japanese did not follow this Convention as they continuously mistreated many prisoners including Australian troops/soldiers and civilian prisoners. The Japanese saw the prisoners in camps as people who surrendered, therefore they were considered weak and cowardly because of a belief that the Japanese held that soldiers should die out respect for their emperor and country, known as the Bushido Code. A medical officer at the time was told by a Japanese commander,
Guillemin, J. (2005). Biological weapons: From the invention of state-sponsored programs to contemporary bioterrorism Columbia University Press.
As we move into the Twentieth Century the similarities are almost identical. The First World War has shaped not only modern warfare but even produced global attention to the brutal and inhumane death toll of the war. As stated in the Geneva Protocol, which prohibited the use of chemical weapons in warfare, which was signed in 1925? While this was a welcomed step, the Protocol had a number of significant short comings, including the fact that it did not prohibit the development, production or stockpiling of chemical weapons.
The war itself was filled with many battles, deaths, and decisions. Although the state of Japan in 1945 was a defeated nation, they refused to surrender, which was a key reason why Truman dropped the Atomic bombs. There are many important events and reasons as to why President Truman decided to drop the Atomic bombs on Japan. Japan's actions from 1852 to 1945 were stimulated by an extensive aspiration to elude the providence of 19th-century China and also to overtake it as a great power. When Japanese soldiers stormed into Manchuria in 1931, Japan commenced the first in the succession of annexations and conquest throughout the 1930’s that positioned the phase of the war.
When most American people think of Germany, they think of sports cars made for the autobahn, sauerkraut, Adolf Hitler, and the Holocaust. Compared to Germany, when most American people think of Japan they think of sushi, Godzilla movies, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War II was such a significant event in history that almost 70 years after it came to an end, today’s younger generations often associate former Axis controlled countries with the war. People around the world are filled with disgust and immense hate when they hear the name Hitler, mainly because of his leadership under the Holocaust; which was the discriminatory mass genocide of 11-17 million people, the vast majority of which were European Jews. Hirohito, former Emperor of Japan, should strike a similar bell with people when they hear his name because Japan carried out genocide on Chinese civilians and soldiers in World War II. Japan’s attack on the Chinese city of Nanking, was one of the most atrocious events in history. This event has been named both the Nanking Massacre and the Rape of Nanking. The torturous, violent techniques used by the Japanese army upon Chinese civilians and soldiers including dehumanizing them, addicting them to drugs, and other perverse and violent acts, are some of the most grosteque methods ever recorded that could only be thought of by sadistic Japanese soldiers. The events committed by the Japanese army in Nanking, are equally as disgusting as the acts that Nazi Germany committed and should become a major topic involved with World War II in the future, despite the lack of light shed on it in the past for various reasons.
During 1941 many Americans were on edge as they became increasingly more involved in WWII. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese decided to take matters to their own hands. They attacked the naval base Pearl Harbor and killed 68 Americans in order to prevent the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with their military. After this surprise attack, the Americans officially entered the war, which caused many people to become paranoid (Baughman). Many people feared the Japanese because they thought they were spies for Japan, and because of this the Executive Order 9066 was signed and issued by FDR which sent many Japanese Americans to live in internment camps (Roosevelt). This caused the Japanese to become a scapegoat of America’s fear and anger. The Issei and Nisei who once moved to this country to find new opportunities and
From 1500 to 1800, China and Japan tried to politically and economically established their countries in very different ways. Japan fought war after war for a century before they changed their ways. China on the other hand slowly established a government and used education as a tool to be politically and economically strong. Japan would later do the same.
War changes people’s lives; it changes the way people act, the way they think, and what they believe in. The people of Japan hold tradition and honor above everything else, this is something that did not change throughout the war. Though the world is changing right before the Japanese peoples’ eyes, they keep honor and tradition locked into their minds as well as their hearts. Frank Gibney’s statement, “There is no question that the Japanese people had participated wholeheartedly in the war effort.” is partly true as well as not. True in the sense that the Japanese did do certain things that may be counted as participating in the war, yet these acts were not done wholeheartedly.
By 1938 Japan had invaded much of China and had taken over Nanking killing more than 42,000 civilians. The Chinese government never surrendered completely, and the war continued on a lower scale until 1945. During World War II, the Japanese military forced women from various different countries to work as comfort women to the Japanese soldiers. Trafficking in women is a form of sexual slavery in which women are transported across national borders and sold for prostitution, sex tourism, or migrant workers. Women were kidnapped or brought over under false pretenses thinking that they were being given jobs. The comfort women of the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II are an extreme case of this institutionalized sexual violence against women. Through research and testimonies from comfort women survivors during World War II and former Japanese veterans, I attempt to show the ways that this has affected the intersection of colonial power, gender and class. I argue that the development of gender contributes to the construction of Japanese colonialism and the system of comfort women helped Japan as an imperial state gain power. The ideas of masculinity and femininity is what helped the maintenance of the Japanese military system and comfort stations made an impact in which Japan expanded its colonies by military means.
Japan had to open ports to foreign commerce when they lost the fight against Europe and America in Tokyo Bay (Bentley 508). After losing, Japan began industrializing and soon enhanced their military by investing in tools from western empires, who had very strong and powerful militaries. Once Japan had built a strong military they began to fight for Korea. They fought China and “demolished the Chinese fleet in a battle lasting a mere five hours,” and they later gained Korea and treaty rights in China (Bentley 550). China’s military was very weak. After losing Hong Kong and many trading ports to western empires following the Opium War, China was in trouble. Chinese people began rebelling against the Qing Dynasty. After the most popular rebellion, The Taiping Rebellion, China began the Self-Strengthening Movement. “While holding to Confucian values, movement leaders built shipyards, constructed railroads, established weapons industries, opened steel foundries with blast furnaces, and founded academies to develop scientific expertise” (Bentley 543). After doing all of these things, China still did not have a strong enough military. They continued to deal with problems from the western
Miles, Rufus E. Jr. “Hiroshima: The Strange Myth of Half a Million American Lives Saved.” International Security (1985): 121-140.
(McInnis, 1945) Though the public did not know this, the allies, in fact, did. Through spies, they had learned that both Japan's foreign minister, Shigenori Togo and Emperor Hirohito both supported an end to the war (Grant, 1998). Even if they believed such reports to be false or inaccurate, the leaders of the United States also knew Japan's situation to be hopeless. Their casualties in defending the doomed island of Okinawa were a staggering 110,000 and the naval blockade which the allies had enforced whittled trade down to almost nothing.
Japan's political journey from its quasi-democratic government in the 1920's to its radical nationalism of the mid 1930's, the collapse of democratic institutions, and the eventual military state was not an overnight transformation. There was no coup d'etat, no march on Rome, no storming of the Bastille. Instead, it was a political journey that allowed a semi-democratic nation to transform itself into a military dictatorship. The forces that aided in this transformation were the failed promises of the Meiji Restoration that were represented in the stagnation of the Japanese economy, the perceived capitulation of the Japanese parliamentary leaders to the western powers, a compliant public, and an independent military.
The Manchurian incident was a turning point in Japanese history in which it abandoned its somewhat general policy of cooperation and peace and instead chose to pursue their personal interests in Asia (S,191). The Japanese interest in China was evident even before its invasion in 1931. In both the Sino Japanese war from 1894 to 1905 as well as the Russo-Japanese War from 1904 to 1905 Japan secured specific locations in Manchuria and other areas in China (U,351). Overall, the consensus for the extensive needs of the empire ultimately drove its policy making until the end of World War 2. To take control of what they believed to be the most mineral rich section of China in which they controlled expansive holdings in such as the South Manchurian Railroad, officers part of the Kwantung Army that were stationed there hatched a plan that would become to be known as the Manchurian Crisis. On September 18th 1931, Japanese soldiers located at the South Manchurian Railroad set off an explosive that they blamed on China (launching both nations into hostile relations for years to come.?? (P,115)) The Japanese invaded Japanese Invaded Chinese controlled Manchuria in 1931 because they wanted to accommodate the rising of the Japanese population, obtain more natural resources, and to stimulate their nearly collapsed economy.