Japanese soldiers using dead Chinese as targets for bayonet practice. Tientsin, China. September 5, 1937

Japanese soldiers using dead Chinese as targets for bayonet practice. Tientsin, China. September 5, 1937

Bayonet practice, wherein Japanese soldiers used dead Chinese for targets, was photographed by an Associated Press photographer near Tientsin on Sept. 5. Last week

the above pictures appeared in U. S. newspapers, shocked sensitive readers, brought angry denials

from Lieut. Col. T. Tokahashi of the Japanese Army, who termed them "false propaganda." A. P. promptly defended the photographs as authentic, backed their statement with the word of famed Newshawk James A. Mills, of their Shanghai office.

The main hero of Nanking was a nazi who chronicled all the horrors and specifically tried to advocate for the Chinese in the city and protect

them from the Japanese army. He did all he could but the Japanese marched into the city and promptly went about trying to find all the men and boys and murdering them in mass.

Mass shootings, at first, then they worried about using all that ammo so then the bayonets and swords became preferred. This included a competition between two officers on who could behead the most people in a minute. They of course tied so they kept extending it. They even took pictures which ran in a Japanese newspaper highlighting the competition. Women and children were not spared, simply delayed. The Japanese famously used comfort women during the war but this somehow got worse in Nanking. The Japanese began raping lots of Chinese women. They would sometimes keep them in camp to share or pass around other times they would be returned to the city/safe zone.

When the nazi and some Americans and I think French started sending messages back home describing this horror the Japanese command sent out notice to the force that they needed to hear about a lot less rape. Not to engage in less rape mind you, just they needed to hear a lot less about it. The direction was clear, get all the raping in you want,

just kill the women after. This ramped up the cruelty somehow and literally thousands of women were raped, mutilated, tortured then killed. The Japanese committed arguably worse atrocities in ww2 than the Germans. But the fact that it is a competition at all tells you all you need to know.

As far as the bombs I find it to be an unanswerable question as to how many would have died one way or the other but when it comes to Japanese civilian deaths most estimates are that the difference between full scale invasion plus carpet bombing and the bombs is either about even or even worse for invasion. The other factor is time. Regardless of casualties one of the mnain concerns was ending the war as soon as possible. The war caused rationing, terror and extreme spending. Ending it swiftly and decisively started the road to recovery faster and with less over all damage to cities and infrastructure.

It ended the war in on fell swoop. It saved thousands of lives in the process. The civilians were warned, told to leave beforehand. Anyone who questions the severity of the a bombs needs to read up on the rape of nanjing and unit 731.

The atrocities being committed by the Japanese were astounding and thousands of lives would have been lost had the war been fought going to island to island. Not to mention the biological warfare the Japanese were attempting to use on the US mainland.

More of the latter, there's a tendency to acknowledge some mistakes may have been made but it's glossed over. The current Japanese administration will not even fully recognize the enslavement of Chinese and S. Korean "comfort women." Tlive in Tokyo and went to the WWII Yusukan Military Museum a few weeks after  moved here. I do not recall specifics, but I do remember

walking through the museum and seeing only 2 min worth of reading material on Nanjing; I believe they called some of the actions "regrettable' but that was as far as it went. I also remember the museum stating that Japan was forced into bombing Pearl Harbor due to oil sanctions placed on them catalyzed by their actions in Manchuria.

The U.S. was trying to force Japan out of China. It didn't register that Japan might strike back militarily as it would be suicidal to do so, especially because they were already tied down in China and Korea. An attack on Pearl Harbor was not even on the radar because it was so audacious. I think

the U.S.s policy thought was they would keep supporting China much like they were supporting England and Russia in Europe without getting involved directly but Pearl Harbor changed all that.

It didn't register that Japan might strike back militarily as it would be suicidal to do so, especially because they were already tied down in China and Korea. An attack on Pearl

Harbor was not even on the radar because it was so audacious To be fair a war between the USA and Japan were already anticipated at the time due to the increasing economic hostilities and the failure of diplomacy. President Roosevelt was even warned against moving the pacific fleet to Pearl Harbor by the chief of naval operations.

They did all sorts of human expirements to (mainly) chinese. One of which was performing a vivesection on a live pregnant woman. God knows what they wanted to know from that. They believed performing expirements on dead people would affect the results, so they always did expirements while the victim was alive. Awoke, she grabbed the doctors arm and pleaded for him to save the babies life. Obviously that

didnt happen and they carried on with the brutal expirement. Its interesting to note that the doctor was weeping while recounting this horrific memory, like their was some humanity left in him which caught me off guard considering why they did it in the first place.

forgot to mention she was cut open while she awoke. A mothers will is truely astonishing. while cut open, she awoke and pleaded for the doc to save the babies life.... Got a newfound respect for mothers out there.

Listen to the Dan Carlin podcast (the episode is Supernova in the East, I think). He begins with a discussion of the sheer sense of honor and duty

that proluferated Japanese culture during WWll and explains how that led their soldiers to be unwavering,

brutal, and headstrong even in the face of certain death. If an invasion of the japanese mainland was ever attempted it would have been an insane bloodbath, for both sides. Simply put, very few Japanese people-soldiers or otherwise-would have had any reservations about defending their country at any cost. Just look at the Battle of Saipan for an example.

Mass suicide of entire families who threw themselves off the cliffs rather than allow themselves to be captured, thousand-men charges into heavily fortified US positions that resulted in nearly 100% casualty rates, holdout groups of japanese soldiers that continued to carry out attacks YEARS after the war ended. Their drive was absolutely insane. VWhether right or wrong, it is easy to see why the nuclear option was a very appealing alternative to a full-on invasion for the US at the time.

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