Why were Japanese soldiers so brave and honorable as fuck? I don't care that they massacred Chinks at Nanking but they never ran away and always foight to the end.
Take the last note of Tadamichi Kuribayashi for example:
>The battle is entering its final chapter. Since the enemy's landing, the gallant fighting of the men under my command has been such that even the gods would weep. In particular, I humbly rejoice in the fact that they have continued to fight bravely though utterly empty-handed and ill-equipped against a land, sea, and air attack of a material superiority such as surpasses the imagination. One after another they are falling in the ceaseless and ferocious attacks of the enemy. For this reason, the situation has arisen whereby I must disappoint your expectations and yield this important place to the hands of the enemy. With humility and sincerity, I offer my repeated apologies. Our ammunition is gone and our water dried up. Now is the time for us to make the final counterattack and fight gallantly, conscious of the Emperor's favor, not begrudging our efforts though they turn our bones to powder and pulverize our bodies. I believe that until the island is recaptured, the Emperor's domain will be eternally insecure. I therefore swear that even when I have become a ghost I shall look forward to turning the defeat of the Imperial Army to victory. I stand now at the beginning of the end. At the same time as revealing my inmost feelings, I pray earnestly for the unfailing victory and security of the Empire. Farewell for all eternity."
>Unable to complete this heavy task for our country
>Arrows and bullets all spent, so sad we fall.
>But unless I smite the enemy,
>My body cannot rot in the field. Yea, I shall be born again seven times And grasp the sword in my hand.
>When ugly weeds cover this island,
>My sole thought shall be the Imperial Land.
He knew he was fighting a futile battle but he never surrendered and he died fighting with his men. He was poorly equipped against a far superior force but never gave up.
>The exact circumstances of Kuribayashi's death remain mysterious. He was most likely killed in action on the early morning of 26 March 1945, while leading his surviving soldiers in a three-pronged assault against sleeping Marines and Air Force ground crews. Kuribayashi and his men silently slashed tents, bayoneted sleeping men, and lobbed hand grenades. According to the official United States Marine Corps History, "The Japanese attack on the early morning of March 26th was not a banzai charge, but an excellent plan aiming to cause maximum confusion and destruction."[23] The assault climaxed in a hand-to-hand battle to the death between the men of both armies. The General's body could not be identified afterwards for he had removed all officer's insignia in order to fight as a regular soldier.
Jeremiah Lopez
Because when you're fighting on a bunch of islands against an enemy with total naval supremacy, there's nowhere to go.
They sure as fuck ran away and surrendered in places like Manchuria, and against the odd successful Chinese offensive.
Joshua Peterson
Everybody knew that nobody was taking prisoners alive at that point. What few prisoners the u.s. took in the pacific were usually just shot because they didnt treat the beitish well and they were afraid of tricks.
Paying soldiers who captured enemies with ice cream increased survival rates of japanese soldiers from 1/100 to 1/7
Samuel Cox
Well that paired with new orders to try and capture enemies alive if they could
Julian Reed
>never ran away
t. Tojo Nakamura
So brave and honorable except when Soviets pushed Jap shit in so hard at Kalkhin Gol they had to sign a neutrality pact
Parker Rogers
F
find me a more honorable and braver allied soldier or commander. You cannot.
>inb4 butthurt chinks, commiecucks or americans
This man was based as fuck. Rest in eternal peace.
Kevin Martin
Because the Jap commanders brutalized the fuck out their troops.
Cameron Parker
>attacking sleeping soldiers >honorable
Jaxon Campbell
Nowhere to run when you're on an island.
Jacob Russell
>nukes >honorable
Chase Bailey
Could always surrender like Yamashita did.
In fact the US told Baron Nishi who was also with him at Iwo Jima to surrender.
>After extensive air and naval gunfire bombardment, the United States Marine Corps launched an amphibious assault on Iwo Jima starting February 19. The American forces, who knew that Nishi was an enemy commander, broadcast daily appeals for him to surrender, stating that the world would regret losing "Baron Nishi"; Nishi never responded to those appeals. The American intelligence officer responsible for this attempt was Sy Bartlett of the 315th Bomber Wing out of Guam, who would later write the novel and film screenplay Twelve O'Clock High. In 1966, Bartlett visited Nishi's widow in Tokyo and paid his respects at Yasukuni Shrine.
Nishi basically told them to fuck off and fought and died like the honorable soldier he was.
Nishi also participated in the 1932 olympics in LA and hanged out in hollywood with celebs like Charlie Chaplin and whatnot.
Leo Hall
Kuribayashi was also firmly against IJA aggression and declaring war against America. He was laughed at, assigned to fucking Iwo Jima and spent the rest of his career trying to convince the IJA to sue for peace.
You know, Iwo Jima being a superhard fortress clusterfuck? That was him digging in and drawing the battle out in the hopes that the American public would go against Truman.
Elijah White
>tfw war turns innocent, friendly people into enemies for the benefit of bougie assholes
Asher Smith
I greatly respect peoples that are like this, same with american indians, chose to fight to the end and all but go extinct rather than submit.
Tyler Sullivan
To be fair, it wasn't just "muh feels".
Kuribayashi also saw the industrial might of the USA and realized how screwed Japan was if they declared war. IIRC, he was given guided tours of the factories and the owners explained how easy the conversion to wartime production was.
Letters to Iwo Jima is a very sad read about a man who did his best for his country and how said country shat on him.
Jordan Thompson
The poem has multiple meanings, referring to not only his duty as a soldier, but also his efforts to convince the IJA to surrender.
Note that he literally forbade banzai charges and operated operationally until the end.
Landon Wood
The Japanese had a mentality that they had never lost a war in their history and were destined to win that one. They were confident, even though that only goes so far.
Kevin Brown
America isn't obsessed with being honorable. Killing sleeping soldiers isn't honorable nor is killing thousands of civillians to eliminate military factories, but at least the US doesn't have weebs claiming their underhanded, despicable shit wasn't underhanded, despicable shit.
Japanese soldiers were brave but of course they were largely coerced: read about the Kempeitai arresting soldiers for defeatist remarks late in the war. They lived in a police state as much as the Germans did.
Ryan Ward
>would pretend to surrender with live grenades hidden up their sleeves Fuck off faggot, slopes are all devious little shits
Cameron Nelson
Lol the Japanese didn't know their history very well then did they.
I suppose they seemed to have divine protection from the literal Kamikaze that fucked the mongols, but they seem to forget about that little invasion of Korea that got screwed by one peasant and his armored ships.
Cooper Walker
They absolutely were Every jap got conscripted into their national militia There were no civilians
Carter Clark
Do you want to be shot on sight? Because that's how you get shot on sight.
Carson Gutierrez
Yeah Because they'd hide grenades in their sleeve
Nathan Morgan
>le Yamato Damashi >le kamikaze >firebombed and nuked >surrenders >Emperor declares he's not a god, thousand year tradition goes to the trash >Tojo tries sudoku and failed, got even more shame
They really thought they could hack it in, did they?
Adam Martinez
>muh nukes >Japan could've wasted years of progress and be a communist country instead
Hudson Williams
>I don't care that they massacred Chinks at Nanking
Sage and hide
Henry Edwards
>Emperor declares he's not a god, thousand year tradition goes to the trash This fucking meme.
First of all, Emperor Worship in Japan was instituted within living memory when Japan surrendered. Old folks could remember the days before the Government decided to use the Emperor as a symbol of the nation, and teach people to worship him. The deification of the emperor is literally as ancient a practice as the deification of the Kim Dynasty.
Second, Hirohito's declaration is the smuggest piece of trash ever written. It relies entirely on the fact that there's only one word for 'god' in English.
It merely clarifies that Hirohito is not an abrahamic capital G god, (no shit, you lost the war), and that the emperor is not a Kami. (which he never claimed to be). Weasel piece of shit.
>I don't care that they massacred Chinks at Nanking Funny, because part of why the Japs did the massacre was because they were pissed off that capturing Shanghai and Nanjing was a lot harder than they had been led to believe by all the propaganda that Chinese troops were easy pushovers that they were fed. Turned out the Chinese soldiers were way braver than they were, fighting a battle where they were massively outgunned, with some divisions knowingly going on suicide missions and fighting to the last man.
Justin Sanders
fackin cunts
Samuel Davis
>The deification of the emperor is literally as ancient a practice as the deification of the Kim Dynasty.
I was under the impression the Emperor was always considered a holy figure in Shinto religion. They're supposed to be direct descendants of a sun goddess.
It might have changed in practice to be more overt, since there have been periods of waning Imperial authority throughout Japan's history, but I don't think this was challenged in theory until the end of the WWII.
Hudson Stewart
Braver AND smarter than they were.
And to compound this, they were also treated like shit during training and quite possibly during the campaign, too.
Sebastian Hughes
Nah Emperor was always symbolic figure in Japanese history and barely had real power. Myth tells Emperor is the descendant of Gods but people never worshiped him until Meiji restoration.
Liam Adams
Japanese soldiers retreated, they just rarely surrendered. There's a difference. You just can't retreat if you're on some shitty island.
