Letters from Iwo

[39mto39g]

Opens today in Houston, I may have to go see it.

[MORTARDUDE]

I would like to know what you think about it.

larry

[39mto39g]

Totally unexpected.
Except for the fact that you have to read a lot, It was a very good movie. It's from the Jap point of view. It tried to make you feel something for the jap soldiers. Even one part where a jap soldier was talking to a captured/wounded Marine. The graphic effects were great.
I would guess that people that didn't know what the japs did to Americans would come away from this movie with a kind of sadness for the japs.
I found myself just watching the movie and not reading. It's hard for me to read and watch at the same time. I only have two eyes and both are needed for the reading.
We still won though.

[MORTARDUDE]

Thanks Ron. I may go see it. I still have to deal with the stories my father told me about his experiences with the 43rd Inf. Div. in the Pacific, and what the Japanese soldiers did to civilians and prisoners from 1935 - 1945. The story is told, not sure if true, that the Nazis were horrified with what happened in Nanking.

Larry

[Jerry D]

If I remember correctly the Nanking incident (December 13, 1937) involved bayonet practice on live POW's and civilians by the Nipponese Soldiers against the Chinese.

I googled the Nanking Incident and this is what was written: Immediately after the fall of the city, Japanese troops embarked on a determined search for former soldiers, in which thousands of young men were captured. Many were taken to the Yangtze River, where they were machine-gunned so their bodies would be carried down to Shanghai. Others were reportedly used for live bayonet practice. Decapitation was a popular method of killing, while more drastic practices included burning, nailing to trees, live burial, and hanging by the tongue. Some people were beaten to death. The Japanese also summarily executed many pedestrians on the streets, usually under the pretext that they might be soldiers disguised in civilian clothing.

Thousands were led away and mass-executed in an excavation known as the "Ten-Thousand-Corpse Ditch", a trench measuring about 300m long and 5m wide. Since records were not kept, estimates regarding the number of victims buried in the ditch range from 4,000 to 20,000. However, most scholars and historians consider the number to be around 12,000 victims.

Women and children were not spared from the horrors of the massacres. Witnesses recall Japanese soldiers throwing babies into the air and catching them with their bayonets. Pregnant women were often the target of murder, as they would often be bayoneted in the belly, sometimes after rape. Many women were first brutally raped then killed.

[revwardoc]

The Japs did similar atrocities to GI's during the Bataan Death March. There is a documented story of a Jap officer riding a horse who, for laughs I imagine, would ride up and down the line arbitrarily decapitating GI's with his samuri sword. This was done according to their warrior code of Bushido, which I believe stipulates that anyone who surrendered was unworthy of humane treatment.

[Robert Ryan]

Can't believe that this version gets a nod for best picture, while flags of our fathers doesn't

[Packo]

Because Hollywood loves to see our enemies in a good light. Why do you think all the "terrorist" in movies are evil white guys, like Neo Nazi's, Republicans, Russian Mafia, but never ever Moslems. Flags cut out the scene where the Corpsman, Bradley, fines his buddies and what the Japanese did to them. Wouldn't want to upset anyone but just wait, a movie about our killers and torturor's of the innocent in Iraq and Gitmo, (Abu Grave), should be out soon. A great book, written by the author of Flags of Our Fathers, has been out. It's called "Flyboys". It explains how the Japanese bastardized "Busido" to make all their attrocities ok and by the "code". I would suggest reading it. We had our attrocities also, but the book is so worth reading.

Pack

[Robert Ryan]

Yeah Packy your right there, but after seeing the Great Raid, and seeing the massacre of the prisoners being burnt alive, doesn't impress me with the Bushido code of warriors, that is out right murder.

[Packo]

Robert, Bushido was a good code until bastardized by the military in the 30's. Killing innocent prisoners was strictly against the code. What the Japs did in China and the whole Pacific was not "Bushido" no matter what they said. Another reason to read the book I recommended. I also meant Bradey, not Bradley, as the author. What they did WAS out right murder. Try "Flyboys".

Pack