Friday, June 09, 2006
The "Greatest Generation" and its prisoners
A loyal reader, doing some research for a project, stumbled across the following picture from the deck of the battleship USS New Jersey. The caption reads:Many members of the battleship USS New Jersey watch a Japanese prisoner of war bathe himself before he is issued GI clothing on board the ship in the South Pacific in December 1944.
My contributor writes:
Can you imagine the reaction today? It's got it all - POW abuse, psychological torture, militarism, homoeroticism, racism, even the dreaded cigarette smoking. In fact, what's the statute of limitations ... I'm sure some of the sailors are still with us.
Perhaps the "greatest generation" was great in part because it did not devour its own.
UPDATE: This cartoon by Mike Shelton of the Orange County Register (via Lucianne) makes the same point, I think, rather more eloquently.
10 Comments:
By 
The Leading Wedge, at
Fri Jun 09, 08:39:00 PM:
I'm not arguing your point, but I do think it a bit bizarre that 100's of men would like to stand around and watch a mal-nourished, naked Japanese man take a bucket bath.
I thought there was a code between soldiers and officers that each side was to respect each others warriors (and I am only referring to traditional warfare now). In any case, I have heard, and seen on film, numerous examples of how military men have shown their professionalism and big-heartedness by treating their opponents with respect once they were caught. Recent example I saw was "We Were Soldiers". Another was Albert Speer's discussion about how the German leadership was handled after their capture.
Maybe I am arguing your point after all :-)
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Fri Jun 09, 10:43:00 PM:
Yeah, mustering what looks like the entire crew for a photo op with a naked POW is definitely wierd.
By Karridine, at
Sat Jun 10, 12:54:00 AM:
Leading Wedge, not so strange IF its the first ACTUAL ENEMY you've seen in the flesh.
Think about it: Drills for months, newsreels, radio reports, letters from home sayin "Japs killed Willie Furno in the Bataan Death March, you remember him?, then "General Quarters!", then firing on islands, trying to down incoming torpedo bombers, dive bombers, two minor hits but 57 of your buddies are consigned to the deep blue...
Then you pick up 'an enemy'... and not wierdly at all, you call the men to the deck as he washes, prior to changing into the only clean clothes you have, American uniforms...
How many of those guys looked at him and remembered our shared humanity? Then remembered Pearl Harbor?
Was just gonna post links to Zarkman's Demise at: BrainSurgeryWithSpoons.blogspot.com
but I had to respond to your post: my moment came on a mountain-top on an island on the NorK DMZ, listening to a radio transmission of a Comrade freezing to death in BITTER cold sub-Siberian winter...
By Gordon Smith, at
Sat Jun 10, 01:14:00 AM:
The Republican Party has tried to turn Democrats into enemies and now is trying to turn the Press into enemies.
I wonder where the humanity is in arguing that "a Japanese prisoner of war bath[ing] himself before he is issued GI clothing" is in some way comparable to torturing prisoners in Gitmo, at Abu Ghraib, or at secret prisons in Europe.
Also - Equating the press with an enemy of the United States military promotes contempt for information. Call for improved news if you want, but this is an attempt to villainize American journalists - your countrymen.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat Jun 10, 01:19:00 PM:
Just because they are countrymen does not mean that they are not, in fact, villains.
Ref: Michael Moore, Senator Joseph, McCarthy, Benedict Arnold...
President Bush is your countryman, and what do you think of him?
By PSGInfinity, at
Sat Jun 10, 05:45:00 PM:
dawnfire82,
I think he's a decent man and an adequate President. I also think he's doing some odd things vis-a-vis immigration. And he's doing a tremendous job of bearing the weight of half the Western world's insanity...
...That would be the Left half's.
#
# ANSWER: How the 21st century spells "KKK"
#
By The Leading Wedge, at
Sat Jun 10, 06:59:00 PM:
Karridine - not so strange IF its the first ACTUAL ENEMY you've seen in the flesh.
Thanks for your comment and you have a very valid point. I must admit I don't know what I personally would have done in such a situation since I've never been there. I.e. I am not trying to claim that I am any better than anyone else.
I hope my point is still valid, however, from a moral and idealistic pov.
By 
, at
Sun Jun 11, 01:07:00 PM:
"I thought there was a code between soldiers and officers that each side was to respect each others warriors (and I am only referring to traditional warfare now). In any case, I have heard, and seen on film, numerous examples of how military men have shown their professionalism and big-heartedness by treating their opponents with respect once they were caught. Recent example I saw was "We Were Soldiers". Another was Albert Speer's discussion about how the German leadership was handled after their capture."
Not so strange, Wedge. The German military, by and large, did follow the "laws of war" that were in the process of being codified into the Geneva Conventions (there were, of course, notorious exceptions), so that they were, in turn, followed in the Germans' case. The Japanese, OTOH, did not follow them -- they openly had contempt for their whole religio-philosophical underpinning -- so that U.S. troops and officers felt no obligation to follow them when dealing with Nihonjin.
By , at
Tue Jun 13, 09:40:00 AM:
"A loyal reader, doing some research for a project, stumbled across the following picture from the deck of the battleship USS New Jersey. The caption reads:"
Rubbish. I am so sick of seeing stuff like this. That picture is out of context at best, if not forged or photoshopped. Without knowing what newspaper, or where it was published, its just another example of the unsubstantiated garbage that is blogging the internet. Oops, I meant clogging.
By , at
Tue Jun 13, 09:49:00 AM:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/picturing_the_century/port_jacobs/port_jacobs_img72.html
That’s a link to the photo from the national archives. The ACTUAL caption reads-
"Japanese prisoners of war are bathed, clipped, "deloused," and issued GI clothing as soon as they are taken aboard the USS New Jersey"
By Lt. Comdr. Charles Fenno Jacobs, December 1944
National Archives and Records Administration, General Records of the Department of the Navy, 1798-1947
(80-G-469956) [VENDOR # 110]
Try to look into things before you post nonsense.
