Saturday, February 02, 2008
Lazy, insubordinate, obstructionist ducks
The TigerHawk Teenager is reading George Weller's First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War
Though nobody cares much about what the Japanese think about any more, the processes of the Japanese mind are still a cause of wonderment to those who were their prisoners. These men have the advantage, if it can be called that, of having known the Japanese both before and after surrender. They believe, many of them, that the Japanese are a bit crazy. The prisoners do not exclude the possibility they may have become crazy too, by association. But the Japanese seem to have been a little more so.
In Java, the prison enclosure at Bandoeng had two sets of captives: 5,000 men, Allied military, and 1,200 ducks, Javanese. By a system of ruses the Allied prisoners, who were always hungry, found a way of stealing the eggs laid in captivity by their fellow prisoners. Egg production went down 50%. The commandant blamed the ducks. He studied their lives and reached the conclusion that they were dissolute and frivolous. One day he ordered all the ducks to be driven off their ponds and arranged before him in as orderly a fashion as frightened ducks could be. Then, roaring at the top of his voice, he delivered them a lecture.
"Your egg production is down, do you understand?" he shouted. "And why has it fallen? It is not for lack of food. Do not tell me you are starving. You eat well. But you are not like Japanese ducks. You are lazy. You simply do not wish to lay. You are insubordinate ducks, obstructionist ducks. Well, I have a cure for that. For two days you will go on half rations." The commandant dismissed the ducks without seeing the abashed looks on the faces of the Allied prisoners who had overheard his lecture.
The NGOs have lodged a lot of complaints about Gitmo, but screaming at birds is not one of them. So we have that going for us.
5 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Feb 03, 01:22:00 AM:
Good book tip. The deceased father of childhood friends observed the effects of the Bomb within several weeks after it was dropped. That may explain why his wife became an ardent ban-the-bomber. I will recommend the book to them.
By 
mlah, at
Sun Feb 03, 04:28:00 AM:
excellent. did they ever figure it out?
By , at
Sun Feb 03, 11:31:00 AM:
Lots of bizarre stories about Japanese captivity in this very good book, though most are not very funny, and the need Truman believed he saw for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
By , at
Sun Feb 03, 11:39:00 AM:
Whoops! Wrong Amazon link- sorry. I meant this very good book, and not the story of the Dale (which is I'm reading right now and is also outstanding!).
By , at
Tue Feb 05, 07:48:00 PM:
Remember when liberals tried to make america lok bad over HIROSHIMA? over the ENOLA GAY display they had at the SMITHSONIAN
