aircooled wrote:
Curmudgeon wrote:
Another thought: remember the movie 'Red Dawn'? Its premise is the US being invaded by Russia and the way the locals went underground to fight. I'm thinking it's not far off the truth of what would happen for real. What makes us think the Japanese would have done any different?...
Ohhhhh... I just had a pretty cool movie (maybe just a short) idea.
Basically Red Dawn, defending the homeland against an evil invading army. In this case though, they are overwhelming and a total loss is eventual. At the end of the movie, when all is lost, there is a switch or fade of some sort that reveals, the heroes of the movie where actually Japanese and the invaders American. Maybe something a bit like Life of Pi, if you have ever seen that but in this case someone is narrating the story and the listener is adding the assumptions.
Sounds a bit like 'The Man in the High Castle', Phillip K. Dick's take on what things would have been like had we lost WWII. Amazon is supposed to be broadcasting their miniseries of it on Amazon Prime soon.
Curmudgeon wrote:
...Regardless, the experience with them lent some credence to the school of thought that the Japanese would not surrender quickly. There's some evidence that would have been the case; there were several reports of Japanese soldiers who refused to surrender and instead became fugitives in the jungles around Southeast Asia. One guy hid out for 30 years in the Phillipine jungles. http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/17/world/asia/japan-philippines-ww2-soldier-dies/ Sure he's just one guy, but if his point of view was shared by only 1/10 of the population it woulda gotten ugly.
I have been reading a book on Ernie Pyle's last reports / stories (famous reporter killed in 1945 for those who don't know). One of the things he talked about was the bizarre behavior they saw out of the Japanese soldiers that were left on Saipan (B29 base). He obviously had no idea about the culture of Japan, as I am sure most didn't.
One of the soldiers was hiding the bushes next to a well traveled path for a few weeks. He hid there so he could observe the prison camp where they kept the Japanese prisoners. Once he was convinced the prisoners where being treated properly, he surrendered.
Can't say whether that soldier was so afraid of being captured because of the propaganda of the Japanese military, or he was afraid he would be treated like the Japanese treated their prisoners.
As you note though, there was certainly a range of "commitment" by the Japanese soldiers.
