[.ca] Slaughter at Sea: The Story of Japan's Naval War Crimes (ISBN 1591142636)

A story which needed to be told.:
It is often said that the sheer barbarity of the Japanese regime, in terms of how they treated military and civilian prisoners, during WW2, has remained unsurpassed to this day. The ways in which even a private soldier was able to indiscriminately summarily execute a prisoner without his superiors taking any notice, was not the actions of an army of which any country could be proud. Curiously, however, for all the headline-grabbing naval events and encounters with the Imperial Japanese Navy - commencing with Pearl Harbour and continuing throughout the Pacific War, the individual war crimes perpetrated by members of that navy have, largely, been overlooked by history. In a navy which had historically modelled itself on the finest traditions of the Royal Navy, it was ironic that, at the same time, they should shun that same British Navy's levels of decency and honour - especially towards the enemy. Whenever a captured British naval officer, for example, was taken on board an enemy ship, he would automatically salute the quarterdeck as a matter of respect. Not so the Japanese officer when roles were reversed. In modelling themselves on another country's navy, what the Japanese were lacking, therefore, was an understanding of the qualities which made that navy what it was, qualities without which, it would never have become a benchmark to be admired. A bit like sowing the finest possible seeds in the poorest possible soil and then omitting to add water at any time. The relevance is quite simple. It was the Japanese psyche which was brutal and it mattered not what colour the uniform of the brute which dispensed the punishment. In this book, Dr. Mark Felton exposes the Japanese Navy of WW2 for the atrocities they committed in the name of Japan. From attacks on clearly marked and defenceless hospital ships to the torture of individual prisoners, he produces a disturbing liturgy of events not previously reported. Quite clearly, the quality of human life was not something which concerned those granted positions of absolute power in the Imperial Japanese Navy. This author is a leading authority of such matters and this book is a significant addition to our understanding of the Japanese during WW2. NM