re: #346 petesh

Yeah. I hate to endorse anything Niall Ferguson wrote, but I’d just add that the dehumanization was pretty mutual. Check out Unbroken (the book, at least; I never saw the movie) for some very nasty behavior on the part of Japanese jailers and the like. A couple of my parents’ friends were forced to work on the Burma Railway (see Bridge of the River Kwai) and it obviously broke them, though they lived through it.

But then my dad, a Brit who was in Europe, never said anything about his WWII experiences except to note that he “walked up Italy.” When videos arrived, he bought only one, Oh! What a Lovely War — and insisted that everyone who visited watch it. Check it out, I’m sure it’s around somewhere.

No doubt about it. I didn’t want to downplay the Japanese brutality by any means, especially since my late grandfather fought against them in the Battle of Kohima, which is often referred to as the Stalingrad of the East.