The Worst Possible Fate For a B-29 Crew?

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  • Опубликовано: 13 апр 2023
  • This is the story of Frederick Allen Stearns, and his B-29 SuperFortress crew as they were shot down over Japan, and then eventually killed. This was made using the World War II flight simulator War Thunder. Hope you enjoy! Please like, comment, and subscribe. #WW2 #WWIIHistory #WarThunder
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Комментарии • 443

  • @TJ3
    @TJ3  Год назад +25

    Hope you enjoy! Consider joining the free TJ3 History Newsletter for awesome WWII History stories! tj3history.ck.page/tj3history

  • @patrickcotter5629
    @patrickcotter5629 Год назад +63

    My father was a radar operator on the B-29 named the Georgia Peach, in 58th Bomb Wing, 468th Bomb Group, 793rd Bomb Squadron. He said all his bomber crew decided to die in a plane crash rather than bail out and be captured, if their B-29 was ever damaged enough not to make it back after a mission. They knew how awful the Japanese treated captured US airmen.

  • @Joe-bw2ew
    @Joe-bw2ew Год назад +50

    My mom was a teenager in Tokyo during this time. She said her neighbors joked you could set your watch according to the arrival of B29s. A Firestorm blew towards their house but they prayed and the wind changed direction, saving only her house.

    • @kremepye3613
      @kremepye3613 Год назад +2

      Rude, could have prayed for her neighbour too. Talk about selfish.

    • @Joe-bw2ew
      @Joe-bw2ew Год назад

      @@kremepye3613 Arigato gaijin!

  • @jeremyjanousek1743
    @jeremyjanousek1743 Год назад +81

    My grandpa, Hank Gorder, flew the last mission of WWII as an engineer on The Boomerang. You can read about it in a book entitled “The Last Mission” by Jim B. Smith, the pilot. The History Channel even made a two hour-long documentary about it by the same title. Miss you, grandpa, and all your stories about the war.

  • @jon9021
    @jon9021 Год назад +97

    Certainly not “forgotten”, by some of us who know a little about history, I can assure you.

    • @rogerlibby14613
      @rogerlibby14613 Год назад +5

      My Father flew over Japan 6 or 7 times in 1945 (only 3 times during the war). He always said that when remains are sent back to the US it's just a handful dirt from the execution site.

    • @jrobertsoneff
      @jrobertsoneff Год назад +1

      Of course now the japs are the good guys it was those naughty Chinese all along.

    • @MrChopsticktech
      @MrChopsticktech Год назад +1

      @@rogerlibby14613 How often does the subject of American remains come up?

    • @rogerlibby14613
      @rogerlibby14613 Год назад +4

      @@MrChopsticktech I recall about 3 times ... my Dad would only talk about it if there was a news article on TV about Japan returning the "bones" of bomber crews.

  • @gvet47
    @gvet47 Год назад +8

    My dad was a navigator on a B29 and flew many missions to Japan. They also flew very low level flights to lay mines in Japanese harbors. They got a letter from the Navy for that effort.

  • @patolt1628
    @patolt1628 Год назад +17

    Referring to the Geneva Convention, it's clearly a war crime. No intention to excuse anybody about a war crime but we might consider also that if you are bombing civilians using incendiary bombs and then you bail out just over the people you were killing in a horrible way just minutes before ... don't expect too much empathy, whatever are the conventions.
    Just to put things in perspective, keep in mind that war is hell and everybody always uses to consider the bad actions from the ennemy as horrible and unacceptable while all what is done on our side is at worst justified. God is on "our" side, as Bob Dylan was singing ...

  • @BELCAN57
    @BELCAN57 Год назад +18

    Dr. Mark Felton has an in depth RUclips video lecture regarding atrocities committed by the servicemen of Imperial Japan

  • @henrygill5550
    @henrygill5550 Год назад +7

    My Dad was called back to active service in July 1950, right after the start of the Korean War, and soon flew close-air-support (CAS) missions in a P-51 Mustang around the Pusan Perimeter. These were dark and very desperate times. My Dad once asked what to expect if he was shot down and captured by the advancing North Koreans, and was simply told: "Don't". Many of my Dad's friends and comrades were lost on these missions and he was very lucky to have survived. He once told me that you never want to bail out over the people that you have just bombed, and as a Caucasian, you never want to be captured by an Asian adversary.

  • @ericjayjohn4388
    @ericjayjohn4388 Год назад +25

    What a horrific story! The thought of those airmen being executed, especially by beheading, angers me. Add to that the reality that the men directly responsible were not executed is an insult and an act of disrespect to those airmen.
    Regardless of the feeling this story generated in me, I believe stories like this MUST be told! Anything that will help younger generations appreciate the sacrifices our military men and women make, or knowingly might have to make, is vital.
    Thank you for the continued good work you are doing! I look forward to your next episode!

    • @Jimpiedepimpie
      @Jimpiedepimpie Год назад +5

      They were dropping incendiary bombs on people's houses. Do you think Drone Joe will get clemency when they find his RV?

    • @kadenbrown-cobarrubias5510
      @kadenbrown-cobarrubias5510 Год назад +5

      oh noooo, how dare the people who just bombed civilians get treated accordingly nooooooo

    • @Jimmythefish577
      @Jimmythefish577 Год назад +1

      @@Jimpiedepimpie you know they started it right? Have you heard of the Rape of Nanking? And the thousands of other atrocities committed in the name of the Emperor before the Japanese mainland was ever targeted? The Japanese aren’t the victims in this.

    • @PauloPereira-jj4jv
      @PauloPereira-jj4jv Год назад

      If you were a German prisoner in Normandy, and knew the Americans were ordered to kill prisoners... you would feel anger too.

    • @thomassnapp1341
      @thomassnapp1341 Год назад

      @@kadenbrown-cobarrubias5510 What an idot..

  • @altoncrane9714
    @altoncrane9714 11 месяцев назад +3

    Those heroic and brave men would not believe what has become of this world, we have insulted the sacrifice they made.

  • @mgweible8162
    @mgweible8162 Год назад +34

    Another amazing video TJ, this one struck an emotional chord, though. RIP to all of those unjustly executed heroes.
    Stay Awesome TJ!

    • @TJ3
      @TJ3  Год назад +3

      Thank you!

    • @thystaff742
      @thystaff742 Год назад

      Yep. Japan was carpet bombed. Nukes don't exist.

  • @johnosbourn4312
    @johnosbourn4312 Год назад +6

    It was LeMay's deputy, Thomas Power who came up with the idea of low-level night time fire bombing missions.

  • @derweibhai
    @derweibhai Год назад +43

    The fact that these murderers all got off is abhorrent. May they burn for eternity.

    • @dovidell
      @dovidell Год назад +3

      unit 731 of the Japanese imperial army ? , sorry , never heard of it !!!

    • @maxlasthero1673
      @maxlasthero1673 Год назад

      u mean the murdering pilots who bombed civilian targets with the intent to kill as many as possible!

    • @KapitanPisoar1
      @KapitanPisoar1 Год назад +5

      And what about the bomber crew that murdered thousands of civilians, they got medals for that...

    • @Cult1022
      @Cult1022 Год назад +1

      ​@@KapitanPisoar1*hundredthousands

    • @saito125
      @saito125 Год назад

      ​@@dovidell
      en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

  • @stormwulf117
    @stormwulf117 Год назад +106

    Being executed would have been a more merciful fate if you could believe it. There are some reports that downed US airmen had been turned over to the notorious Unit 731 and were dissected alive without any anesthesia.

    • @jimwiskus8862
      @jimwiskus8862 Год назад +7

      I thought the same thing. I would probably have opted to have gone down with the plane.

    • @telekommandant
      @telekommandant Год назад

      The airmen in the documentary were killed just some days before the downfall of the Japanese empire. So if some insane Jap office wouldn't have gone crazy for "revenge" and after the executions also killed the witnesses on the last day of war, all of those men could have survived and lived a long life. That's the tragic of this story. But of course they are other gruesome and brutal stories waiting to be told.

    • @STho205
      @STho205 Год назад +33

      ​@@telekommandant but the Japanese officers all got out of prison in ten years or less. The big sentences were announced for press coverage, but never carried out.
      A metaphor for the whole Japanese peace. They got a pass the German leaders did not.

    • @Eric-kn4yn
      @Eric-kn4yn Год назад

      Japs had their livers for sushi no joke but then what about jap civilians kids burnt alive

    • @Eric-kn4yn
      @Eric-kn4yn Год назад +3

      ​​@@jimwiskus8862 45 to the head if you please crew all had side arms

  • @gadsdenflag5218
    @gadsdenflag5218 Год назад +72

    It’s incredible how the Japanese education system doesn’t teach stuff like these and if they do talk about their involvement in WW2, they say that they were victims and that they were forced to become an Empire and do all that horrible stuff in Manchuria because of the European Great Powers.
    How are they gonna learn from their errors if they don’t admit that they committed them?

    • @TJ3
      @TJ3  Год назад +23

      This is true of lots of history that is not taught. All history should be taught.

    • @dmiller57
      @dmiller57 Год назад +6

      ​@@TJ3 I agree

    • @dmiller57
      @dmiller57 Год назад +3

      @socialist prepper absolutely right 👍

    • @fishpants3877
      @fishpants3877 Год назад +15

      Yes. I think every country enjoys modifying history.

    • @MrDougman59
      @MrDougman59 Год назад +3

      If you ever want to see the Japanese Historical Narrative on the war, go to the Yasukuni Shrine in Toyko. They allow westerners but do not allow pictures in some places where the Japanese perspective is written.

  • @frizzlefry5904
    @frizzlefry5904 Год назад +13

    Very interesting and sad, no one wins in wartime, the people being bombed into submission on the ground or the aircrews lost, such a terrible episode in human history.

    • @samsungtap4183
      @samsungtap4183 Год назад

      Not a episode, normal for the US. In my country Vietnam you dropped 480.000 tons of napalm and as much phosphorous bombs + agent orange you killed millions of inocents. 100s of thousands of children incinerated alive. ..that is the tradgedy you never learn

  • @ralphmadera4366
    @ralphmadera4366 Год назад +3

    What awful way to die , knowing that the treatment to POWs from our part was completely different. I was in the ARMY I always thought if any time I get into combat “ not Mercy to the enemy “

  • @pickanotherid6646
    @pickanotherid6646 Год назад +2

    The picture at 10:22 is of Australian Special Forces radio operater Leonard Siffleet about to be beheaded by Yasuno Chikao on 24 October 1943 along with two other Australian prisoners.

  • @frankdrevinpolicesquad2930
    @frankdrevinpolicesquad2930 Год назад +4

    The Japanese cartoon movie " Graveyard of the Fireflies" is about two children in Japan during the bombings. I was surprised how they made it seem as though they were the victims and the Americans were the bad guys. Japan does not teach their children much about what they did in WW2. My father was an antiaircraft gunner on a destroyer, (sent to the Pacific since his mother was German) and they all knew what would happen to them if they were captured. He never forgave the Japanese

    • @baptistechastellier6695
      @baptistechastellier6695 11 месяцев назад +4

      In the movie they're just civilians caught in events they don't understand, they're even children. From the civilian pov, the bad guys will be the people bombing them. I'm french, and my grandparents who were children at the time told me they were more afraid of allied bombers than they were of german soldiers. In fact they didn't saw a lot of germans during occupation, what they mainly remember of the war is the allies bombing their town.
      However it's true that Japan doesn't teach its people properly about its crimes during the war, unlike Germany where people are very aware of the horrors of nazism

  • @brucecreswell136
    @brucecreswell136 Год назад +8

    The picture is of an Australian soldier being beheaded. It is a famous photo. I guess it ios all you could find.

    • @TJ3
      @TJ3  Год назад +4

      Correct. Very few images survive of the Japanese. Especially with POWs. Had to do my best.

    • @brucecreswell136
      @brucecreswell136 Год назад +2

      @@TJ3 The comment was mostly for your viewers. Maybe you could explain this in the video. Keep up the good work.

    • @kennysherrill6542
      @kennysherrill6542 Год назад

      That is in fact a pilot from New Zealand, he was shot down in his F-6 Hellcat and he along with a number of other aircrewmen were murdered after the surrender. One of the Japanese photographers had kept rolls of film that were confiscated and developed and none of them made it back to Japan, they were executed, summarily.

    • @karlepaul6632
      @karlepaul6632 Год назад +1

      I think the overall point being they definitely took heads off.

  • @jjahsepuyeshd
    @jjahsepuyeshd Год назад +16

    On one of the smaller islands held by Japan, they literally killed then "ATE" captured B29 crews,

    • @johnclarencemercado4218
      @johnclarencemercado4218 Год назад +16

      Not B29, but Avenger bombers. Six airmen were captured and eaten, one evaded capture and survived. He later become the US President George Bush Sr.

  • @enter2713
    @enter2713 Год назад +3

    Amazing video as always!

    • @TJ3
      @TJ3  Год назад +2

      Glad you enjoyed it!

  • @HornetCinematics
    @HornetCinematics Год назад +1

    Great video!

  • @fishpants3877
    @fishpants3877 Год назад +15

    I saw that photo taken just prior to execution many years ago. Never forgot how it so poignantly reflects the ruthlessness of war. Even the angle at which the soldier has positioned his sword in relation to the American prisoner's head and neck . It appears that the poor guy is going to get split down the center of his skull rather than a decapitation. Very disturbing; very insightful. Thanks for another good one.

    • @timorvet1
      @timorvet1 Год назад +11

      The soldier about to be executed was Leonard Siffleet an Australian Special Forces radio operator, sent on a mission to Papua New Guinea to establish a coast watching station.
      In September 1943, his patrol was sent to Japanese-held New Guinea, to recon the Japanese forces stationed there. Siffleet and two other Australian soldiers were captured by local natives and turned over to the Japanese.
      All three men were interrogated, tortured, and confined for approximately two weeks before being taken down to Aitape Beach on the afternoon of 24 October 1943. Bound and blindfolded, surrounded by Japanese and native onlookers, they were forced to the ground and executed by beheading, on the orders of Vice-Admiral Michiaki Kamada of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The officer who executed Siffleet, Yasuno Chikao, detailed a private to photograph him in the act.
      At the end of the war, Chikao was captured, tried for war crimes, and sentenced to be hanged; his sentence was commuted to ten years imprisonment, and upon completion of his sentence, he returned to Japan.
      The execution of prisoners by beheading was not an uncommon practice by the Japanese. Under the code of Bushido that the Japanese military conformed to at the time, the act of beheading a captured enemy actually restored some lost honour to the foe, since warriors were considered dishonoured if they allowed themselves to be captured alive.
      In the eyes of the Bushido adherents, this “dishonourable surrender” justified the terrible treatment captured Allied prisoners received at the hands of the Japanese.
      The photograph of code of Bushido that the Japanese military conformed to at the time, the act of beheading a captured enemy actually restored some lost honour to the foe, since warriors were considered dishonoured if they allowed themselves to be captured alive.
      In the eyes of the Bushido adherents, this “dishonourable surrender” justified the terrible treatment captured Allied prisoners received at the hands of the Japanese.
      The photograph of Siffleet’s execution was discovered on the body of a dead Japanese major near Hollandia by American troops in April 1944. execution was discovered on the body of a dead Japanese major near Hollandia by American troops in April 1944. It is believed to be the only surviving depiction of a western prisoner of war being executed by a Japanese soldier. Published in LIFE magazine, it became one of the war’s most iconic photos.
      Siffleet is commemorated on the Lae Memorial in Lae, Papua New Guinea, together with all other Commonwealth war dead from actions in the region who have no known grave. A memorial park commemorating Siffleet was also dedicated at Aitape in May 2015.

    • @fishpants3877
      @fishpants3877 Год назад +6

      @@timorvet1 Thank you! That was the best (and most interesting) comment I've ever read. You took a lot of time and I truly appreciate it.

    • @nicholasdiacos-qr2mq
      @nicholasdiacos-qr2mq Год назад +3

      The photo is of f an Australian commando executed in Papua New Guinea earlier in the war.

    • @nicholasdiacos-qr2mq
      @nicholasdiacos-qr2mq Год назад +3

      His name was Sgt Leonard Siffleet .The execution was in 1943 and the photo disciovered on the body of a dead Japanese soldier by US troops in 1944

    • @timorvet1
      @timorvet1 Год назад +1

      @@fishpants3877 Cheers mate.

  • @togustogusinski9346
    @togustogusinski9346 Год назад +12

    One side droped incendiary bombs especialy for killing civilian population, and other side beheaded pilots in vendetta act. Small quiz. Who did war crimes?

    • @nwga.5327
      @nwga.5327 Год назад

      Typical democratic bull shit lol. They got what they asked for

    • @gerardblack6859
      @gerardblack6859 Год назад +8

      The civilian population was producing war materiel. By doing so they lost their rights as civilians.

    • @Weshopwizard
      @Weshopwizard Год назад +3

      The entire war was replete with war crimes committed on all sides. Pointing fingers 80 years after the fact does Jack shit. Learning the lessons and making sure that it never happens again is the only real way to move forward.

    • @KapitanPisoar1
      @KapitanPisoar1 Год назад +1

      @@gerardblack6859 That was a very poor excuse, just to justify their own war crimes...

  • @joejohnson4183
    @joejohnson4183 Год назад +101

    And you can thank Gen. Douglas MacArthur for the lenient sentences given the Japanese war criminals because of his policies the Japanese were not properly punished for war crimes against allied soldiers . MacArthur literally turned his back on the allied servicemen that died and those that survived the horrible treatment from the Japanese all for politics . And they gave him a Medal of Honor and for what , abandoning his men in the Philippines and his nickname was dugout Doug .

    • @None-zc5vg
      @None-zc5vg Год назад +20

      He was a well-connected creep

    • @None-zc5vg
      @None-zc5vg Год назад

      The same thing happened (in parallel) in W. Germany: the U.S. elite wanted it that way. Read about John McCloy, I.G. Farben, the J.P. Morgan dynasty and Konrad Adenauer's 'amnesty' that saw almost all jailed war criminals released by 1958

    • @jeffpotipco736
      @jeffpotipco736 Год назад +14

      I read a story about mcarthur once and they were talking about his father. The author said the father was the most arrogant man he ever knew. Until he met the son.

    • @Weshopwizard
      @Weshopwizard Год назад +4

      Not saying anything about right and wrong but I think there was a great deal of war fatigue in the US by the time war ended. I think what happened regarding war crimes reflected this fatigue.

    • @davidwilliams7723
      @davidwilliams7723 Год назад +9

      We did what you wanted to do to the Japanese in Iraq. Everyone from politicians to school teachers , generals to privates in the army during Saddam's time were fired and forbidden from rejoining society. Turned what should've been a few months war into a decade long one. Moralizing is irrational, peace must be made and "defeated enemies" must be given opportunities or they won't stop fighting.

  • @marzbitenhaussen
    @marzbitenhaussen Год назад +7

    victors write history

  • @dcummings7253
    @dcummings7253 Год назад +2

    I will never question the heroic acts of soldiers from any nation. But I will always questions the one's that bring us to war for their financial gain. And to keep the peoples of earth fighting amongst ourselves instead of the leaders that bring us to that point. They are the real villains and always have been.

  • @dwmzmm
    @dwmzmm Год назад +1

    One of my late uncle (on dad's side) was a tail gunner of a B-29 during the Pacific Theater.

  • @diegok2245
    @diegok2245 Год назад +34

    The Japanese during WW2 talked so much about honor and duty. Yet they were the ones who threw it all away.

    • @wolfmantiptip6218
      @wolfmantiptip6218 Год назад

      Yet Burning children alive with incendiary bombs is Very Honorable , isn't it ? ...........

    • @CM-ky3ow
      @CM-ky3ow Год назад +6

      Exactly! Such an irrational response towards those complicit in your civilian population enduring saturation firebombings and the first and second use of nuclear bombs - bombs harnessing the power of the Sun. Completely irrational and dishonourable.

    • @diegok2245
      @diegok2245 Год назад +1

      @@CM-ky3ow While sad it was necessary, Japan production was mainly focused in the home stead. And also the predicted death from the invasion of Japan would of been much greater. While it was sad it was the best of two horrible options. What makes what the officer did wrong is that the war had ended when he ordered the execution. It would be like America dropping another bomb even though peach had been reached.

    • @usauk3605
      @usauk3605 Год назад +3

      @CM And what about the Japanese dropping barrels full of disease ridden ticks and fleas onto Chinese civilians? They had opened that door, and were reaping what they had sown.

    • @brucepoole8552
      @brucepoole8552 Год назад +2

      @@CM-ky3ow soldiers should respect other soldiers when captured, these airmen didn’t make decisions about bombing, the japanese disgraced themselves by treating pow’s this way

  • @michaelmeier5893
    @michaelmeier5893 Год назад

    Amazing video

  • @MGB-learning
    @MGB-learning Год назад

    Great video

  • @brianmuhlingBUM
    @brianmuhlingBUM Год назад

    What a fascinating story. So many brave men gave their lives so that i would live a peaceful life. Thank you.

  • @KyleCowden
    @KyleCowden Год назад +4

    My father was on B-29s and then the first nuke deterrent, the B-50 which was a "fixed" B-29 before Korea. As WW-II bombers go, definitely the sexiest.

  • @mrs6968
    @mrs6968 Год назад

    Top notch channel here

  • @meggieturi
    @meggieturi Год назад +1

    My dad was Commander of K-3, The Spirit of Fort Worth. 330th Bomb Group. 25 missions.

  • @LostShipMate
    @LostShipMate Год назад +3

    My first thought was crashing in Japan, I would rather fall to my death than land in that WW2 era Japan.

  • @chpman2013
    @chpman2013 Год назад +9

    If you fell into Japanese hands at that time, you were pretty much as good as dead.

    • @kevinspacey5325
      @kevinspacey5325 Год назад +1

      they were savages.

    • @chpman2013
      @chpman2013 Год назад +2

      @@kevinspacey5325 The Japanese Army was, for sure. Their theme was basically "no mercy".

  • @BenjaminASmith-WWIII
    @BenjaminASmith-WWIII Год назад +1

    When First Enlisting in the Air Force, I took my Aircraft Maintenance Graduation photo with Fi-Fi as the Background.

  • @theidahotraveler
    @theidahotraveler Год назад +1

    good morning from the rocky mountains hanks for your work lovin it and i remember when you started doing all this im glad its gone so well and i really enjoy it more than just gaming aloha.

    • @TJ3
      @TJ3  Год назад

      Thank you!

  • @Mr.Scootini
    @Mr.Scootini Год назад

    I don’t know how many of us are second gen Japanese Americans here.
    But it’s so eerie listening to my grandpas stories of the fire bombings as a child and now to hear the opposing perspective on RUclips.
    From my grandpas (both sides) POV, the first thing you hear isn’t the air raid sirens, it’s the ominous buzzing of all those B29’s approaching Tokyo, and then you hear the sirens.
    They both (both grandpas) hid in the bunkers and obviously survived all the bombings or else I, nor my parents, would be here.
    When he came out of the bunker, the things he saw people screaming “it’s hot! It’s hot! Mamma help, It’s hot!” And they go jumping into the near by river. The river turned red… blood red -he told me.
    He told me that he saw charred bodies everywhere too.
    And screaming kids with their faces melting off….
    Horrifying stuff…
    My grandpa, specifically my maternal side, said the him and his neighbors dug holes in their backyards to keep all their belongings, money and food.
    It miraculously survived the fires.
    (Note, this is just one of many times my grandpas and probably grandparents in general, had to deal with the fire bombings.)
    I have a lot to say, I will if anyone wants to read my retellings of my grandparents war stories as in their knowledge of war is important. Even if they weren’t military.

  • @FlyingTigersKMT
    @FlyingTigersKMT 11 месяцев назад

    Dang right. Drop it every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

  • @mikoajduszka1817
    @mikoajduszka1817 Год назад +1

    Firebombing of cities can be also called a "war crime"...

  • @janofb
    @janofb Год назад +1

    I recommend reading "The Bomber Mafia"

  • @grahampalmer9337
    @grahampalmer9337 Год назад +1

    It is approximated that 200,000 men, women & children were killed when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki - alone. That figure doesn't include subsequent deaths from burns &/or radiation sickness. Neither does it include the losses from other raids on other cities of the Japanese mainland. The relatively small number of combatant aircrew, prisoners or not, killed in retaliation pails in to insignificance in comparison. The British RAF's fire bombing of German cities was another 'crime' of near equal proportion. These were servicemen that chose to be where they were, do what they did.

  • @morikanti
    @morikanti Год назад +8

    Obviously, one war crime does not justify another, but....
    Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
    Article 8
    War Crimes
    Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:
    2.b.i. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities.
    2.b.iv. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.

    • @deadon4847
      @deadon4847 Год назад +2

      Yes, Rome who sent tanks into Ethiopia to attack people on horses and armed only with spears.

    • @arohk1579
      @arohk1579 Год назад +2

      @@deadon4847 you mean like the U.S. and their treatment of American Citizens, or did you forget the roughly 1,600 Japanese American prisoners who died in U.S. internment camps during WW2 and those who lost their land.

  • @pigpaul
    @pigpaul Год назад +3

    2 nuclear bombs were the revenge for the greatest generation P.O.W’s.

  • @kennethjackson7574
    @kennethjackson7574 11 месяцев назад

    I will try to provide a moment of levity here. My great-uncle George Witty was Chief Engineer on Three Feathers, then Lil’ Herbert (444 BG/676 Squadron). He kept a journal, which he was expressly not to do. In one entry (paraphrased from memory) he says they were prohibited from bombing the Imperial Palace. MacArthur has said he will ride Hirohito’s white horse on the streets of Tokyo after the war. If the Emperor’s horse was at the Imperial Stables tonight MacArthur won’t be riding it! By the summer of 1945 there were few known military targets remaining.

  • @henrysmith7276
    @henrysmith7276 Год назад +2

    …Two Nukes weren’t enough!

  • @genxmurse7019
    @genxmurse7019 Год назад +19

    I don't condone the actions of the Japanese, but put yourself in the shoes of any one of them, who lost his entire family in a fire bombing... I would not expect mercy either.

    • @kevinspacey5325
      @kevinspacey5325 Год назад +1

      Oh, I don't know, pictures of japanese soldiers bayonetting chinese babies, the cowardly attack on hawaii, the bataan death march, japanese officers EATING american soldiers, keeping foreign women as rape slaves, gruesome science experiments, convincing local populations of islanders to jump to their death while american soldiers tried to stop them. . . . all comes to mind. I feel no pity for the japanese people of that time. Those war criminals were their husbands, their sons, their nephews, their cousins.

    • @deanworsley2244
      @deanworsley2244 Год назад +3

      Yep, I agree. As disgusted as I am at these atrocities, I can't imagine I'd take too kindly to someone raining fire on my town. I am a veteran and I sure have no empathy for my enemies, I think one has to be careful when disappearing down the rabbit hole of what is and what isn't abhorrent in war, it is usually decided by the victors who is a war criminal and who just acted in just retribution.

    • @atheistpeace7579
      @atheistpeace7579 Год назад +2

      did we forget about the fire bombings in Europe where this approach was developed?
      did we forget about the human testing Japan did in China? close to as bad as the German camps.

  • @kekoahunter1559
    @kekoahunter1559 Год назад

    I been there the museum is nice

  • @ronaldlundelius6360
    @ronaldlundelius6360 11 месяцев назад

    The same two types of justice that we have today. Thank you for letting the innocent be punished and the guilty go free.

  • @schaeferbraden5
    @schaeferbraden5 Год назад +1

    some downed bomber crews were dissected alive, that seems worse to me

  • @TheTexasmick
    @TheTexasmick Год назад +1

    Why was Fredrick Allen Stearns singled out as if he were the most important one of the heroes ?

  • @brucepoole8552
    @brucepoole8552 Год назад +2

    Hirohito should have got life in prison

  • @briankorbelik2873
    @briankorbelik2873 11 месяцев назад

    A ggod friend of the family piloted B-29's first out of China and then from the Mariania Islands. He flew on many of the firebomb raids over various cities, including the one that darn near burned Tokyo to the ground on the night of March 9-10th, 1945. After thw war he came back and lived with his sister for a while, the sister being my mom's friend and thus our family connection to him. His sister told my mom that he used to get bad nightmares about the fire raids, it was the smell of burning flesh that he said were the worst parts of the dreams. He did however rejoin the by then US Air Force and flew missions during the Korean War. He retired a "Bird" Colonel, and I used to have all his medals and badges of rank and whatnot in a glass frame. I'm so grateful that the US did not have to invade Japan.

  • @raymondyee2008
    @raymondyee2008 Год назад

    Shocking.

  • @jasonshuster4748
    @jasonshuster4748 Год назад

    Dr. Stenger's figures list 93,941 U.S. military personnel captured and interned by Germany, of whom 1,121 died (a little over a 1% death rate), and 27,465 U.S. military personnel captured and interned by Japan, of whom 11,107 died (more than a 40% death rate).

  • @tungstenkid2271
    @tungstenkid2271 Год назад

    How many B-29's were shot down in total during the war?

  • @analystanalyst7652
    @analystanalyst7652 4 месяца назад

    This is not the worst fate. Eight American B-29 crew who survived from the same B-29 were experimented on in Kaikosha Hospital at Kyusha University. Only Marvin Watkins, the pilot, survived. They were injected with salt water in an experiment to see if that could be a substitute for blood plasma. While still alive and awake, on the table, they were dissected and then killed in different ways to observe how they died. After this, their livers were served in the cafeteria. This is all documented in Case 420 and the trial notes of 1948. The entire story can be found in The Fallen by Marc Landas. All those convicted of murder, torture and cannibalism were eventually released with the coming of the Korean War and the story went quiet like many others such as Unit 731 (the Japanese had a company in 1980 called Green Cross that used the experimental research from Unit 731and when this was realized in 1981 the company name disappeared from the market). My father’s cousin was a B-25 pilot, one of Kenney’s Kids, and committed suicide within the first year of repatriation back to the States. He had been tortured fairly heavily and regularly and was apparently a physical and phycological wreck.
    As an added note, one calculation used after the US experiences on Saipan and Okinawa had the casualty rate for the final invasion at 10 million through the winter of ’45-’46, many due to starvation. One million American and 9 million Japanese. The Japanese concurred after the war with that figure. All Purple hearts awarded to this day were manufactured in 1945 in anticipation of high casualties. Also, the Japanese were preparing to kill all Allied prisoners on August 22, 1945 and had actually practiced marching them to kill areas and back so they wouldn’t rise up, and they actually herded a large group of Americans into a field erected bomb shelter, under the guise of an air raid, and then poured gasoline in and burned them all. One witness amazingly survived to tell the story. The Allied POW death rate under the rising sun was 47% by best calculations.

  • @edwardglubin4354
    @edwardglubin4354 Год назад +4

    You gotta do a video about Jesse Leroy brown and other black aviators it’s super intresting, jesse’s story is so inspiring
    Nvm: just found it, awesome!!

  • @leeyuumer4973
    @leeyuumer4973 Год назад +1

    And then you see the Grave of the Fireflies

  • @Musique61414
    @Musique61414 Год назад +1

    People can become animals, or, worse, if we let ourselves become what we fear.

  • @Night-211
    @Night-211 Год назад +2

    Hey, do u remember me TJ?
    Is this the only comment 8 mins in? Or am I lagging

  • @williamgardiner4956
    @williamgardiner4956 Год назад +4

    The fact is that 2,000 atom bombs would NOT have paid those vicious people back for the horrors they inflicted on those that fell into their hands. Even today, the populous have NO idea what their people did in that war.

  • @_R-R
    @_R-R Год назад +2

    War. Is hell.

  • @ML-ev3ks
    @ML-ev3ks Год назад

    after dropping the atomic bombs i have some understanding about these reaction. this must be a complete shock for everyone....but not for general bad treatment

  • @ivanlowjones
    @ivanlowjones Год назад

    I just saw those two bombers (at the 02:00 videomark) outside of Memphis a few weeks ago. The B-29 and B-24 crews were very accommodating and even gave us an interior tour of the B-24 which is the only flying one left in the world.

  • @Geesum44
    @Geesum44 Год назад

    Those Servicemen gave the Ultimate price and so did the families having to grieve all those years . I don’t take that lightly . Maybe Macgarther should have been Court marshal over it.

  • @briancooper2112
    @briancooper2112 Год назад +1

    Those killers should of served full sentences and not sent free. FUBAR.

  • @HalfWarrior
    @HalfWarrior Год назад +2

    So it’s illegal to kill the enemy who was literally just previously killing the people of your country? How many people died from the incendiary bombs that were dropped? As far as the entire war in the first place; like all wars; it was just a waste of many lives because of the governments of the countries that were involved. War is absurd and ridiculous.

  • @waiip2585
    @waiip2585 Год назад +1

    😭 God save those brave American B29 aircrews, SALUTE !

  • @dmiller57
    @dmiller57 Год назад +2

    Another sad 😭 story

  • @chrispetty8587
    @chrispetty8587 Год назад

    This is a tragic story of our proud hero’s. Although the letter was accurate and sincere I am sure it was of little comfort to the parents of these men believe me I know but hat it is like to lose a child. We are it built to bury our children no matter what the cause

  • @uraigroves7898
    @uraigroves7898 Год назад +15

    It's a horrible story but I doubt most people would do much different if their cities and people were being firebombed into oblivion...

  • @robertmunoz7543
    @robertmunoz7543 Год назад

    GEICO? 🦎
    Confederate AF!👍
    Jman

  • @FozzyZ28
    @FozzyZ28 Год назад +5

    Horriffic treatment by the Japanese of their Allied prisoners in Ww2. No less horrific that was done to their own countrymen who refused to be as barbaric. No worse than the chinese, nor the Nazi's. Fairly sure the rest of us came a close 2nd. We all bombed the citizens of all countries......the us topped that with the atomic bomb. Funny how we call bombing civillians in 2022/2023 a war crime. I hope in another 70yrs any action will be considered a war crime!!? 🤬

  • @bryantmoyle1706
    @bryantmoyle1706 Год назад +1

    Using war thunder for the plane footage is based as fuck

  • @johnbower7452
    @johnbower7452 Год назад +6

    All sides committed atrocities; you think nuking civilians wasn't a war crime? Or burning them alive? Of course it was; there are no 'good guys' and 'bad buys' in war, just bad guys. And one lot wins by making a few less mistakes than the other.

    • @snsixstringerfjb7730
      @snsixstringerfjb7730 Год назад

      Turns out we should have nuked a couple more jap cities...... darn! 🤣🤣

    • @karlepaul6632
      @karlepaul6632 Год назад +2

      Hey, they were given numerous chances to give up. They were told what was going to happen, it didn't have to happen. And fairly certain the Axis we're a wee bit closer to being considered the "bad guys" than the Allies were (with the exception of the Soviet Union).

  • @bremnesen
    @bremnesen Год назад

    What did Curtis LeMay saiy about warcrimes?

  • @briancooper2112
    @briancooper2112 Год назад

    Japan had soilders in China Vietnam Manchuria etc.

  • @brooksroth345
    @brooksroth345 Год назад +1

    I find it disengious that we accused Germany and Japan of war crimes while allied war crimes were on a scale the axis could only dream about. Dresden for example, fire bombing civilians in Germany and Japan. Least we forget the Soviets did before and after the war. Killing civilians as defined by the allies constitute a war crime. This applies today as well. The only reason I bring this up is the victors determines these things. Dosent matter if it is the hight of hipocrscy. Simply put we took revenge. We needed to do this to shorten the war and save American lives, which was worth it. What happened after the war with the Marshal Plan and MacArthur ruling Japan does represent America at it's best. What other country would have done the same? I include the Berlin airlift here as wrll.

  • @brandon7482
    @brandon7482 Год назад +1

    Poor guys, the youth of today don’t even know about this stuff.

  • @BDBK92
    @BDBK92 Год назад +1

    " horrendous war crime"
    Thats funny how you describe what they went through but dropping an atomic bomb on civilians is an "earth-changing event"
    "History is Written by Victors" I guess
    Cool video anyways

    • @karlepaul6632
      @karlepaul6632 Год назад +3

      Yeah, they were given ample opportunity to surrender, they were told what would happen if they didn't, and Japan's attitude was "We'll fight until every man woman and child gives their lives." That's on them. The same country that was allies with Germany. The ones that said "Ya know what...this Hitler guy... he's OK. We're with him." Definitely not a great bunch. Just saying.

    • @BDBK92
      @BDBK92 Год назад

      @@karlepaul6632 what you said is absolutely true, but it do not dismiss what I said. I just find funny how he describe those two events, for him :
      soldier dying in war = HORRENDOUS war crime
      200 000 civilian dead with 2 atomic bomb = earth changing event

  • @thatdude3938
    @thatdude3938 Год назад +4

    - bombs japanese cities with incendiaries
    - gets beheaded
    "How could this happen to me?"
    Karma dude. Say thanks that they didn't burn you alive so you could feel like folks in Tokyo in 1945

  • @billywylie3288
    @billywylie3288 Год назад

    The real tragedy of WW2 was that they were all fighting for the same people all along War is a racket and nobody wins bit money

  • @petewarrell228
    @petewarrell228 Год назад +3

    Its called revenge
    We all have it in us
    Just need the perfect triger
    To unleash it
    And then fuckn run if you
    Are in my sights😳👋✌👍🙏🇨🇦

  • @benjamincompton9767
    @benjamincompton9767 Год назад

    Brilliant, you released them, failed your men, and disgraced your comrades... good move

  • @zillsburyy1
    @zillsburyy1 Год назад

    i was on the FI-FI

  • @timf6916
    @timf6916 Год назад

    VERY SAD, MURDER IS MURDER.

    • @KapitanPisoar1
      @KapitanPisoar1 Год назад

      Imagine how many people those guys dropping the bombs murdered...

  • @qwertyman9560
    @qwertyman9560 Год назад +1

    War is unfortunately horrendous and barbaric. Honor, chivalry and ethics soon give way to barbarism when your buddies and family are killed, maimed, blinded and your homes are destroyed. As they say everything becomes fair in love and war.

  • @cassandra8984
    @cassandra8984 Год назад +22

    This video does a service to these pilots but not to modern Americans. Here is why: There are many more and bigger Japanese war crimes than this scenario -- the Rape of Nanking, Bataan Death March, the sex slaves of Korea ("Comfort women"), their treatment and slaughter of prisoners throughout the war, and disgusting human experiments of a grizzly and pointless nature, just to name a few. The Japanese need to come to grips with that in their history classes (the way the Germans have). Ignorance of their past makes the Japanese less than ideal allies today - it makes it easier for fascistic types to get elected to their government. But Americans also, apparently, still need to come to grips with how bad war is and the slaughter that we perpetrated in trying to win that one. To put the behavior of a few officers and soldiers in this specific incident at the end of the war in perspective, the firebombing of Tokyo killed over 100,000 people, while Hiroshima and Nagasaki together killed 140,000 people. Other population centers were decimated in the same way. How many of those soldiers had found out their relatives or friends were being burned to death, perhaps by those same airmen? War had become a such a nightmare that no civilian outside the United States was safe - on any side.
    But I take particular issue with the video's claims that are backhanded excuses for the wholesale slaughter of cities. 1st, what parts for aircraft or ships were made in the cottage industry that they describe - the leather straps and uniforms? Planes require precision parts, and those parts are mostly metal and have to be machined. You cannot do any of that in a house or even a mansion. 2nd, the bombing of Japanese cities and their civilian populations in 1945 was done for the exact same reason that Hitler had earlier switched to bombing England's cities, and Nixon turned to bombing North Vietnamese cities - to demoralize the enemy so that they sue for peace ASAP. That is it -- demoralization by rapid carnage. Necessary at the time? Maybe. Perceived as necessary? Yes. Successful in its objective? Mostly not. Let's not sugar coat it by claiming firebombing civilians was the only way to stop Japanese industry that was scattered in cottages throughout Japan. What a crock! Our ancestors bombed them to save potentially hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives by taking hundreds of thousands of lives? Duh, no! The demoralization/depopulation of Japan was to save *American* lives. A worthy cause under the circumstances, but not a well-meaning, generous act by the US Military. Give me a break. Maybe if America had experienced real modern war on its home soil (not just our colony at Pearl Harbor), I would hear less BS warmongering today from my fellow Americans over every foe they perceive out there. Maybe if those people had been around to experience the Civil War (on home soil), they might not talk so much about starting a civil war today.
    But history (along with civics) is taught very poorly in America; it is not a STEM subject.

    • @brunel23
      @brunel23 Год назад

      Targeting of civilians seems to be a common and popular tactic in war. Its only a matter of time before a Russian dictator gets ideas with his nuclear trigger finger. Agreed that most people aren't interested in history and don't bother to learn it. Its a pity, as history always repeats itself (because we fail to learn our lessons the first time).

    • @GEO-PAN
      @GEO-PAN Год назад +1

      Very well said!!!

    • @SmegHedd117
      @SmegHedd117 Год назад

      Youngster, You weren't there! You can sit here decades later and safe and comfy and talk shit about what they had to do back then. Back then, the Japanese people were willing to die as a people for their Emperor! that means EVERYBODY! We had to show them what was going to happen if the war would continue. The warrior ethic of Bushido was drummed into the people from youth. We can talk about Civil War today because you leftists want to take away our freedoms. Our right to free speech, our right to bear arms, these rights are God-given and we will fight for them. are you willing to fight to take them?

    • @1912papa
      @1912papa Год назад +1

      An Iowa State University history professor commented years ago that the war in the Pacific was a race war. That stuck with me over the years. Recently the algorithm presented the real first hand accounts of pacific veterans in their own unfiltered words. Their hatred for the Japanese was extremely intense. My father was in the Pacific and demonstrated that hatred

    • @MrChopsticktech
      @MrChopsticktech Год назад

      @@1912papa I am in no way judging your father, but I think race had a lot to do with things. Americans took ears, gold fillings from teeth, skulls etc. from Japanese military, but I can't imagine them doing the same to Germans.

  • @maxlasthero1673
    @maxlasthero1673 Год назад +3

    Bombing the of civilians is war crime!! ...... Those poor valiant American pilots...... they get shot down over the enemy they are trying to kill, what do they expect when captured! Bacon/eggs for breakfast! LOL

  • @johnholliday5874
    @johnholliday5874 Год назад +1

    Be better off to go down with the aircraft.

  • @christophermoore9436
    @christophermoore9436 Год назад +1

    We should’ve dropped a third bomb

    • @jeffpotipco736
      @jeffpotipco736 Год назад

      Too much. Japan was still a fiuedal society then. Germany too.

  • @stevemaynards.g.t
    @stevemaynards.g.t Год назад +5

    Sad story TJ knew Japanese were bad in the war things they did were unbelievable 😕

    • @Eric-kn4yn
      @Eric-kn4yn Год назад

      Australian prisoners under Nippon never forgotten bur were friends against imperial China now

  • @briankorbelik2873
    @briankorbelik2873 11 месяцев назад

    Also I've read that some Americn bombcrews were shot down on or very near the island pf Chichi Jima, no far from Iwo Jima.
    The commander of the POW camp, as well as the doctor decided that August 15th Japan funally agrred to peace as a non-conditional surrounder, the three Japanse decided to excute some of the US fliers, then they cooked the POW's liver's and ate them, They have eaten other parts of the POW's as well, if indeed they did, I think it was the the rear of the dead POW's thighs as well as the Amrtican fliers buttocks. I personally think that is a war crime, I hope that ere caught and justice served.
    And some PC chowder heads claims that it was amoral to drop the A-Bombs. Nope, the US, the British Commonwealth soldiers, Dutch and many other nations, and the Philippine islands, and most others in East Asia probably felt like hanging them all,? I'll finish withn one of the many stories that two of my uncles in my own family had told me, after the war was long over which I firmly believe, my one uncle who was the crew chief of USN PBY5-A in one of the "Black Cat" Squadrons landed on Eniwetok, my older of the two brothers to see combat while in the USN, checked his crew while landing and was told by whomever ground officer (Japanese), that there was an O'Donnell on the island, my uncle Bill asked what he looked like and was told that my uncle Jim, other O'Donnell kn fhe lsland , sported a very find and Dandy and Sported a big red beard. So uncle Jim was invited aboard the PBY for some delishious Rabbit that was served, and against all regulations, they drank Ye olde brandy for afters. And the crew got rabbit stew while most of the "Swabbies", had ro eat whatever had been ordered that day, unless the Japanse dignataries brougt booze on board, had to climb aboard the USS Missouri to sign whever docs, for unconditional that surender he/they the Japanese dignataries had go/walk high , sign to make sure the war was *finially over," Just about then hundreds upon hundreds of American carrier based aircraft made a fly over, slowly.

  • @Eric-kn4yn
    @Eric-kn4yn Год назад

    Jet stream not slip stream

  • @johnschofield9496
    @johnschofield9496 Год назад +4

    What happened to the surviving American POW's AFTER the war was as much a crime as what happened during the war. Our government, in their infinite wisdom and concern for the men who suffered so much for THEM, decided NO American could sue Japan for ANY of the horrors committed against them during the war, the ONLY allied nation to issue such a prohibition !

    • @arohk1579
      @arohk1579 Год назад +1

      I guess the deaths of roughly 1,600 plus Japanese American prisoners who died in U.S. internment camps at the beginning of the U.S. involvement of WW2, as well as those who lost their land as well as suffered was good payback for the atrocities Japan committed later in the war on POW's.

    • @MrChopsticktech
      @MrChopsticktech Год назад

      Not true. In 40 years of studying the war, I never heard of it, and a Google search l did just now doesn't have any results.
      It would be interesting to hear from Allies outside of the US, I may be wrong.