Although the war in Europe was over,
the Japanese were still fighting and there seemed to be no prospect of an
early end to the war with it's many restrictions. Then one day we heard that
the world's first atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima followed shortly
afterwards by another on Nagasaki.
At that time we hadn't known about the atomic bomb; didn't even know what it was. We were just overjoyed that after 5 long years of bombing, short rations, lack of spare time, austerity, lost teenage years, stumbling around in darkness, learning the most efficient ways to kill, we were at last going to be able to resume a more or less 'normal' life.
Although we soon found out that the most destructive weapon in history had just been released and had killed so many people, most of whom were civilians, we couldn't care less. All we took in was that the war, which was not of our making, was at last over.
When the Allied forces went into the concentration camps run by Germany they found irrefutable evidence of probably the most despicable crime of all time; they were places where the only purpose was the extermination of humans who had already been faced with degradation and torture and starvation and disposing of their bodies like so much garbage.
And yet the Germans treated their prisoners of war (at least some of them) with respect according to the Geneva convention. Sometimes the prisoners were better off for small luxuries and cigarettes than their guards, thanks to the Red Cross.
Not so the Japanese. With their culture, alien to that of the West, they believed that to surrender was to lose all right to any consideration. Prisoners of war were treated extremely harshly as was portrayed in the film "Bridge over the River Kwai" and more so on the infamous Burma railway.
Whereas British POWs of the Germans were able to go back after the war, 'make up' and even become friends with their former guards, there have been few POWs of the Japanese who feel the same way. I had a friend who had been a POW of the Japanese. Apparently healthy he suffered moods of black despair, reliving his time in Japanese hands. Three years ago, in a swimming pool, I met a man who had lost a leg below the knee. He had been a POW of the Japanese and the standard punishment for any offence, like failing to bow, was beating about the ankles with a bamboo rod. After release he had had to have the leg amputated.
The sad thing is that the world is not a better place today. The Japanese were the first warriors to commit suicide in 'battle'. They were the Kamikaze air pilots. This has been continued and 'improved' upon by fundamentalist religious nut cases. In both cases they were and are brainwashed and manipulated by others who run no risks themselves.
Make no mistake: the potential for extermination camps, ill-treatment of prisoners etc. is still there. Every country and nationality has a small percentage of people with sadistic tendencies, many followers and a majority who will turn a blind eye.
During and after the war we were told about Command sorties into Norway to destroy German plants making 'heavy water'. We didn't know that it was used in the development and manufacture of atomic bombs and it's known that the Germans were close to making their own atomic bomb. They'd already got the V2, a ballistic missile, that had been used on England, so who can doubt that the German atomic bomb would have been used on us if ready?
Before people start criticising "Bomber Harris" for the wholesale bombing of German cities including the destruction of Dresden or the dropping of the atom bombs they should try five years of deprivation, anxiety, fear and boredom, with the prospect of maybe at least two more years.
