Posted by Doc Dave [172.70.34.171] on Saturday, August 07, 2021 at 11:45:35 :
In Reply to: 7 August 1942 Guadalcanal Landing D-Day + 79 years posted by Donald F. Blair [172.69.62.150] on Saturday, August 07, 2021 at 09:47:42 :
Amen to that.
I knew a man who was a Navy Corpsman and was taken prisoner on Guam a few days after Pearl Harbor. He survived over 3 and a half years imprisonment in Japan. He said that toward the end of the war, the guards frequently told him and his comrades that when the first American soldier steps foot on the Japanese main islands, that the prisoners would all be executed.
This was a form of mental torture to them.
I believe the Japanese military was planning to send every available person to defend the islands to the death and didn’t want to bother with prisoners.
This man credited the atomic bombs with saving his life, as well as his comrades, because with the disruption they caused -and Japan’s abrupt surrender- the “kill order” was not carried out.
Follow Ups: