Challenge: Japanese obey Geneva Convention

How do you get to a state of mind within the Japanese military where the civil population of an occupied territory are treated in a way that the 'Nanking' could not occur!?
Or that the beheading of allied flyers shot down over Japanese territory, and the killing of ship-wreck survivors - couldn't occur!?
 
Apparently not much of a challenge. The Japanese treated Russian prisoners well in 1904-5 and German prisoners well in 1914-8.

So what happened? There was rather more stress on not surrendering around 1932. For example, there were 7 films made about Major Kuga Nobore http://www.citwf.com/film190009.htm. There was also a feeling that the West was hostile following the end of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, Australian and American hostility to emigration and high tariffs on Japanese goods. Thus there was less pressure to follow Western codes. Perhaps inspired by the worsening relationship with the West, some rather violent people rose to positions of influence and often were just as willing to kill Japanese (2.26.1936). Often these were posted to Manchuria to keep them out of Japan. In China, no one treated Chinese prisoners well http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/other/boxer-natal.htm and the Japanese claimed that they were fighting bandits in Manchuria from 1931. Thus bad habits developed!!

If you want a POD for treating prisoners better, a possibility might be a very senior IJA officer (probably only Prince Kan'in could do this) deciding when hostilities opened in Shanghai in 1937 that Chiang was never going to make peace. He decides that it will be necessary to create a new pro-Japanese government and realises that it will need an army. He then gives orders that the German trained army near Shanghai is to be captured (assuming that it would be unhappy with leaders who leave it behind).
 
After a little further thought, I remember that IJA officers were shocked by the number of prisoners who surrendered in Europe during WW1. They argued correctly that Japan would have an advantage because Japanese would not surrender (and tried to ensure by training that they were correct). A possible POD would have been that they also tried to exploit this advantage by developing psychological tactics to try to take the enemy prisoner. This might have seemed plausible as the Soviet forces would contain nationalists and anti-communists while the European empires used Asian troops. As well as starting the Nakano school earlier for subversion, they might have quickly realised that getting a reputation for mistreating prisoners would be counter-productive.
 
Last edited:
For anyone interested in reading more on the subject try:-
Slaughter at Sea, The Story of Japan's Naval War Crimes, By Mark Felton ISBN 978 1 84415 647 4

To quote P9/10
Admiral Togo told his officers, 'The English navy is very great .. Study it. See all you can. Learn all you can ... All other navies are negligible beside it.' But even in the early twentieth century, when many British officers served in the imperial Japanese Navy as advisors and training instructors, these men noted that one important aspect of the ethos of the Royal Navy was conspicous by its absence. The Japanes, though to all intents and purposes having carefully created a carbon copy of Briatin's navy, had failed to inculcate the officers and men with the British traditions of compassion, honourable warfare, civic duty and a care of duty towards those whose ships had been sunk or were otherwise rendered helpless. The Japanese were simply not interested in these concepts as they felt them to be alien in origin and not reflective of Japanese society and military culture.

I must admit, my perception was that it was the Japanese Army that was to blame for war crimes, but it seems the IJN was just as bad e.g. it was IJN policy after a submarine attack on a merchant vessel to machine gun any survivors and liferafts.

But then maybe I looking from a 'western' perspective, if it had been another Asian country rather than Japan would the actions/morality be much different!??
 
But then maybe I looking from a 'western' perspective, if it had been another Asian country rather than Japan would the actions/morality be much different!??
Certainly the description of the fall of Nanking after the Taiping Rebellion sounds quite similar to 1937 http://www.ibiblio.org/chinesehistory/contents/03pol/c03s02.html. However, remember which countries attacked civilians most effectively from the air. Also attacking lifeboats after sinking warships or troopships was standard US and occasional British practice.
 
Top