Let’s hope this party isn’t a blast
Posted by ampontan on Wednesday, March 11, 2009
THE CASUALTIES OF WAR are devastating enough when they occur during the heat of the conflict, but are a shocking tragedy when they recur without warning more than a half-century later.
Bomb disposal unit
The people of Okinawa need no additional explanation. Their islands became a charnel house in 1945 when they were the only extensively populated part of Japan to be invaded by Allied forces. Yet it is still possible for the Okinawans to be killed or maimed today because of that war, almost 64 years since the day it ended.
That’s because Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force (the army) estimates that 2,500 tons of unexploded bombs and other munitions remain underground, which they think will take another 80 years to remove. From the surrender to the end of last year, the SDF had disposed of a total of 1,378,060 unexploded devices, more than 30,000 of which were collected and defused in 2008 alone.
The worst single incident involving these munitions occurred in August 1948, when an American ship tasked with removing them from the island of Iejima blew up, killing 106 and injuring 73 on a nearby ferry.
Incidents occur even in the most commonplace settings, however. Last January in Itoman, a workman was operating a power shovel during a minor construction project. The removal of the earth caused a hole to open under a hidden artillery shell. The hole collapsed, the shell detonated, and the workman was buried in dirt and bloodied by shards of glass.
The windows at the Itoman kindergarten
In fact, the explosion hurled rock and earth for several hundred meters and shattered glass in the windows of a nearby kindergarten. The people in the neighborhood thought it sounded like thunder, but a nearby 74-year-old survivor of the Battle of Okinawa knew exactly what had happened. He remembered what exploding shells sounded like.
It’s astonishing to consider, but from the end of the war through this fiscal year, which ends this month, the financial liability for the disposal of any of these unexploded devices found during construction work or for other projects was split equally between the national government and the municipal government in which the munition was found. The Ministry of Finance has allocated enough funds in the new budget, however, for the national government to assume the entire expense starting next month, a step welcomed by the municipalities.
But just as astonishingly, the new allocations will apply only to public sector projects. The national government will pick up all the expenses if, say, an unexploded bomb is discovered when a local town is laying new sewer lines. The government won’t foot the bill if something turns up during private-sector projects, such as the excavation work to build an apartment house.
This is such an unusual policy that even local Okinawan government authorities are hard put to find a rationale for it. Several municipal officers have stated publicly they see no reason for a distinction to be made.
Not only are unexploded bombs still causing problems more than 60 years since the armistice—the Japanese government is still incapable of making level-headed decisions about the war after all these years.
Afterwords: This is also a problem in Germany, as one might expect. Here’s an excellent article in the English version of Der Spiegel about a bomb disposal expert, and another about the work to remove unexploded bombs at the Tegel Airport in Berlin.
The German expert thinks it wouldn’t be so difficult to find and remove all the unexploded devices, but the government won’t pony up for it unless they have to.
mac said
Its worth remembering more than 107,000 Japanese and Okinawan conscripts were killed on Okinawa and as many as 100,000 Okinawan civilians. The Battle of Okinawa is said to have been the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War and, probably only outstripped in its awfulness by the likes of Kursk. Over 20,000 were said to have been buried alive. Prior to the war, the people of Okinawa, for whom the war had no interest and lived a natural and fairly marginal existence, had had land and farms forcibly expropriated. As man as 250,000 died on a island’s whose population was around 500,000. The warmth and the monsoons cooking them into an hellish mud stew.
Its a shame that the Yamato never made to the island to even the odds a little, the American’s tend not to have the stomach for fighting against even odds. I am never at ease with the apparent disparateness of Allied versus Japanese fatalities. I am forced to put them down to one force with airpower versus one without, or one with natural resources versus one with few rather than hold the Allies as the “better” fighting force.
I am off the school that maintains the Whiteman had no right to be messing around with East Asia in the first place, and if he got his teeth kicked once or twice, he deserved. Dirty selfish and ‘racistly’ messing around all of East Asia he had been, since the Hispanic Christians went into divide, conquer and enslave, following by the Anglo-Americans.
In my opinion, the Pacific Asian War – with the expressed aim of subjugating all Asian people and forcibly opening up their markets and resources to Western domination – had been brewing for 100 or more years before it was contrived to finally kick off; and that it continued on through Korea, Vietnam and so on after. Japan seen at first as little more than an entrée, a light appetizer.
What should have Japan done? Why should it have had to bow to the Whiteman? I have the impression that the Japanese were, in fact, far more efficient and more reasonable than they are portrayed in the victor’s history books and there was little else they could do in their various situations; jam in the sandwich between Russia, China and aggressive Anglo-Americans. I also suspect that their “gains” and “successes” during the various campaigns were disproportionately far greater than any of the Allies IF measured relatively to the two sides’ natural resources.
But, having said that, war are not fought by “peoples”, they are fought by warlords and transnational power mongers above the heads, and over the bodies, of all people and it is they have have my sympathies. The Okinawans were described as being “caught between the hammer and the anvil” by Governor, Masahide Ota.
Even at the battle’s beginning, 75% of their homes were destroyed, 66% having been burned, (the Americans’ preferred weapon against civilian targets). Witnesses described Okinawa as having “every tree, every plant is gone” almost the entire island razed to the ground, the population traumatized by the extent of the bombardment. Many died of starvation afterwards. I have no idea how they rebuilt their lives, their families and their islands … and then opened them again to either the Japanese or Americans. There is an untold story. Its a wonder soldier suffer post-traumatic stress disorder but civilians don’t.
I am disgusted by the bravado of those that revel in, romanticize and even continue to fight the violence of those days, all over the internet with their fanboy websites and nationalistic breast beating wikiwars. The vast majority neither being alive, serving nor having faced entirely rebuilding life. I’d love to take their little noses and rub them on unexploded ordinance, or perhaps just bind them for life looking after some legless child to three generations later.
As a starter, try: Tennozan, The Battle of Okinawa by George Feifer
Big D said
1,378,060 unexploded device founded in over 60 years? and another 80 years to go? just how many bombs were dropped in Okinawa or left their by the Japaneses?
That’s alot….
Trapped in Brazil said
When they arrived at Okinawa, the americans begun killing even children with their bayonets. Tossed explosives on civilians (Womans and children) who tried to hide thenselves and many other things that westerns don´t like to admit, since they are the good guys acting in the name of God. We should take those bombs put them on a unmanned ship headed to some USA port, since the bombs belongs to them, it would just be polite of us to return those.
But this post by Ampontan is good to remind me of a thing: the Americans betray their Japanese allies and the Japanese pass on that betrayal to their Okinawan allies, who literaly, gave their blood for them. Until a few years ago, even here in Brazil, we, okinawans, were not quite well treated by or “friends” from the main islands, but when their associations wanted money, we were all “japanese brothers”.
mac said
The Okinawans are still getting it in the face in other ways since WWII;
Source emission testing of the munitions deactivation furnace, Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan. Final report. Scott, P.T.
Source emission testing for total lead and particulates was conducted on the munitions deactivation furnace located in the 400th Munitions Squadron area of Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan.
Test results indicate that if most state or EPA standards were to apply, the munitions incinerator would exceed these standards.
Total lead is also high, but there are no appropriate standards in which to compare.
Okinawa was, and is still, a huge stopping off point for US munitions headed for other recipients.
mac said
Actually, the other thing your post made me think about, Trapped … and this is pretty obscure … is the “Japan” all the critics bitch about is really an alien culture that came over to the archipelago from China and Korea.
Reading about the Ainu, the Jomon and now what you write about the Okinawa … I am left wondering if the story is similar to the British Isles where the Picts and Celts gradually got pushed back and nigh extinguished by more aggressive Anglo-Saxon and Norse invaders making the “England” then when on to enslave all the world it could.
Look at many of the faces here, I cant see different cultures. Some looking much more like Pacific Islanders and Indonesians than the usual Chinese or Korean. I know very, very little about Japanese ethnology and so can only ask questions rather than offer answers. I remember the little stir the Emperor caused by admitting they had Korean blood.
This casts a long shadow right down into WWII history … basically, what I would theorise is that rather than a “Japan” whacking “Korea” etc, really what you had were two elements of the same family fighting over the heads and bodies of more native people. Obviously into that mix we have the eradication and discrimination of the indigenous Ainu.
OK .. no answers today … only questions. Who are “the Japanese”? If you were to as me who are “the English”, the English that everyone speaks about are more the Norman descendents rather than British. I am wondering if the same principle applies to Japan?
Where I am, the “Japanese” only finally conquered here in the 1970s and, at that time, the women were still wading in bare breasted to pull the fishing boats out and ox were still carrying around urns of human manure by way of a sewage system.
Trapped in Brazil said
Interesting point Mac, what you said is true, and if we take that further, we can´t answer who are the americans, who are the french, even who are the sudaneses, everyone becames…. people. In reality we, the humans, are a bunch of idiots battling each other, trying to impose our superiority when we are all the same, but then again, we are human, and stupidity is part of being so. (Man, we are doommed).
mac said
Or, that there are two sorts of people; one that just is happy and wants to get on with their own little lives; and the other that is restless, wants to divide, rule and conqueror and is quite happy to murder to do so.
The second sort exists in all peoples and at all times. They are the enemy, not any one particular nation or tribe. I would kind of subscribe to that.
“The People” – of all nations – can’t and don’t all get up one day together and say, “I know what, let’s invade Manchuria/Meso-America/The Gold Coast …”.
Its that second sort conniving and colluding amongst themselves – often across borders – for some more of the pie that do … and then whip up others to support them.
Trapped in Brazil said
I agree, but unfortunately, it´s always the second type of people who got elected in any country
mac said
Thinking about your comments about the Americans on Okinawa … ditto, on the mainland all the rapes and violations by the American military of Japanese women and girls were censored, covered up and plain not allowed to be reported.
If you go back to the old papers and reports, the clues are very subtle like, ‘girl raped by group of “tall” men’. The readers would know that “tall” meant gaijin.
This is just a quick copy and paste from elsewhere …
“In the first 10 days of the occupation, over one thousand rapes were committed in Kanagawa prefecture alone … there were around 40 reported rapes a day until the spring of 1946 then the figures rose to over 300 reported rapes a day, mass rapes, due to the criminalization of prostitution.”
(Those are just reported NOT “committed”).
“On April 4, 50 GIs broke into a hospital in Omori prefecture and raped 77 women, including a woman who had just given birth. It is also reported that the woman’s baby was killed during the assault. On April 11, forty US soldiers cut phone lines to a housing block in Nagoya city, and simultaneously raped “many girls and women between the ages of 10 and 55 years.”
And, of course, America’s rape machine carried on in Okinawa to this day.
So … the bottomline is … whatever the crimes the Japanese military did commit, it stopped in 1945. The Americans started somewhere back in the 18th Century, from the Battle of Trenton on and are still continuing to this day.
But, let’s just point the finger at some long, dead and gone Japan instead ….
tokyojesusfist said
Mac
The US military has fought against even odds many, many times, but like any sane military they want to avoid doing so if possible.
Why? Do you believe that when two countries go to war they should make sure that they both have an equal amount of casualties so nobody feels bad?
Japan invaded China and Korea and then declared war on the US, so I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
Not start a war?
Even though you engage in the same behavior.
Pretty sure that goes for you too.
Good thing Japan never did anything morally questionable (Unit 731? Rape of Nanking? Never heard of them!), or start any wars.
What fucking “rape machine?”
You’re pointing the finger at a long dead and gone US.
Trapped in Brazil
Japan started the war.
This really is a weird site.
Bender said
Mac is probably not Japanese, so your accusation that he is a “nationalist” is awfully off the mark.
ampontan said
This coming from a guy who chooses to go by the name of Tokyojesusfist.
Bender said
This coming from a guy who chooses to go by the name of Tokyojesusfist.
I never knew WWII was a crusade.
tokyojesusfist said
Bender, well he sure as hell sounds like a nationalist. If all else fails, he is at least an apologist.
mac said
tokyojesusfist – I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
That’s the problem Jesus. You don’t. You only know the blinkered Yankee comic book propaganda you have been spoonfed and conditioned by.
What I wrote was clear. Whatever individuals in Showa military did, they did (and only what they did, not all the propaganda that has been dreamed up since).
The big difference is they stopped in 1945 whereas the US military has continued on since from the widespread raping across Japan post-1945, through the industrialization of the sex industry in East Asia (Korea, Thailand, Philippines which directly involves sexual slavery and human trafficking across a dozen countries, to the continued rapes around military bases in Japan today.
Those are just part of the crimes against women and children.
As I went on to state, if you then ass all the US Government sponsored terrorism across Latin-America, Africa, Middle East and Asia – which basically entails the support of every evil despot world history has known since then, several waves of genocide and so on … again it is the women and children.
When the Yankees started their ethnic cleansing of the Native Americans …. yup, you got it … women and children again. Of course, it was women and children they were pulling out of Africa through out the history of slavery and it is women and children that make up the victims of the sexual slavery that has gone into 50 plus years of “R&R” across Asia.
Hence my comments, whereas Japan stopped, the US and its despot puppets have always continued to wage racist wars and targetted women and children in the pursuit of its goals of financial self-interest … NOT “democratic” or humanitarian ones.
No, I am not a nationalist and, no, I am not even an apologist. I just like the truth and facts and am over comic history books.
If you look at the facts of WWII, America was already specifically at war with Japan prior to Pearl Harbor and had been, economically speaking, for 100 years prior. It had no right to.
It “won” by murdering non-combatant women and children.
mac said
Sorry, I just wanted to qualify that …
where a women or young girl is forced or coerced into providing sexual services to foreign military presense either directly, e.g. by rape, trafficking etc, or indirectly by ecomonic circumstances brought about by foreign military invasion, e.g. breakdown of normal society, death of family etc … I class those both as rape.
Bearing in mind that the number of individual serving the US military post-WWII were over 2 million … I ask you, how many of those were trully voluntary? I answer, basically, nil. Few to no women chose to do so unless forced.
It is part of America’s persistent racist and pornographic myth that Asian women are whores.
Now, I suspect Jesus uses his fist more for jerking off than reading real book without pictures … but, please, do stick around and start your real education. The US was not only working through various elements in China but also the USSR.
Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote: “For impressive evidence of Western participation in the early phase of Soviet economic growth, see Antony C. Sutton’s Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development: 1917-1930, which argues that ‘Soviet economic development for 1917-1930 was essentially dependent on Western technological aid’ (p.283), and that ‘at least 95 per cent of the industrial structure received this assistance.’ (p. 348).”
ampontan said
Here is a friendly reminder that any ad hominem comments directed toward other posters will be either eliminated or edited out. Me, I don’t care about.
I believe in free speech, but since I also receive an e-mail of of all comments, I consider those kinds of remarks junk mail. It also tends to discourage other posters from participating, particularly women.
Nobody’s there yet, but this is to make sure that nobody does get there.
Other than that, people can say whatever they like.
mac said
OK. I apologize for the fist remark but … bearing in mind the comments about the Marine Corps behavior on Okinawa, this is just for Jesus’s sake and this is “America”. Now please tell me what Japan has been doing?
50 years on ,John Stockwell, 13-year veteran of the CIA and former U.S. Marine Corps major:
“I don’t mean to abuse you with verbal violence, but you have to understand what your Government and its agents are doing. They go into villages. They haul out families. With the children forced to watch, they castrate the father. They peel the skin off his face. They put a grenade in his mouth, and pull the pin. With the children forced to watch, they gang-rape the mother, and slash her breasts off. And sometimes, for variety, they make the parents watch while they do these things to the children.
“This is nobody’s propaganda! There have been over a hundred thousand American “Witnesses for Peace” who’ve gone down there, and they have filmed and photographed and witnessed these atrocities immediately after they’ve happened, and documented thirteen thousand people killed this way – mostly women and children.”
tokyojesusfist said
Mac
Except none of this has happened. Yes, soldiers have raped women, but that’s hardly the same thing as a “rape machine” operating in Japan. It is absolutely impossible for an organization as big as the US military to be free of bad apples.
Anyway, your logic is basically this: because of all the real and imagined crimes the US has been responsible for since its inception, Japan has never done anything wrong. Somehow I am not following your logic. You are also trying to redirect the discussion away from Japan’s role in WW2 by complaining about every US-related topic under the sun.
If you think the US has specifically gone out of its way to target women and children, you are delusional. I am also not seeing anything un-democratic or un-humanitarian about the way the US treated Germany, Japan and Korea.
I think you have a promising career in the field of historical fanfiction. Kind of like Dan Brown.
Americans are always racists no matter what they do, so this claim is meaningless.
And Japan did the same thing in China, only more so. What is your point?