Original subtitles

comes alive The History Channel for over fourteen dreadful years between 1932 and

1945 a nation revered for the courteous grace of its ancient civilization went

on a rampage of war and atrocity Japanese war crimes were committed over an immense portion of the earth 1931 in

Manchuria all the way throughout the Pacific all the way down to the outer

rims of Australia in Burma India by the summer of 1942 the Japanese had taken

over 320,000 Allied prisoners in their early victorious sweep through the

Pacific being a prisoner of the Japanese would prove 17.5 times more lethal than fighting them they would shoot him a

bane atom and behead him and they hung me by my thumbs just like that over the

bamboo so that my feet were about two inches from the from the ground

on the second day my feet touched the ground now I don't know if my thumbs had just stretched that much or whether the

bamboo tying did people drinking blood cutting cutting throats and stuff like

that and they were beckoned blood they were out of their mind it was that bad

if I had it to do over again I'd commit suicide I wouldn't go through anything

like this anymore

as military slaughter raged in the Pacific prisoner extermination was keeping pace at the Bataan Death March

Visayan Burma Death Railway Palawan and prisons like out from Road Cabanatuan

Changi and Taliban nor was civilian populations fare over six million

Chinese died in a hidden holocaust as at Nuremberg in Germany with Hitler's Nazis

justice would be meted out to the accused murderers in a world trial from

1946 to 1949 jurists from 11 aggrieved Nations would try over 5,700 defendants

but the difficulties would be more daunting politically and judicially than in the far better known trials at

Nuremberg the justice was real and widespread

however if individual submitted to justice

Japan the nation declined to do so overall any sort of our reasonable

observer would have to say that Japan has been in denial of the outrageous

feats the atrocities that Japanese perform during World War two

while the economy and political scars of the Asian War healed quickly after the

trial the bitterness of the survivors of Japanese brutality often did not I used

to try to forget about this stuff I try to black it out but can't always do that

[Music]

on the eve of war in 1941 Japan stood as a nation forcibly opened to the West in

1854 less than a century before she had leaped from a near medieval society to an impressive modern industrial force at

dizzying speed less adaptable were political traditions the nominally

democratic government was actually a dangerous maze of shifting alliances

between families politicians secret societies and military cliques the only

constant was the Emperor Hirohito venerated fanatically in a bewildering system where he was half puppet and half

puppeteer by the late twenties strident nationalists in and out of the army were

intimidating peaceful institutions with bombings and assassinations the fascism

that would soon engulf Europe started early in Japan one of the strongest

tenets was racism Japanese soldiers were taught that they were superior to white

people to Indians to people who lived in the South Seas to the indo-chinese and

certainly the Chinese and they were taught that whites would eventually have

to serve Japanese masters to fulfill the supposed destiny of their small barren

Islands the Japanese Kwantung army a rogue force moved to the mainland in

1931 to conquer the economic resources of Northeast China a series of

trumped-up provocations would help Japan's military move steadily through the 30s to expand their Dominion against

a feeble China year by year the mold was set for Japanese policy of merciless

distress action of military and civilian captives

when it suited operations politics or just plain sport they instituted forced

prostitution and an army dominated narcotics monopoly in 1937 the city of

Nanking was brutalized in days of calculated terror and bloodshed Japanese

soldiers will turn the leaves on the city they were documented some 20,000 cases of rape and also it's estimated no

one knows for certain that about 200-thousand helpless Chinese peasants

and soldiers were murdered

you

an attack on the United States gunboat Pinay was part of Japan's aggressive

moves into Southeast Asia with an eye to acquire its wealth of natural resources

from the French and Dutch it led to a US oil embargo in October 1941 the army

under Hideki Tojo effectively took control of the government and led the

way to war with the West Tojo with the seeming assent of the

Emperor authorized a crushingly effective surprise attack on the United

States at Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941 with the American fleet smashed the

Japanese ran off a stunning string of victories all across the Pacific

prisoners white and Asian piled up as Singapore Hong Kong Guam wake and the

Indies fell at Singapore 130,000 British soldiers surrendered the general

Tomoyuki Yamashita for every free Australian soldier - were prisoners

[Music]

Yamashita ordered the killing of all suspected chinese undesirables including

men with tattoos because they might belong to secret societies in the

Philippines Japanese general Hama had Manila bombed after it had been declared

an open City a humiliated Douglas MacArthur escaped before his 80,000

American and Filipino troops surrendered at Bataan mama was unprepared for so

large a captive force

some 50,000 wounded disease-ridden and starving prisoners began a disorganized

ill supplied march through blazing heat to inadequate prison camps a hundred

miles away but none of that was the main horror of what would be called the death

march the Japanese warrior code of Bushido

said do not survive to suffer the dishonor of capture surrender made

captives subhuman Americans French and British that were held by the Germans

only about four percent died by the Japanese some 27 percent of British Americans Australians Canadians Indians

died

the European prisoners were part of a race that in the Philippines Indonesia

Malaya and Hong Kong had dominated 77 million Asians now Asians had the power

of life or death over the former masters this was a clash not just of armies but of cultures the series of badly handled

movements of the Bataan prisoners two camps in the north began in April 1942 and lasted for deadly days later there

were the only sketch artists to depict the worst of it Japanese beat soldiers

brutally chopped off fingers to get West Point rings and murdered men caught with

Japanese money there was no water and without water

walking in a hundred and five hundred and sixty degree heat under those

conditions you were dying of thirst and many of the men who ran into caribou

hollows where they pushed away the scum of the water just to get the water

underneath to drink it and that carried with him all kinds of bacteria I was

walking on the outside of the marching road when Japanese officer was coming by

on horseback and as he started to gallop by he was swinging his samuri sword from

left to right on his horse you know luckily I had ducked just enough to miss

the neck but the sword caught me on the back of the shoulder and slipped me down

the back to fall out or fall back was to die beneath Japanese bayonets bullets or

swords the survival rule was never fall if you showed that you were strong you

were able to survive and by strong I mean standing up on your own two feet I

mean that when they hit you you stood up when they beat you you stood up you

didn't fall down anybody who fell down was dead men on

the outside of the stumbling column newest special hell as Japanese passing

in trucks struck savage blows with everything from

rifle butts to golf clubs all done in the spirit of

buddy's tried to keep men from giving up I said that I'm gonna fall out he said

you can't do that I said I can't help it our God I started to fall out another

door and I slowly school gray-haired colonel

I looked at him he gave me a bad time one time I looked at him I said the

federal gray-haired bastard can make it so can i and I just kept right on going

the toll would have been grimmer except for the brave Filipinos along the road

they would try to give you a drink of water they would try to pass a piece of

sugar to you or whatever they could do to make it a little easier for you and

many of them who were killed because of that pennies did not want any Filipinos

a diamond to display any affection or loyalty to the American forces the

bodies of dead Americans were literally just lining both sides of the road both

sides the ditches we're dead Americans I saw a Japanese tank deliberately swerved from its

course and run over an American and just flattened them into the ground his body

became a part of the royal official flattening one man found that he was

counting an average of two chopped off heads per mile skill with the sword was

prized among the Japanese and this was a rare chance to practice their stroke

officers tore off insignia because Japanese zeroed in on them they were

carrying me when they really should have been carried that's how weak they were

so my friend saved my life on that March there's no question about it and one of

the hardest things was coming home and having to say to their mothers and

fathers that their kids didn't come back but I did the 50,000 men who arrived at

the newly organized prison at Camp O'Donnell found accommodations and water

for just 8,000 the men were dying at a hundred and fifty two hundred a day

malaria was was was bad dysentery was so bad that the men would go to sleep next

to a slit trench just so that it during the night if they had a

the cake they would just roll over they had one water spigot perform was 15,000

people many guys stayed in line eight nine ten hours guards mostly army

sweepings were to likely to be embittered wounded veterans incompetence

drunks and sadists they picked up names like dr. death mad mongrel big misery

and maggot one American soldier who had dropped his pants was hunched over this

latrine pit Japanese guard came up and just ran him through with his bayonet

and then reached up and shoved him off the end of the bayonet into the latrine

pit where he disappeared another Japanese guard standing there laughing that's a frustrating feeling

not to be able to do anything about it

escapers were often hung from barbed wire and beaten and bayonetted to death

beating became an AR