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Japan's Role In Ww2 Essay

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The ‘Dominant Narrative’ - Japan
a) Outline the actions of your country towards civilians and/or POWs during WW2. (250)
During World War II, the Japanese committed many crimes towards civilians and prisoners of war. The high death rates of POWs and civilians under Japanese occupation alongside with the sheer scale of suffering, contributed significantly to the controversy of Japan’s role in the war. Japan operated numerous atrocities towards civilians and POWs including: attacking neutral powers, mass killings, human experimentation, torture, cannibalism, forced labour, and the exploitation of comfort women.
The Japanese attack of Pearl Harbour, in 1941, resulted in 3649 military and civilian casualties classified as non-combatant because the US was still neutral at the time. This violence was an act of intentional, unreasonable, destruction of life that undermined a hope for world peace. Throughout WW2, between 3 and 14 million civilians and POW were mass killed. An infamous incident is the Nanjing Massacre 1937, where as many as 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed, 80,000 Chinese women were raped. The Japanese savagely bayonetted infants, beheaded children, buried citizens alive, and contaminated water supply with dead bodies. Nanking was only the first of many similar massacres, although none took place on the same scale. …show more content…

They tested ‘plague bombs’ on cities, exploded bodies under pressure, and dissected body parts without anaesthesia, killing as many as 300,000 Chinese civilians as a result.
There are also many testimonies of cannibalism of Allied POWs by the Japanese in Asia and the Pacific. Forced labour of Asian civilians and POWs also ended many lives. An example is the construction of the Burma-Siam Railway which was built largely by hand through dense

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