Read on Twitter
1. In the U.S., today is V-J Day, commemorating the victory over Imperial Japan in 1945. I'd like to remember the American, Filipino, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, British, Fijian, Papuan, French, Dutch, Nepalese (Ghurka), Burmese (including Kachin, Karen, and other ethnic
2. groups in Burma), Chinese (both GMD & Communist), Soviet, East African, West African, and Vietnamese (as well as any others I missed) who fought against the Japanese. It was a vast war, with much suffering, and none suffered more than the Chinese. But I will mention one small
3. incident from the war that brings the suffering down to a personal scale. In early December 1941, Japanese forces attacked American-held Wake Island. The defenders, mostly U.S. Marines, actually defeated the Japanese assault, but the Japanese tried again later in the month and
4. captured the island. The Japanese captured over 430 American military personnel, plus around 1,200 American and Chamorro civilian workers. Most of these people were removed from Wake by the Japanese to be placed in POW camps but nearly 98 civilian workers were kept on the
5. island, forced to help the Japanese construct fortifications. In 1943, fearing that the Americans were about to invade the island (they weren't), the Japanese took the surviving 97 American civilians and mowed them down with a machine gun, except for one who was beheaded.
6. For more on the Wake Massacre, see https://www.stripes.com/news/search-for-closure-accurate-account-of-wake-island-massacre-continues-1.166538.
It's hard to conceive of the millions killed by Imperial Japan but one can wrap one's head around an individual atrocity like that.
It's hard to conceive of the millions killed by Imperial Japan but one can wrap one's head around an individual atrocity like that.
7. IMPORTANT: While editing, I accidentally deleted Indians from my list before posting. Indian troops played an extremely important role in the war against Japan, from its very first days all the way through 1945, in Malaya, Burma, and India. My most sincere apologies.
8. (given how interested I am in the Indian Army during WW2, and how many Indian unit histories, official histories and campaign histories I've read, this blunder on my part was particularly frustrating)
