"Did Japanese Run Away?" Topic

It seems the popular conception is that Japanese soldiers never suffered morale failures (individually or in groups) and always fought to the last man. Of course once you are trapped in a cave, if you have been taught that the Americans will torture you to death, what choice do you have. I am thinking more in terms of more "normal" combat operations in which they might be defending a line of defensive positions or even conducting an attack. Is the idea that Japanese soldiers never straggled, fled, or ran away propaganda or fact? It seems to me that all soldiers will experience fear at some point, and I can't imagine Japanese are any different.

If anyone has any references on this topic, please let me know.

Buck

Surdu2005,

The Japanese were taught that because it is what happened early in the war. This is like the myth that Okinawan women just threw themselves off of cliffs on rumors of rape. Sadly, there is truth behind it and our history has been rewritten to pretend such things never happened. This does not imply it was routine or sanctioned.

But to the rest of your point, the engagements against the Japanese were on islands. Where do you run? And reverse the question, how often do you hear of American marines or soldiers running in the Pacific theater? When your back is to a wall, you tend to fight harder.

I'm reading a book about Shanghai 1937. A group of 50 Japanese cyclists ran into a Chinese ambush and surrendered. So it wasn't impossible. And the Chinese were as likely to kill Japanese prisoners as anyone else.

There are also accounts of Japanese giving ground. The accounts do not make clear if this is ordered by officers or not.

I recall there were some prisoners taken on Okinawa – not many compared to the number of dead, but some.

some good written accounts in Papua and the Philipines.

As has been said; when their backs were to the wall they tended to fight rather than surrender. Instances of Japanese surrender were vanishingly rare in Burma.

However, when they had a route out of a hopeless position they would often take it in order to fight another day.

Agree with above comment.

No better reference for this topic: Touched With Fire – The Land War in the South Pacific by Eric Bergerud.

Touched with Fire is an excellent book, definitely would recommend that to anyone interested in the subject.

On Amazon: link

The Japanese were taught that because it is what happened early in the war.

The Japanese were taught what? I don't understand your point, but I would like to.

I recall reading that if there was space to retreat to, retreating prudently before an offensive was viewed as tactically sound.
Giving way once the battle had started was not.

He is stating that the Allies, were torturing the Japanese at the start of the Pacific war.

Is Allied torturing Japanese prisoners documented? Widespread? I have been mostly an ETO guy for years, and the PTO is new to me. I have not heard this before.

My understanding was that the Japanese military had a code of honor, echoing Bushido, that dictated the behavior of the soldier/sailor during combat.

That it was drilled into their heads that soldiers didn't surrender, and that it was a terrible disgrace to do so. That a soldier's duty was theirs unto death. The whole "death is lighter than a feather, but duty is as heavy as a mountain".

It was also drilled into the heads of the populace. A mentality like the old Greek saying, "come back with your shield or on it". So if a soldier surrendered it was not just an awful disgrace for the soldier but one for the the soldier's family too!

Finally, according to the Shento religion, the Emperor was a god in his own right and that dying in his service was good and right. So if you died following "god's word and command" that you would be rewarded in the afterlife or something similar.

Add all of this together and you had a powerful motivation for soldiers to fight on well after reason dictates you to give up.

As for units falling apart and troops scattering I seem to remember that during the Battle of the Points in 1942 US Scouts shattered a Japanese position and the survivors fled to the ocean where they jumped in and drowned or were shot down by Filipino soldiers.

Here's the account from the the official Army history. It also includes Filipino/American attitudes toward Japanese soldiers and the level of fanaticism they displayed in combat.

But before his final annihilation Major Kimura made one last effort to break out of

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the cordon which held him tight on Silaiim Point. At dawn, 12 February, with about two hundred men, he launched a counterattack against the 2d Battalion, 45th Infantry. A gap about 100 yards wide had opened in that battalion's line, between Companies, E and F, on the 9th, but this fact had never been reported to Colonel Lilly. An effort had been made t close it but when the Japanese counterattacked it was covered only by patrol. Driving in through the two companies, the Japanese met only scattered resistance in their pell-mell rush to escape. The weight of the attack was met by a machine gun section which fought heroically but unavailingly to stop the Japanese. One gun crew made good its escape after all its ammunition was gone, but the other, except for one man who had left to get more ammunition, was killed. The two gun crews together accounted for thirty Japanese.

Once they broke through the line the Japanese turned north toward the Silaiim River. At the mouth of the river were the command posts of the 17th Pursuit, which was patrolling the beach along Silaiim Bay, and of Company F, 45th Infantry. The Japanese attacked both command posts, wounding Capt. Raymond Sloan, commander of the 17th Pursuit, who died later.[88]

A hurried call for aid was sent to Colonel Lilly, and at about 1000, just as the 2d Battalion, 45th Infantry, command post came under heavy machine gun fire, the 3d Battalion, 57th Infantry, reached the threatened area. Two of its companies formed a skirmish line to fill in the gap left by the routed 17th Pursuit and finally tied in with the north company of the 2d Battalion, 45th Infantry. About noon the Scouts attacked the Japanese and during the afternoon advanced steadily against stiff but disorganized resistance. The next morning the attack was resumed and by 1500 all units reached the beach, now littered with the equipment and clothing of those Japanese who had taken to the water to escape. The only enemy left were dead ones, and the beach was befouled with bloated and rotting bodies.

Few of the Japanese had been taken prisoner. As at Longoskawayan and Quinauan they showed a reluctance to surrender though their cause was hopeless. MacArthur's headquarters, in its first effort to use psychological warfare, made available a sound truck and two nisei and urged Colonel Lilly to broadcast appeals to the Japanese to give themselves up. But the higher headquarters failed to provide a script for the nisei and placed on the regiment responsibility for the truck and the interpreters.

To the regiment's reluctance to accept this responsibility was added its disinclination to take prisoners. The Scouts had found the bodies of their comrades behind Japanese lines so mutilated as to discourage any generous impulse toward those Japanese unfortunate enough to fall into their hands. Some of the bodies had been bayoneted in the back while the men had had their arms wired behind them. One rotting body had been found strung up by the thumbs with the toes just touching the ground, mute evidence of a slow and tortured end. Nor did the Japanese show any signs of gratitude when their lives were

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spared. When one of them was brought to a battalion headquarters he had promptly attempted to destroy both himself and the headquarters with a hand grenade. It is not surprising, therefore, that "a passive resistance to the use of the sound truck developed and there were sufficient delays to that it was not used."[89]

link

This line makes me think that unit cohesion fell apart and things became every man for himself:

The next morning the attack was resumed and by 1500 all units reached the beach, now littered with the equipment and clothing of those Japanese who had taken to the water to escape.

Granted, they did have orders to try to exfiltrate, but the commander decided to try to break out. But this is one of the only times I can remember reading about a Japanese unit falling apart and its men running en masse.

Tgunner:

Thanks for that. Interesting read.

Buck

There was a thread here a while back where one chap maintained that the Japanese were forced to commit suicide, torture PoWs, etc, because of what the Allied had already done to them… He refused to acknowledge their bestial behaviour at Hong Kong in December 1941 – long before the Allies had any opportunity to get their hands on a Japanese soldier…

There are quite a few examples of Japanese simply breaking and running in Burma. I'll try to dig some out. I do remember one from the battle for 'Scraggy' (a mountain-top east of the Imphal plain), where the Japanese, having taken one of the peaks from Gurkhas, were then counter-attacked by a fresh battalion of Gurkhas. This was one of those occasions where the Gurkhas dropped their rifles during the final assault and went in with the kukri. The Japanese simply broke en masse and ran across open ground directly in front of a third Gurkha battalion, who promptly opened up with everything they had, killing literally hundreds. One observer (an attached officer of Sikh sappers) recalled the Colonel of the battalion fighting to get his hands on a Bren Gun to join in, but the Gurkha gunner was beating him off with the spare barrel, shouting " off Colonel Sahib!"

I'm fairly certain that Japanese troops would run for it if there was somewhere to run to. There are many instances of orderly and disorderly retreats in the Burma campaign for instance..

One thing about morale failures, is that Japanese troops would often suicide if things looked hopeless. A while back I came up with a simple die roll to simulate Japanese soldier's moral failure when defending a bunker, etc. Whenever a Japanese fails a moral test roll a D6. On a 1-3 the soldier in question will "sacrifice his life for the Emperor" by exiting the defensive position and charging the nearest enemy. On a roll of 4 or 5 the soldier will commit suicide (using whatever weapon is available, though preferably a grenade). On a 6, to the eternal disgrace to his ancestors, the soldier will try and surrender.

Look for personal accounts by Japanese. "Wheat and Soldiers" is a good example with descriptions of combat in China in the 30's

I haven't heard of US or Allied servicemen torturing Japanese soldiers.. there are numerous accounts of vice versa, but I have heard of servicemen, particularly Marines, taking body parts as trophies. Skulls, teeth, ears, and other stuff.

link

Officially this was discouraged as early as 1942. But I found this interesting:

The earliest account of U.S. troops wearing ears from Japanese corpses he recounts took place, according to one Marine, on the second day of the Guadalcanal Campaign in August 1942 and occurred after photos of the mutilated bodies of Marines on Wake Island were found in Japanese engineers' personal effects. The account of the same Marine also states that Japanese troops booby trapped some of their own dead as well as some dead Marines, and also mutilated corpses; the effect on Marines being "We began to get down to their level".[9]

It's going to be far more complicated than the propaganda of the time would have us believe.

The Eastern theatre [Pacific seems to leave out so much] was a brutal war. All sides behaved abominably. The Japanese the worst by some margin but I don't find it hard to believe that the Allies tortured, raped and murdered Japanese troops and civilians. Widespread rape on Okinawa is well documented.

The Japanese of course were far worse and did not take any steps to control their troops, often indeed encouraging and facilitating their crimes.

It remains difficult to get any clear narrative agreed especially given the no-fascist elements of Japanese society and indeed their government.

And the 'moral equivalency' BS begins…

As in all armies, in all theatres, there was also a certain reluctance to take prisoners in certain situations and this appears to have been amplified against the Japanese. Troops would either have direct or more likely,anecdotal experience of Japanese soldiers surrendering and then letting off a grenade etc so played it safe, sadly this is self perpetuating, as subsequently Japanese troops would believe this was the case and be less likely to surrender to begin with. Either way the aar ends up saying the Japanese fought to the death when maybe they would have (or in fact did) surrender.
I don't think this happened much when troops surrendered in larger groups, or when closely supervised by officers, but when a couple of Japanese soldiers attempted to surrender to a couple of allied ones I don't think their chances were too good.

I think that is 90% of the story Christot.

The code of honour the japanese soldier believed in that if you surrend you were no longer human because you losted face and thus were regarded as subhuman or an animal therefore any allied troops surreneding were treated as such
Bataan death march burma railway unit 731? Aka water perfication unit slave camps etc.
Having recently searched google using the key words allied war crimes against pows wikipedia gave me an insight of proven and alleged artocities against japaneses pows but these crimes were not as serve or on a grand scale as the crimes committed by the japaneses.

Often in the history of the winners there is the version given by the defeated. If there was we would learn many things.

Is there much evidence on different behaviour among Japanese units that were recruited from Taiwan vs. Korea vs. Japan itself?

"The Japanese were taught that because it is what happened early in the war.

The Japanese were taught what? I don't understand your point, but I would like to."

I was referring to the Japanese knowing they were going to be killed if taken prisoner. The best sources you're going to find are going to be diaries by enlisted men (the officers can't help but embellish their self worth). There is a fairly decent book that covers some of this by Richard Aldrich called the The Faraway War: Personal Diaries of the Second World War in Asia and The Pacific. This will get your toes wet but is not an exhaustive study on this particular category.

A WWII vet I once worked with told me of a story of a couple of downed Japanese aviators taken prisoner in the Philippines. His squad of US Army soldiers on patrol came across the pair and tied them up using their parachute cords, to a couple of coconut trees. It was believed some enemy soldiers were nearby trying to rescue them and so they thought to hold the pair until they could discover if a body of enemy troops were in the area.

One of the prisoners refused to be quiet and could not be understood. Some sort of cloth was put into his mouth but he soon spat it out and kept talking. A man in the unit who they named "Big Martin" was an amateur boxer and decided to silence the unruly prisoner by using him as a punching bag. After a good battering which smashed the prisoner's jaw and some ribs, the other prisoner urinated on himself, to the disgust of his captors. He got a rifle butt to the groin before later being untied and taken back. I didn't follow up, though it sounded like the battered man was just left there tied up.

Since that doesn't fit the wholesome GI behavior we're given, don't expect to find too many diaries where they confess such things.

And how much of that was due to bestial Japanese behaviour in 1941/42?

The Japanese raped, murdered and mutilated their way across Hong Kong like a horde of subhuman scum in December 1941…

Remind me: How much experience had the Japanese had of Allied troops prior to that, to be so fearful of Allied behaviour toward prisoners?

Jemima Fawr,

You do not justify torture and murder by using the ridiculous child's argument of "Well they did it too!" This thread was not intended to justify such acts nor was it to discuss Japanese atrocities.

The Japanese were not ignorant of European/American infliction of murder, rape and or mutilation on the Native Americans, Africans and Chinese. Is that what you needed to be reminded of?

Allied troops exhibited a significant amount of racism and ruthlessness in the way they handled their Japanese opponents, but trying to draw moral equivalence between that and the systematic, routine massacres and atrocities that the Imperial army visited upon any area they occupied is far fetched.

what Weasel says. There will always be instances of atrocities in war on both sides of any conflict. The order of magnitude of the scale difference in WW2 though is staggering. There was no allied equivalent of the rape of nanking or battan death march.

Peninsular War. I didn't. And your suggestion that Japanese troops were fearful of being taken prisoner because of what happened in the 19th Century is cretinous in the extreme.

As Weasel says; there is no equivalency.

"Peninsular War. I didn't. And your suggestion that Japanese troops were fearful of being taken prisoner because of what happened in the 19th Century is cretinous in the extreme."

This thread was not about equivalences or your imaginary view of Japanese soldiers. They're human beings just like anyone else and to insinuate they couldn't be fearful is spoken from pure ignorance. You cannot deny the documented evidence they were often not taken prisoner because it upsets some weird world view you have. You've not done the research and you simply could care less as you've made up your mind without the facts.

You have a very bad case of 'projection' there…

All the various Asian nations are massively racist. Just spend some time there.

Sure, as a white American I could get away with a lot of social gaffes, but see what happens if the police decide to ask you some questions. Heaven help you if you're black.

Is there much evidence on different behaviour among Japanese units that were recruited from Taiwan vs. Korea vs. Japan itself?

Back to the original subject of this thread, Skeptic has an interesting question. Does anyone have any documentation to address this?

Buck

I fear this thread is just going to deteriorate further into an argument at cross purposes.

But…

The point is the Japanese indoctrinated their troops into a 'no surrender' state of mind in many ways. Sure there was the honourable death in the service of the God-Emperor line. But that only gets you so far. Convincing the troops the US/British would just kill them brutally if they did try to surrender was of course even more effective. The fact that the Allies often did kill Japanese prisoners and sometimes mutilated/abused/tortured them to boot will only have made it easier to convince the average poorly educated Japanese farm boy. The desire for revenge or whatever the allied soldiers were after or the feeling of better safe than sorry after hearing about or even seeing Japanese trying to kill allied soldiers after feigning surrender adds to the mess. I often suspect the organised nature of Japanese atrocities was in part calculated to provoke extreme hostility in their enemies thereby raising the stakes. Imagine if you're a Japanese soldier in China say. You've had enough and want to surrender, but you know what you and your comrades have done to the enemy/civilians. How can expect to be treated well if you do surrender? This is not an excuse for the Japanese of course, but it has crossed my mind. Then again maybe the Japanese just expected to win and treated the local population/enemy as sub-humans who had no rights whatsoever. The tragedy really is the Tokyo War Crime trials fell far short of what was needed.

Anyway – it's complicated. There is no moral equivalency. Each side is guilty of their own crimes. The fire bombing of Tokyo in no way expunges the Rape of Nanking. Nor vice-versa. This is surely simple logic that I would hope anyone can grasp.

Skarper,

I agree with a lot of what you say re indoctrination, however, I can't agree with your (and PenWar's) assertion that the Japanese indoctrination was reinforced by the fact that they 'already knew' that Allied troops would murder and/or torture them on capture.

There had been virtually no opportunities whatsoever for British/Indian/Australian troops to take prisoners from 1941 to 1944. I can't recall finding a single mention of prisoners being taken (aside from one Japanese officer, wounded at Hong Kong), let alone there being opportunities to murder/torture said prisoners.

In fact, re the Japanese officer mentioned above; the Japanese troops 'briefly' stopped raping the nurses and murdering the doctors and St John's Ambulance Cadets when they found that this officer had been well-treated for his wounds in the hospital that they were busily raping. They then went and raped another set of nurses instead…

By the time that prisoners finally started being taken with Japanese reverses in 1944, the Allied unit war diaries and personal accounts from Burma absolutely trumpet the fact. It was clearly a VERY big thing for them to take a Japanese soldier alive and an enormous feather in the cap of the unit and individuals responsible.

It is also recorded that Japanese PoWs were extremely forthcoming during interrogation, as they had received no training in what to do when captured (the assumption being that they wouldn't be captured).

Several accounts also record the penchant for Japanese PoWs, having been taken prisoner when wounded and helpless, to then commit suicide in hospital, having been given nothing but humane treatment that enabled them to recover sufficiently to top themselves.

Cross purposes.

I don't think I said that the Japanese had any excuse for their actions early in the war – though for them the war started about 1933. I'm guessing when the Chinese did get hold of Japanese prisoners in China they dealt harshly with them. Perhaps this is the root of the confusion.

What I think DID happen is there was a cycle of abuse into which new troops were thrust. The old sweats will say – "Don't surrender they'll do XYZ to you and then kill you anyway." And the new guys just believe it. Likewise the Allied veterans will say don't trust the Japanese when they surrender or are wounded and look helpless. And so it goes.

I remember seeing a documentary on NHK about a young Japanese soldier who did surrender and then tried to persuade other Japanese to also surrender. I think this was on Okinawa. He was certainly an unusual case if not unique.

Back to the OPs question. I would suspect the Japanese did run away often if not quite as often as their opponents. I think running away is actually less effective in real life than in some wargames. In the Burmese jungle, on Iwo Jima or on any beachhead where are you gonna run to? So experienced troops probably don't actually run away all that much. New guys – sure. They've never seen the results of a rout.

Falling back into better cover or just hiding and not shooting back seems like the best strategy to shirk your duty and live a little longer.

Here's my understanding fwiw. Beyond war being a nasty business.

The Japanese had a brutal system of enforcing discipline on their men.
From the top down they positively encouraged unpleasantness to the Chinese.
I've always assumed that one factor in their reluctance to surrender was they thought their enemies would deal with them just as badly as they would their enemies.

It takes surprisingly little encouragement to get men in power of others to be unpleasant.
There are several experiments have been carried out.

People are hard wired to deal with their tribe vs other tribes.
You just tell them that other tribe are those useless good for nothing blue eyed ( or brown eyed ) people. Long known for causing trouble and lower IQs. They're despicable and deserve what they get. Etc.
People fall for it with shocking ease.
All too many are just one authority figure's worth of a step away from throwing anyone else into the pit.

Yep.
It turns out that people are people.
With a very thin veneer of morality.

Can we get back to toy soldiers?
I prefer them to beastly people.
( Especially those blue eyed ones. )

So, insofar as some of the 'no Japanese POWs' goes the Time-Life series on the WWII noted that in the Pacific there were instances when GIs assigned to escort captured Japanese soldiers to rear areas returned to their units in far less time than a round trip would have taken – no questions asked.

As I recall stated to be not an uncommon occurrence.

Been a while and I don't have them to hand, but the time-Life series also recounted an incident from D-Day, A correspondent noted a couple of soldiers repeatedly leading prisoners behind a particular dune and returning shortly after without them. He later went behind the dune and found, as I recall, about a hundred prisoners with their throats cut.

Not a common occurrence.

As to Korean units in Japanese service, in reading a few memoirs of American soldiers captured by the Japanese, it was noted that Korean prison camp guards were more brutal and sadistic than Japanese. Quite possibly a case of someone on the lower end of the social pecking order taking out frustrations on someone even lower down.

There were over 1,000 Japanese POWs in the Cowra Breakout. They had to have surrendered or been captured somehow, and that was just the one prison camp in Australia, I'm sure there would have been more.

WIKIPEDIA gives a figure of between 19 500 and 50 000 Japanese POWS captured during the war.

Thanks, folks. I think I got the answers to my questions. I appreciate you folks providing interesting, thoughtful, and on-topic answers.

I had never heard about the Australian POW camp, iceaxe. Thanks.

Buck

I have read a number of reports from 1930's China and Thailand in 1941 where tactical withdrawals were used often

There is a huge difference between a tactical withdrawal (ie something which is planned and ordered), groups of soldiers running away (which may actually be an entirely sensible response to some situations) and surrendering.

In game terms, depending on your level of simulation, a 'force back' or 'retreat' result could easily actually be a 'tactical withdrawal' on the ground – or a headlong rout and the chaps sort themselves out in the rear. Either way, the flag on the the battalion COs map has moved back 500 yards.

I do not believe Japanese soldiers were immune from the psychological effects of modern firepower, and were just as likely to be suppressed or run away as any other soldiers.

There may have been more cultural barrier to adopting surrender as a course of action if that option became available – but again in game terms it doesn't matter if a unit surrenders, flees in terror, disperses and waits to resume the fight tomorrow or dies in a last ditch bayonet charge. In all cases the base gets removed.

I recently read the autobiography of a US Marine who served in the Okinawa campaign. He was quite fluent in Japanese (although he was Hispanic-American – go figure) and earned the Navy Cross for coaxing an aggregate total of about 1500 Japanese soldiers into surrendering from their cave positions over the course of the battle.

As strong as the social indoctrination was, I do not believe that it was totally monolithic among the Japanese soldiers. I also view it as perhaps most prevalent when reinforced by an immediate local command presence and less so when command pressure was absent and convincing alternatives were present.

Strictly my opinion, of course.

B

ISTR reading in Brains & Bullets: How psychology wins wars that it was, in fact, entirely possible to get the Japanese to surrender provided you went about it in the correct way.

The most successful route was to give them first a demonstration of your scariest weapon. Armoured flame was very good here. The most senior man present would then get on the horn and basically order them to surrender:

Language also played a role in extending this loop of the barbarity cycle. At that time, there was no Japanese word that really fit our word ‘surrender'; but the problem ran deeper. One psychological warfare study relates how shouting through a loudspeaker, ‘You @$*! Japs get out of that bunker or I'll [ burn you out!' did not work. What did work was, ‘Attention, honourable Japanese soldiers! I am the authorized American commander for this area, and I have been ordered to make it secure. Attention! I have flame-throwers. I will use flame-throwers to carry out my lawful orders. I regret the unfortunate consequences resultant on the use of flame-throwers! Japanese soldiers! I order you to come out and assemble properly at (some designated landmark).' The war with Japan was nearly over before that trick was learned. There is evidence of a similar oversight in Afghanistan.

Murray, Leo (2013-03-28). Brains & Bullets: How psychology wins wars (Kindle Locations 2496-2502). Biteback Publishing. Kindle Edition.

One thing not mentioned yet, or at least emphasized was the absolute fatalism of the Japanese. When they joined the military they didn't expect to fight for the emperor, they expected to die for him. I recently finished "Days of Thunder" and Ugaki's diary went back and forth on this over and over again. Obviously it didn't take in all soldiers and sailors but Ugaki believed it, he led a squadron on a kamikaze attack after the surrender was announced. There were several other mentions of captains and admirals going down with their ship or being manhandled off a ship, not because they felt shame but because they felt it was their duty to die.

4th Cuirassier – Thank you for book referral. Sounds like one worth checking out.

B

Yes, Brains and Bullets is thoroughly recommended, particularly as it tries to put quantitative values on tactical effects (suprise, flanking etc) as well as synthesising some things from oop books like Rowlands 'The Stress of Battle' so at least some of the material i available to a wider audience.

The chapter on the friendly fire incident is particularly interesting for people who think their tabletop troops should respond to orders at all times…

It is interesting how this topic switched from running away in battle to atrocities and the debate over who had more.