| Tango01 | 18 Jul 2016 10:24 p.m. PST |
"We've just added to the site for subscribers a video about the Japanese victories at the end of 1941 and the the start of 1942. And as victories go they didn't come much bigger than the Japanese triumph at Singapore in February 1942, when more than 60,000 troops under the command of the British General Arthur Percival surrendered to around 35,000 soldiers of the Imperial Army. Churchill called it ‘the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history'. And still today historians argue over exactly why this could have happened. My own view is that we massively underestimate just how racist the British were in their views about the Japanese. There's a real danger in this history that since the British (and the Americans come to that) are perceived as the ‘good guys' of WW2, we forget that racist views and racist values were not just the preserve of the Germans. Consider, for example, the views of the commander-in-chief of British forces in the Far East, Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, expressed after he traveled to the border of British territory with China, just before the outbreak of the war. ‘I had a good close up, across the barbed wire [of the border],' he wrote in 1940, to the Chief of the Imperial Defence Staff, ‘of various sub-human specimens dressed in dirty grey uniform, which I was informed were Japanese soldiers. If these represent the average of the Japanese army, the problems of their food and accommodation would be simple, but I cannot believe they would form an intelligent fighting force.'.."
More here
link Amicalement
Armand |
| Mako11 | 18 Jul 2016 11:09 p.m. PST |
I hate to throw cold water on this, but virtually all sides were pretty much the same during that period, vis-a-vis their enemies, not just the British, or Americans. |
| John Treadaway | 19 Jul 2016 1:36 a.m. PST |
|
| foxweasel | 19 Jul 2016 4:28 a.m. PST |
Casual racism and institutionalised violence, it's the British army way. Or is it casual violence and institutionalised racism. We've never been that sure. It's certainly nothing like as bad now as when I joined in the mid 80s (Guards white people only) I think it was just normal before then. |
| ThePeninsularWarin15mm | 19 Jul 2016 6:08 a.m. PST |
Love to really comment but hyperactive Editor/moderators will just Dawghouse me or others for comments. Youtube has plenty of racist WWII cartoons if anyone wants to see how bad it was. |
| nvdoyle | 19 Jul 2016 8:09 a.m. PST |
"a real danger in this" Yeah, like worries that the British might do biowar experiments on Japanese POWs, or casually murder them, or starve them, or work them to death, or eat them… Yes, yes, it's British racism that was so incredibly problematic. |
| randy51 | 19 Jul 2016 8:31 a.m. PST |
nvdoyle,…………very well put. Thanks! |
| Highland Samurai 1987 | 19 Jul 2016 9:48 a.m. PST |
Yes, it is true that the British were very racist in the 1940's as were the Americans, and the French, and the Russians, and the Germans, and the Italians, and the Japanese, and the Chinese…..hmm, starting to see a pattern here. |
| Tango01 | 19 Jul 2016 10:24 a.m. PST |
|
Shagnasty  | 19 Jul 2016 11:05 a.m. PST |
nvdoyle and Highland Samurai for the score! |
| goragrad | 19 Jul 2016 2:00 p.m. PST |
Rather amusing that what appears to be an article looking at the fact that an unmerited contempt for the abilities of the Japanese army based on racist attitudes becomes a vehicle for attacks on the Japanese for their racism. Blinding yourself to your enemies capabilities due to erroneous preconceptions is never a good thing. |
| charared | 19 Jul 2016 5:12 p.m. PST |
R-E-V-I-S-I-O-N-I-S-M… Is NOT "always" a Good Thing. Just saying. 
Charlie (NMDfM – "No More Dawghouse for Me") |
| Fatman | 19 Jul 2016 6:11 p.m. PST |
Last time I got Dawghoused it was for quoting a famous piece of racism from an RAF officer in 1941. Fatman |
| Dn Jackson | 20 Jul 2016 7:58 a.m. PST |
Give it a rest. this is moral relativism at its best. I don't recall the Americans, Brits, or French lining up the 'untermensch' and executing them. Or the experiments in the camps, or marching them to death, or…well you get the idea. |
| zippyfusenet | 20 Jul 2016 10:35 a.m. PST |
I think the original point was that the British badly underestimated the Japanese due to their racism, and suffered defeat because of it. The Japanese similarly underestimated their western foes, and also suffered ultimate defeat. But it's likely true that most leaders who have lost wars underestimated their enemies – no one starts a war intending to lose. Racist and nationalist jingoism is pretty wide-spread around the world, as is misplaced belief in your own press releases. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." – The Art of War by Sun Tzu |
| Tango01 | 20 Jul 2016 10:54 p.m. PST |
Zyppy… I'm with you!. (smile) Amicalement
Armand |
opens the box on one of the re-released European Buildings series.