Also, regarding "butchering civilian populations wholesale" see [1], [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...
To me there's not greatest lack of honour than committing perfidy in war.
The japanese started suicide runs because the allies had a no prisoner policy.
"American soldiers in the Pacific often deliberately killed Japanese soldiers who had surrendered."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World...
Not only that the allies were tortured, mutilating and decapitating hundreds of thousands of wounded/surrendered japanese soldiers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanes...
That's why the japanese didn't surrender. What the allies were doing in the pacific war is something that even ISIS would view as deranged.
If false surrendering is a war crime, then so is torture, mutilation and "no prisoner" policy.
Why did the japanese soldiers stop surrendering? You have to look at the context. Would you surrender to someone who is going to torture you, mutilate you and decapitate you and boil your head so that your skull could be sent to the US as a war trophy? Of course not.
Most american POWs survived ww2 under japanese control. Almost no wounded or surrendering japanese survived ww2 under American control.
There was brutality on both side for sure. But the allies were especially racist and especially brutal. What the allies did in the pacific has no parallels in human history in terms of brutality and savagery on the battlefield.
Hundreds of thousands of japanese were tortured and mutilated. Hundreds of thousands of japanese were decapitated and their heads were boiled to make war trophies.
It is the ugly side of history hidden from view because the winners get to write the histories.
As I said, evil won ww2 and evil lost ww2.
> Many Americans considered them killing machines without heart with whom it was impossible to reason.
That doesn't explain the mutilation, torture and other depraved behavior by the allies. America was the most racist society on earth during ww2. The nazis modeled their racial ideology on the US for a reason.
The brutalizing of nonwhites has a long history in the US. The propaganda about the japanese being "unreasonable" or "suicidal" are lies we invented to hide our savage behavior. No different than our excuses for mutilating native americans and blacks.
FYI: The mutilating of non-whites continued in the korean war and the vietnam war. I guess they were "unreasonable" too... I guess all the blacks that were tortured and lynched were "unreasonable" as well.
Or maybe the US was just extremely racist.
Well, I can think of a few things that are way worse. Like torture and mutilation.