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kaigouI watched episode 14 and part of 15 last night and managed to hold on with my notepad and pen, studiously taking notes to remind myself of what stood out, until I realized I was just too tired. Will see if I'm up to watching the remainder of 15 this evening, but in the meantime, one thing did tweak the braincells this morning at the gym, and I did a bit of research over lunch.
Okay, two years ago I was at Katsucon, attending a Gundam panel where one of the panelists explained the AC timeline for GW was, in part, because Sunrise wanted to explore avenues but outside Yoshiyuki Tomino's control (the original creator). Doing a bit of research on the series, there are several things that popped out. One, he's called "the character killer", frequently doing away with broad sections of his cast in every series. Two, he suffers from bad depression at times, and some of the Gundam series have been quite dark as a result. I guess I couldn't blame Sunrise if they found his instability in that sense to be especially difficult when making a series. But third, he was born in 1941.
I'll explain. This means he was four when the bombs hit Nagasaki and Hiroshima; it means he was a small child during the firebombing of Tokyo and the more than sixty towns and cities destroyed across Japan during the US attacks. No surprise there; the repeated theme of something being dropped on Earth--to catastrophic levels--shows up, it seems, in nearly every Gundam series.
Then I went looking up the plotline of the original Gundam series, Mobile Suit Gundam, and found out a few things I'd not known. For starters, in that series, the Earth is the good guys. The colonies--led by Zeon (although often transliterated by fans into Zion--are the attackers, the ones striking out at the peace-loving Earth-folk. As you well know, in Gundam Wing, it's the opposite.
Now, GW--like many of the other Gundam series, I'm told--has elements of WWII tropes and metaphors. Apparently GW is far more so than the previous ones, but still, it's a place to start. With the Romafeller lines, and Treize's comments playing in my head, I went in search of essays and articles to explain Japan's attitudes and behaviors prior to Pearl Harbor. In episode 14/15, if you don't recall, Romafeller's position is that not all disputes can be solved by dialogue; sometimes one must have military force to make changes. These changes are pushed, in GW, by the elite class, who have secretly been working behind the scenes to increase military power. And, Romafeller's spokesman adds (as does Treize), the only way to have true peace is basically to force people to be peaceful. If you control them, tell them what to do, they'll be happy at having rules to follow, and they'll be peaceful--because if they don't, you'll kick their ass.
Well, guess what.
Around the time of WWI, Japan's industry and exports had been growing. The problem was that it had limited, inadequate internal resources. To continue production and exports (which had become a big part of its economy), it had to keep those resources flowing into the country. Its biggest supplier was the United States, which exported resources all over the place. But in contrast to Britain's US imports, for instance, Japan's percentage of exports to internal resources was much, much, higher. (In other words: if Britain imported 30% of its goods for production, with the rest being internal, Japan's percentage of imports was double, if not more.) Japan had begun casting about for additional sources of imports, so it wouldn't have to rely solely on the US.
This is glossing over some things, but it's important to get at least the gist, so bear with the details. Russian held a segment of China, in the north-eastern section (translated as Manchuria); this was an important land section since it was Russia's only eastern port to the sea. After the Russo-Japanese War, this section of land was turned over to the Japanese, who leased it instead. Japan set up the Kwantung governor, and the Kwantung army to defend this territory. In 1931, the South Manchurian Railroad (which runs along the border of Kwantung) was destroyed, in an event known as the Manchurian Incident. One of the military Kwantung leaders later confessed to planning & assisting the sabotage; the Japanese government holds to this day that it was Chinese insurgents, while the Chinese govenment holds that it was Japanese treachery.
Either way, Japan used the destruction of the railroad as the rationalization for moving into Manchuria. At the same time, back in Japan, the civilian government and military forces were dividing, with the civilian government slowly losing power while the military acted of its own accord and informed the civilian government. (It's more complex than that, but that's the gist.) A striking detail is that the forces moving within the military, seeking to de-throne the civilian government, were mostly made up of Samurai secret societies, mostly ultranationalist pro-military types who wanted to return to a time of Japan's cultural (with the benefit of militaristic) dominance. Samurai, of course, being the elite, in a cultural sense; they definitely would rank as aristocrats, given that until the Meiji era they were the only ones granted family names, for instance.
By 1932, Japan had set up the puppet state of Manchukuo; in retaliation to the League of Nations' protest, it withdrew from the U.N. Around this time, it also signed a pact with Germany (and later Italy joined in), forming the Axis; the pact was intended to hem the Soviet Union in. Japan agreed because its position with Kwantung--being the shortest reach between the Soviet Union and a good Pacific port-location--was in danger on the Soviet Union's border if it didn't have back-up on defending its colonies.
In Manchuria (Manchukuo), Japan set up Puyi, the last Chinese emporer of the Ching dynasty. Between Japan's money and the area's rich resources, Japan was set. When the US set embargoes on exports to Japan, and revoked trade agreements, Japan already had a replacement. Roosevelt's attempts to provoke Japan into striking, thus giving him an excuse to get involved in the world theater, didn't work. Instead Japan began stretching its gaze farther, upon all of China, and down into Indochina and the colonies and territories held there by countries like Britain and Portugal.
Japan was on a massive expansion path. From Manchuria, it staged attacks on China, although the battle of Shanghai proved that they wouldn't take over China in three months. The Chinese army--consisting of the Communists and Nationalists banding together--was badly ill-equipped and not trained worth much, but it was determined, and fought viciously to defend China. When Shanghai fell, the Chinese knew Nanking (Nanjing) wouldn't be far behind. It's called the Rape of Nanking. I read some of the testimonies of that incident, and believe me, the word atrocity does not begin to describe it. I won't go into it, but it's chilling, and moreso that while there were observers (Australians, some journalists), the Asian world itself squashed all mention of it (for various reasons) until 1970. Read about it yourself, but not right before you go to bed. Some things should never be forgotten.
Wikipedia has this to say about the two branches of the Japanese military, in the years before Pearl Harbor:
Japan, prior to Pearl Harbor, was an expanionist, ultranationalist ultramilitaristic country. At the drop of a hat it would take on more, expanding its resource base across China, Indochina, and down to within a stone's throw of Australia's beaches. Tactically, it excelled, taking vicious and horrendous retribution on its new colonies, the likes of which are only matched by Nazi Germany, and I don't say that lightly, after what I've been reading today. There were those small pockets, inside Japan, who protested what was going on, but for the most part, people didn't know, and the government/military wasn't about to tell them. The country had a mission, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which was a bloc of Asian countries independent from Western control. In reality, it was a series of fronts for Japanese colonization.
I look at the words used by Romafeller, and it's right there: the idea that one carries a greater knowledge, a certainty of rightness, granted by some state of being the Elite among one's fellow humanity. Japan had a mission of being the guiding light, the one who would bring Asia into a new era, if everyone else would just fall in line and be like Japan. And I think of the fact that in Endless Waltz, Barton--when speaking to the troops--quotes Emporer Hirohito's surrender speech ("suffered the insufferable") but twists it around into a declaration of war.
The generational gap is amazing, and telling, I think, in a way I'd never registered before. In Tomino's Gundam series, the colonists are the bad guys, striking out at the peace-loving Earth, which fights in vain to defend itself from the Zeon aggressors. In the days and years after Japan's surrender, it's formed an image of itself as the victim. Even Japanese articles and books--if quietly--point out that Japan has never 'fessed up to its pre-war atrocities, or even its wartime atrocities, unlike Germany. Japan's post-war treatment was relatively light (can you see Sadaam being asked to stick around, alive, to ease the transistion?). Japan has taught itself that it was the victim of brutal attacks by the US, but in light of what I read today, I'm not sure I can do much more than feel queasy. After reading what Japan did in China and Indochina...I'm not saying the Tokyo Firebombing was deserved by civilians. But I'm certain the 80,000 women raped in Nanjing, over six weeks, didn't deserve what Japan did to them, either. How do you fight a people so lost in their own ultranationalism that they refuse to see anything but themselves as human?
And back to Gundam. In the alternate version of Gundam--the A.C. created when Sunrise broke away from Tomino temporarily--the colonists are the good guys. They want independence, and they're sick of the military force. They distrust the Earth's military, but they've been squashed and stepped on and have little power except for one final, last blow. And Earth is not the peace-loving world of Tomino's version, but a power-hungry world, stricken by conflicts between the UESA (the civilian government), Romafeller (the Samurai underground militaristic movements), OZ (the Army), and the Alliance (the Navy). Meanwhile, the citizens of earth go on about their business, completely unaware of how terrible things are in the colonies.
I've missed it, all this time, but I wonder how obvious the metaphors were to the Japanese viewers.
Yet I recall in the Gundam panel that the two panelists joked about the asteroids, the colonies, and space-barges being dropped on earth. In one of the series, apparently, a colony lands on its edge, and is planted like a massive metal donut in the middle of some quasi-European city. Pretty ridiculous. But in GW, this catastrophe is averted. The other thing the two panelists noted was that the hero of every Gundam series is always a Japanese boy. That makes sense; he's the stand-in for the Japanese boys watching the series.
Then I think about the twist in Gundam Wing, and the way it works out. The Earth is power-hungry, blood-thirsty; it tries to subdue the colonies in just about any way it can. Zechs, originally from Earth, turns against the Earth and joins the colonies; he represents the Japanese citizens who struggled to get their government to withdraw from its bloody pursuit of colonial lands. When he tries to drop Libra onto the earth, our intrepid Heero gets in the way, and the layers are just awesome. It's a Japanese boy defending Earth/meta-Japan from a catastrophe that could render it lifeless for generations. But this Japanese boy is a colonist. It's not just that he's protecting the source of the colonists' terrors, but that--as a Japanese person--he recognizes that somewhere the war must end. And in doing so, he demonstrates that there is good in the Japanese heart, that when the chips are down, they will choose what's right--or so the creators may have been trying to say. To give Heero the defense of the Earth, after all it's done to him, is a hopeful ending, I think.
Hrrm. Brain hurts. Any comments?
Okay, two years ago I was at Katsucon, attending a Gundam panel where one of the panelists explained the AC timeline for GW was, in part, because Sunrise wanted to explore avenues but outside Yoshiyuki Tomino's control (the original creator). Doing a bit of research on the series, there are several things that popped out. One, he's called "the character killer", frequently doing away with broad sections of his cast in every series. Two, he suffers from bad depression at times, and some of the Gundam series have been quite dark as a result. I guess I couldn't blame Sunrise if they found his instability in that sense to be especially difficult when making a series. But third, he was born in 1941.
I'll explain. This means he was four when the bombs hit Nagasaki and Hiroshima; it means he was a small child during the firebombing of Tokyo and the more than sixty towns and cities destroyed across Japan during the US attacks. No surprise there; the repeated theme of something being dropped on Earth--to catastrophic levels--shows up, it seems, in nearly every Gundam series.
Then I went looking up the plotline of the original Gundam series, Mobile Suit Gundam, and found out a few things I'd not known. For starters, in that series, the Earth is the good guys. The colonies--led by Zeon (although often transliterated by fans into Zion--are the attackers, the ones striking out at the peace-loving Earth-folk. As you well know, in Gundam Wing, it's the opposite.
Now, GW--like many of the other Gundam series, I'm told--has elements of WWII tropes and metaphors. Apparently GW is far more so than the previous ones, but still, it's a place to start. With the Romafeller lines, and Treize's comments playing in my head, I went in search of essays and articles to explain Japan's attitudes and behaviors prior to Pearl Harbor. In episode 14/15, if you don't recall, Romafeller's position is that not all disputes can be solved by dialogue; sometimes one must have military force to make changes. These changes are pushed, in GW, by the elite class, who have secretly been working behind the scenes to increase military power. And, Romafeller's spokesman adds (as does Treize), the only way to have true peace is basically to force people to be peaceful. If you control them, tell them what to do, they'll be happy at having rules to follow, and they'll be peaceful--because if they don't, you'll kick their ass.
Well, guess what.
Around the time of WWI, Japan's industry and exports had been growing. The problem was that it had limited, inadequate internal resources. To continue production and exports (which had become a big part of its economy), it had to keep those resources flowing into the country. Its biggest supplier was the United States, which exported resources all over the place. But in contrast to Britain's US imports, for instance, Japan's percentage of exports to internal resources was much, much, higher. (In other words: if Britain imported 30% of its goods for production, with the rest being internal, Japan's percentage of imports was double, if not more.) Japan had begun casting about for additional sources of imports, so it wouldn't have to rely solely on the US.
This is glossing over some things, but it's important to get at least the gist, so bear with the details. Russian held a segment of China, in the north-eastern section (translated as Manchuria); this was an important land section since it was Russia's only eastern port to the sea. After the Russo-Japanese War, this section of land was turned over to the Japanese, who leased it instead. Japan set up the Kwantung governor, and the Kwantung army to defend this territory. In 1931, the South Manchurian Railroad (which runs along the border of Kwantung) was destroyed, in an event known as the Manchurian Incident. One of the military Kwantung leaders later confessed to planning & assisting the sabotage; the Japanese government holds to this day that it was Chinese insurgents, while the Chinese govenment holds that it was Japanese treachery.
Either way, Japan used the destruction of the railroad as the rationalization for moving into Manchuria. At the same time, back in Japan, the civilian government and military forces were dividing, with the civilian government slowly losing power while the military acted of its own accord and informed the civilian government. (It's more complex than that, but that's the gist.) A striking detail is that the forces moving within the military, seeking to de-throne the civilian government, were mostly made up of Samurai secret societies, mostly ultranationalist pro-military types who wanted to return to a time of Japan's cultural (with the benefit of militaristic) dominance. Samurai, of course, being the elite, in a cultural sense; they definitely would rank as aristocrats, given that until the Meiji era they were the only ones granted family names, for instance.
By 1932, Japan had set up the puppet state of Manchukuo; in retaliation to the League of Nations' protest, it withdrew from the U.N. Around this time, it also signed a pact with Germany (and later Italy joined in), forming the Axis; the pact was intended to hem the Soviet Union in. Japan agreed because its position with Kwantung--being the shortest reach between the Soviet Union and a good Pacific port-location--was in danger on the Soviet Union's border if it didn't have back-up on defending its colonies.
In Manchuria (Manchukuo), Japan set up Puyi, the last Chinese emporer of the Ching dynasty. Between Japan's money and the area's rich resources, Japan was set. When the US set embargoes on exports to Japan, and revoked trade agreements, Japan already had a replacement. Roosevelt's attempts to provoke Japan into striking, thus giving him an excuse to get involved in the world theater, didn't work. Instead Japan began stretching its gaze farther, upon all of China, and down into Indochina and the colonies and territories held there by countries like Britain and Portugal.
Japan was on a massive expansion path. From Manchuria, it staged attacks on China, although the battle of Shanghai proved that they wouldn't take over China in three months. The Chinese army--consisting of the Communists and Nationalists banding together--was badly ill-equipped and not trained worth much, but it was determined, and fought viciously to defend China. When Shanghai fell, the Chinese knew Nanking (Nanjing) wouldn't be far behind. It's called the Rape of Nanking. I read some of the testimonies of that incident, and believe me, the word atrocity does not begin to describe it. I won't go into it, but it's chilling, and moreso that while there were observers (Australians, some journalists), the Asian world itself squashed all mention of it (for various reasons) until 1970. Read about it yourself, but not right before you go to bed. Some things should never be forgotten.
Wikipedia has this to say about the two branches of the Japanese military, in the years before Pearl Harbor:
The Japanese Navy was in general terms more traditionalist, in defending ancient values and the sacrality of the Emperor; the Japanese Army was more forward-looking, in the sense of valuing primarily strong leadership, as is evidenced by the use of the coup and direct action. The Navy typically preferred political methods. The Army, ultimately, was the vehicle for the anticapitalists, hypernationalists, anticommunists, antiparliamentarians, Extreme Right-Socialists and Nationalist-Militarists ideals.Sounds to me like OZ and the Alliance. It's mixed, definitely, but one doesn't map out a story based on history; to retell well, one takes history as the premise and lets the story run from there.
The military were considered politically "clean" in terms of political corruption, and assumed responsibility for 'restoring' the security of of the nation, too. The armed forces took up criticism of the traditional democratic parties and regular government for many reasons (low funds for the armed forces, compromised national security, weakness of the leaders).
Japan, prior to Pearl Harbor, was an expanionist, ultranationalist ultramilitaristic country. At the drop of a hat it would take on more, expanding its resource base across China, Indochina, and down to within a stone's throw of Australia's beaches. Tactically, it excelled, taking vicious and horrendous retribution on its new colonies, the likes of which are only matched by Nazi Germany, and I don't say that lightly, after what I've been reading today. There were those small pockets, inside Japan, who protested what was going on, but for the most part, people didn't know, and the government/military wasn't about to tell them. The country had a mission, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which was a bloc of Asian countries independent from Western control. In reality, it was a series of fronts for Japanese colonization.
I look at the words used by Romafeller, and it's right there: the idea that one carries a greater knowledge, a certainty of rightness, granted by some state of being the Elite among one's fellow humanity. Japan had a mission of being the guiding light, the one who would bring Asia into a new era, if everyone else would just fall in line and be like Japan. And I think of the fact that in Endless Waltz, Barton--when speaking to the troops--quotes Emporer Hirohito's surrender speech ("suffered the insufferable") but twists it around into a declaration of war.
The generational gap is amazing, and telling, I think, in a way I'd never registered before. In Tomino's Gundam series, the colonists are the bad guys, striking out at the peace-loving Earth, which fights in vain to defend itself from the Zeon aggressors. In the days and years after Japan's surrender, it's formed an image of itself as the victim. Even Japanese articles and books--if quietly--point out that Japan has never 'fessed up to its pre-war atrocities, or even its wartime atrocities, unlike Germany. Japan's post-war treatment was relatively light (can you see Sadaam being asked to stick around, alive, to ease the transistion?). Japan has taught itself that it was the victim of brutal attacks by the US, but in light of what I read today, I'm not sure I can do much more than feel queasy. After reading what Japan did in China and Indochina...I'm not saying the Tokyo Firebombing was deserved by civilians. But I'm certain the 80,000 women raped in Nanjing, over six weeks, didn't deserve what Japan did to them, either. How do you fight a people so lost in their own ultranationalism that they refuse to see anything but themselves as human?
And back to Gundam. In the alternate version of Gundam--the A.C. created when Sunrise broke away from Tomino temporarily--the colonists are the good guys. They want independence, and they're sick of the military force. They distrust the Earth's military, but they've been squashed and stepped on and have little power except for one final, last blow. And Earth is not the peace-loving world of Tomino's version, but a power-hungry world, stricken by conflicts between the UESA (the civilian government), Romafeller (the Samurai underground militaristic movements), OZ (the Army), and the Alliance (the Navy). Meanwhile, the citizens of earth go on about their business, completely unaware of how terrible things are in the colonies.
I've missed it, all this time, but I wonder how obvious the metaphors were to the Japanese viewers.
Yet I recall in the Gundam panel that the two panelists joked about the asteroids, the colonies, and space-barges being dropped on earth. In one of the series, apparently, a colony lands on its edge, and is planted like a massive metal donut in the middle of some quasi-European city. Pretty ridiculous. But in GW, this catastrophe is averted. The other thing the two panelists noted was that the hero of every Gundam series is always a Japanese boy. That makes sense; he's the stand-in for the Japanese boys watching the series.
Then I think about the twist in Gundam Wing, and the way it works out. The Earth is power-hungry, blood-thirsty; it tries to subdue the colonies in just about any way it can. Zechs, originally from Earth, turns against the Earth and joins the colonies; he represents the Japanese citizens who struggled to get their government to withdraw from its bloody pursuit of colonial lands. When he tries to drop Libra onto the earth, our intrepid Heero gets in the way, and the layers are just awesome. It's a Japanese boy defending Earth/meta-Japan from a catastrophe that could render it lifeless for generations. But this Japanese boy is a colonist. It's not just that he's protecting the source of the colonists' terrors, but that--as a Japanese person--he recognizes that somewhere the war must end. And in doing so, he demonstrates that there is good in the Japanese heart, that when the chips are down, they will choose what's right--or so the creators may have been trying to say. To give Heero the defense of the Earth, after all it's done to him, is a hopeful ending, I think.
Hrrm. Brain hurts. Any comments?
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Slightly related...
Date: 21 Apr 2005 02:31 pm (UTC)The fact that the Japanese government really hasn't fully apologized for what it's done (praying at the shrine each year, editing text books, etc) is why the Chinese people are so up in arms about Japan's bid to get on the Security Council. It's also why Japan, despite being the second largest economy in the world, was never able to play a big role in East and South Asia's development after WWII; the other nations simply did not trust them.
Earth as a metaphor for Japan works rather well now that you've brought it to my attention. After all, the government the US installed after WWII was dedicated to pacifism. The new Earth government in GW can't have a military either, right? They can only have the Preventers (aka Special Defense Force).
In the end of GW, the government that caused all the atrocities is gone and has been replaced by a benign system. Where GW differs from real life is that in the series, the colonies don't bear a grudge against Earth and welcome Earth's help (isn't there something about Earth sending resources to the colonies, or has fandom tainted me? ^^). My tour guide in Hiroshima told us how she went to both Nanjing and Pearl Harbor to pray for forgiveness. To be forgiven (without having to have the government apologize, because that won't happen for a while) is probably something a lot of Japanese desire.
It really is quite sad. Japan is the second largest contributer to the UN, and they've given billions of dollars in aid to Asian nations (check book diplomacy at it's finest). In my opinion, if anyone deserves to be on the UN council, it's them (as opposed to Russia, whose economy is failing and who regularly locks up political dissidents), but if they won't apologize for the past, the Asian nations (China and probably Korea and SE Asia) will block them. The lack of repercussions on the GW boys and all the rest of the soldiers (wasn't everyone pardoned, or is that fandom again?), probably stems from this.
Re: Slightly related...
Date: 21 Apr 2005 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 Apr 2005 01:32 am (UTC)Well, GW's system might be replaced by a benign system but Endless Waltz is, I think, a clarifying accusation against the validity of 'total pacifism'. Basically: it makes you a sitting duck, as if Cinq wasn't enough of an illustration of that.
You're right, though; in the series, the colonies are willing to work together with Earth. But then, it's also set up a little differently in the story--there, the colonies really do stem from Earth, as opposed to being fully independent nations with cultures of their own that in some cases predate Earth. The analogy doesn't work all the way through (and indeed, if it did, it'd be boring because in that case just retell history--a good story takes the premise from reality, twists it a bit, and sees what happens).
no subject
Date: 23 Apr 2005 03:05 pm (UTC)A random question that just struck me is whether there's some parallel in here with Japan's post WW2, UN-enforced 'peace' era (ie, the conditions of surrender including the ban on stockpiling military weaponry, the US occupation etc), but my brain's too muddled to think it thru fully atm.
Japan still refuses to acknowledge/apologise for its actions in China, a fact that had me more than a little astonished mostly because it was brought to recent media attention in Aust as 'an appalling lack on behalf of the Japanese government' (paraphrased) by a certain Mr Howard, the PM who refuses to apologise to the indigenous Australians for our government's past actions. ^^ (hence why it stuck in my mind so prominently)
One of my uncles was on the Kokoda Track in WW2 - I've heard a great deal about the Japanese ruthlessness of those days, and particularly how they viewed anyone who did not subscribe to their personal code of 'honour' as less than animals (actually, less than mealworms). If you allowed yourself to be captured, you forfeited your honour.
The prisoner of war camp, Changi, comes to mind as well.
In some ways, the timing of this is mildly ironic, given that Monday, here, is Anzac Day, when the Aussies and Kiwis (NZ) commemorate the sacrifices of our war soldiers. This year's especially poignant as it's the 90th anniversary of Australia's first participation in a military campaign as a nation, at the beaches of Gallipoli in 1915.
Ok. Shutting up, now, before I really start on the layers. ^^ *gives you back your lj space*
no subject
Date: 23 Apr 2005 03:19 pm (UTC)Yes, Japan refusing to acknowledge what it's done--boy. The textbook issue seems to come up on an annual basis. Although teachers will often just 'skip' from about 1905-1947, going from when they were strong in the Meiji era and then suddenly landing in post-war "the Americans pounded us into dust" era, the books themselves are (I'm told) quite elliptical. "There were issues in Nanjing." Yeah, I'd call 300,000 people--men, women, children, elderly--murdered in the space of six weeks an issue, too.
The whole "you forfeit your honor" is well-known in terms of the absolute ultranationalist arrogance of that time. It lingers, still, and probably in great part due to the fact that Japan appears to be trying its damnedest to raise its new generations with no clear comprehension of the excess of its hubris--or that the retaliation was considered justified by the rest of the world. Japan was not a victim, not by any stretch.
I read up some on the Kokoda Track, and the Australian soldiers who were there. Seeing what Japan did in China, I guess I find it most surprising that American schools focus on the European Theater (well, Hitler & the Jews does kinda snag the stage, I suppose, in terms of woah-factor, as well as being kept strongly in our national conscious by those who survived and fled to the US). I had no idea the Japanese were in striking distance of Australian shores, but after reading what they did elsewhere, it makes sense now that Australia was the last stand against their domination. I'm told if Australia had fallen, it would've been cascade failure down the line.
All that aside, please, get into the layers! You have a perspective I lack, since much of the Pan-Pacific Theater is somewhat new to me. I wish it weren't; my grandfather was Army Air Force (before it broke off into Air Force in '47), in the Pacific Theater. Stationed mostly in the Philipinnes, if I recall correctly. Someday I'll pry his WWII history out of my mom...
no subject
Date: 23 Apr 2005 03:51 pm (UTC)A couple of things I can note from your reply, straight away, tho - no, Japan definitely wasn't a victim, and in that sense I have absolutely no sympathy.
However, it did just occur to me, in a fuller sense than it had before, that if algae growth is more honourable than a man who surrenders rather than takes his own life, how does an entire nation cope when faced with the reality that the country, in itself, failed to fall on the proverbial sword?
I can see how the censorship began - what I personally find apalling is that this has continued for 60 years! At the end of the day, surely it's more honourable to admit your past errors and move on? Or maybe I'm just too simplistic. ^^
Yes, the Kokoda Trail really could be called a successful version of Custer's Last Stand. If I remember correctly, it was just a small platoon with a handful of backup that held back the oncoming Japanese troups. By the last few weeks, there were no guns (mud damaged), no ammunition even if they had guns (that which wasn't useless from the tropical conditions were already spent), no food supplies etc. Raw guts, basically.
To put it in full context for you, in terms of how near a thing it was, Papua New Guinea/New Guinea is just north of Australia - you can *see* it from the northern most tip! There's actually more water distance between the mainland state of Victoria and the island state of Tasmania in the south than there is between northern-most point of Cape York and New Guinea.
The Japanese had managed to advance about 2/3rds of the way down, before they were turned back with the help from the newly arrived US forces.
The general policy was (and pretty much has always been) that Australia's so isolated, that we can send most of our troups elsewhere and still be safe. We were wrong then, we are wrong now.
So, really, if the Japanese had cleared a way thru New Guinea (which they very nearly did), then it would have been a very easy invasion trip over into Queensland.
Travel being what it was in the day, and there being so many islands and areas under Japanese control or isolated by Japanese troups, between the northern asia continents and Australia, Japan had a far better chance of diverting an invasion force down through the region than Australia would have in recalling its troups from the European section of the war.
So, either the British lost one of their Commonwealth countries - which provided a significant amount of resource imports for the UK in terms of minerals, wheat, ecconomy etc, as well as a large, widely achnowledged defense force - or it would have had to a) lose a large proportion of australian troups who were providing man power in the european sector OR send alternative troups OR do both, in order to reclaim australia.
Given that, until Pearl Harbor, the US didn't want to have anything to do with the war, in general, and that both the european and pan-pacific wars were running very close to a loss until the US intervention, then yes, the domino effect *would* have been totally catastrophic!
Gah! Not bad for someone still asleep :P
no subject
Date: 23 Apr 2005 03:59 pm (UTC)There's also a new problem for Japanese censorship, in that for the past 20 yrs or so, they've been sending their students to overseas universities - such as in Australia.
Given that we don't make any bones about what happened, and what we know, and that we're pretty free with our information, there's a lot of now very well informed, young Japanese accademics that are coming up against the authorities on this issue.
Put that with increased internet access and reliance, and an internationally based Japanese student can bombard friends, collegues, other students with a wealth on information they never had before. (have a foggy memory of seeing one such student in an interview forum on tv last year - very interesting).
The basic opinion seemed to be that it was a matter of time before the government was either forced to show its true colours (a la Tianamen (sp?) Square, China, although not necessarily that dramatic), or correct the misapprehension that Japan was the oh-poor-us of the conflict.
It might be the government's hard line stance, but it's starting to fool very few, it seems.
Right! That's it for tonight! Bed! *smacks self*
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Date: 24 Apr 2005 01:35 am (UTC)Yeah, right after I read all seven books waiting on my desk, finish watching (and essaying) Gundam Wing, catch up on Samurai 7...omg shoot me now I'll never be done...
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Date: 24 Apr 2005 09:16 am (UTC)McArthur was actually part of a failed campaign in this place called Batan (which I've only now realised I have NO idea of where it is. Oh well. It's in the pacific region, somewhere). He and the troups fled to the nearest safe zone, which was.... ta da! Australia!
He landed in Darwin by ship at night, caught the troup train down through the red centre, then addressed a semi-improptu mass media press corp from the platform of the Terowie (South Aust) railway station (which was the railway base of the major troup departure point in for the central part of the mainland - a looooong way from Darwin, let me tell ya!) with the now extremely famous announcement "I came out of Batan, and I *shall* return!"
Return he did, with a stack more troups, and basically kicked the Jap's rear ends from arsehole to breakfast time.
It's well documented that he kinda took the Batan defeat a tad too personally. Later, he went on to screw up in a whole heap of other warzones, like Korea, so really, this was his crowning glory, so to speak.
I only know so much about *this* instance, because the now historic, nearly extinct township of Terowie (pronounced Ter-OW-ee, btw) is about 25 mins drive from where I grew up. The railway station is gone now, BUT the platform remains, complete with a little plaque monument to the McArthur event.
There! See, now I don't have to shoot you! *grins*
And, yes, it is very literally a stone's throw. If you were *really* good with a slingshot, that's a posibility. A light catapult, no worries! Scary, ne?
Strangely enough, I'd never quite thought of it as THAT imminent, until I wrote that stuff for you. *mind boggles*