Pretty clear some here *really* need to get a life. Perhaps
educating themselves on the way downed American pilots were
cannibalized by the Japs, and Aussie airfield guards, Dutch
and Chinese civilians beheaded by the IJN sailors etc may
help their perspective on whats worth picking nits over.

Slaughter At Sea: The Story Of Japan's Naval War Crimes by
Mark Felton is published by Pen & Sword on November 20 at
£19.99.

"It's a crime that in sheer numbers is far greater than the
Nazi Holocaust. In Germany, Holocaust denial is a crime. In
Japan, it is government policy. But the evidence against the
navy – precious little of which you will find in Japan
itself – is damning."

The geographical breadth of the navy's crimes, the heinous
nature of the acts themselves and the sadistic behaviour of
the officers and men concerned are almost unimaginable.

For example, the execution of 312 Australian and Dutch
defenders of the Laha Airfield, Java, was ordered by Rear
Admiral Koichiro Hatakeyama on February 24 and 25, 1942.

The facts were squeezed out of two Japanese witnesses by
Australian army interrogators as there were no Allied survivors.

One of the Japanese sailors described how the first prisoner
to be killed, an Australian, was led forward to the edge of
a pit, forced to his knees and beheaded with a samurai sword
by a Warrant Officer Sasaki, prompting a great cry of
admiration from the watching Japanese.

Sasaki dispatched four more prisoners, and then the ordinary
sailors came forward one by one to commit murder.

They laughed and joked with each other even when the
executions were terribly botched, the victims pushed into
the pit with their heads half attached, jerking feebly and
moaning.

http://tinyurl.com/3yuejm