Talk:Allied war crimes during World War II/Archive 4

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Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

"Nevertheless, the prevalent international legal opinion is that these bombings were not a war crime." I deleted this part because it is a very PoV and subjective section. If 16,000 innocent victims during the Invasion of Poland was a war crime, then this certainly is. The winner of a war writes history as we all know, and Wikipedia has a Neutral Point of View. Both sources are American foundations which are obviously biased. If these are not classified as one of the heaviest war crimes ever committed, we could scrap 90% of the German war crimes article. Salaskan 15:13, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone reverted the change, but I support this motion. In fact, the second cited article (Red Cross) does NOT support the statement. While it points out that the general use of nuclear weapons has not been condemned, it does not argue for or against its use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in particular or against civilians in general as being not a war crime. Accepting that this somehow argues against these incidents as war crimes means arguing that, because tanks and rifles are not condemned to use in wartime, their use against civilians is legal. That is obviously not a viable position. The cite needs to be removed and the sentence rewritten. --Xenopulse 16:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, the first cite is no longer valid (broken link) and furthermore never was objective, as it was supposed to be a link to a John Bolton statement, who is a career politician for the current administration and not an independent legal scholar. I'm taking out the sentence and both cites. --Xenopulse 16:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Fixed the first citation to the journal it was published it. That he was US UN ambassador's at the time is significant as he represents the US Government's position on this issue . --Philip Baird Shearer 17:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Still, neither of the cites support the sentence as written. The sentence says: "Nevertheless, the prevalent international legal opinion is that these bombings were not a war crime." The first cite is now absent, so I can't check it. But the second cite doesn't say anything about prevalent international legal opinions, in fact, it doesn't mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki at all, as I explained above. --Xenopulse 23:12, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Sources

According to WP:V,

English-language sources should be given whenever possible, and should always be used in 
preference to foreign-language sources, so that readers can easily verify that the source 
material has been used correctly.

So, in my reading, one cannot discard information just on the basis of it being sourced in the language of the country where the event happened.

And 2003 papers can't be labeled as "german propaganda"...

--Lou Crazy 11:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The Germans did not like it when the French used colonial troops from Africa against them, and used it to score propaganda points. This dates back to WWI. Use a little common sense. Do you really think that the soldiers from Northern Africa behaved so badly, or do you think that racism is behind these stories? Is there so little doubt in your mind that you think Wikipedia should risk its reputation based on sources that you can't read?

Regarding the date of publication, this is a common problem with many of these "sources". Accusing individuals of war crimes sixty years after the war is hardly fair, in that they have no opportunity to defend themselves. Most of these soldiers have passed away. It is unfair to accuse them of crimes, and unreasonable to pretend that this is a real debate when the important information is not available, and the accusations were not aired in a proper forum. These articles need to be more rigorously sourced, or simply removed. Haber 20:43, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The Nazis did not have many good things to say about the Māori Battalion of the New Zealand 2nd Division, the soldiers of British Indian Army (especially the Gurkhas). I would take a long hard look at any document which uses primary sources based on WWII German sources. --Philip Baird Shearer 21:55, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Haber, I have a few problems with your position. First of all, one could argue that "common sense" is not wikipedia policy ;-) anyway, I can read most of the sources cited in the Marocchinate article, since they are in Italian (I am Italian, I think I mentioned it, anyway it is in my user page). While it is true that some of the allegations might be exagerated, it is undoubtable, from those sources, that mass rape happened. Anyway, when Wikipedia policy allows the use of sources in other languages it means that it decidet it is worth risking its reputation.

Accusing individuals of war crimes sixty years later is not only fair, it is a duty! Just a few years ago, in 1997, Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke was tried and sentenced as he deserved. But we're not talking about individuals, it is not a matter of court but of history. The article on Marocchinate is rigorously sourced, according to Wikipedia standards.

To PBS: the Marocchinate article uses lots of italian sources, including interviews with victims, and parliamentary discussions (an italian communist deputy mentioned 60.000 victims... you can hardly claim she was a neo-nazi!). These sources range from 1952 up to contemporary papers.

BTW, how can you describe Dresden as a "tactical strike"?

Re: sources on US area bombing, that's a reference to the UK entry to avoid duplication. US bombers took part in most bombings in Europe, including Dresden.

--Lou Crazy 01:37, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Dresden was a city on a rail hub close to the front lines, ("...figures for October 1944 ... A total of 28 military trains, altogether carrying almost twenty thousand officers and men, were in transit through Dresden-Neustadt each day. There is no reason to believe that three months later ... movements from eastern and western fronts would have decreased substantially" Taylor Dresden Tuesday 13th February 1945 page 186,187) that was the primary reason it was a target, the secondary reason was it was the largest unbombed German city and it contained war industries. Before the Rotterdam Blitz and the decision on May 15 1940 to change RAF directives, the British had bombed German towns west of the Rhine if they were rail hubs (Taylor page 111) because they considerd them to be legitimate even under the restricted rules of engagement they were using at that time. Also before the 1944 June Landings in Normandy the RAF and the USAAF had bombed the French rail network at least as far removed from Normandy as Dresden was from the Eastern Front in a purly tacitcal support role.

Much better examples of German towns of the type that Friedrich is talking about are those which Detlef Siebert wrote about in an article on British Bombing Strategy in World War Two for the BBC: "Some ... like Würzburg or Pforzheim, were selected primarily because they were easy for the bombers to find and destroy. Because they had a medieval centre, they were expected to be particularly vulnerable to fire attack." --Philip Baird Shearer 09:32, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

While Dresden was also a rail hub, "British Air Commodore Grierson told journalists that the aim of Operation Thunderclap had been to bomb large population centres and prevent relief supplies from getting through" (from Bombing of Dresden in World War II). I'd say an Air Commodore is a good enough source. So it was a strategic decision. While other bombings might better describe the phenomenon of area bombing, Dresden is more widely known, so it is better as an example to explain what we're talking about.

--Lou Crazy 15:02, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Chart 12.- Typical organization of a theater of operations as envisaged by War Department Doctrine, 1940

The problem with that source was that Operation Thunderclap was never launched, (it was a contingency plan never activated), What Grierson said was: "First of all they [Dresden and similar towns] are the centres to which evacuees are being moved. They are centres of communications through which traffic is moving across to the Russian Front, and from the Western Front to the East, and they are sufficiently close to the Russian Front for the Russians to continue the successful prosecution of their battle. I think these three reasons probably cover the bombing." Taylor writes on page 413 of Dresden Tuesday 13 Feb 45 that "another journalist asked Grierson whether 'the principal aim of such bombing of Dresden would be to cause confusion among the refugees or to blast communications carrying military supplies'. 'primary communications' Grierson affirmed. 'To prevent them moving military supplies. To stop movement in all directions if possible - movement is everything.' He then added a fairly offhand remark about also trying to destroy 'what is left of German morale'"

The point is that Dresden was a major rail hub near to the front lines and was targeted primerily for that reason. (It would have fallen into the communications zone in the theater of operations). This is made clear in the section Bombing of Dresden in World War II#Reasons for the attack. For example see the memo from Secretary of State for Air, to Churchill "The Air Staff have now arranged that, subject to the overriding claims of attacks on enemy oil production and other approved target systems within the current directive, available effort should be directed against Berlin, Dresden, Chemnitz and Leipzig or against other cities where severe bombing would not only destroy communications vital to the evacuation from the east, but would also hamper the movement of troops from the west." coupled with the JIC recommendation "We consider, therefore, that the assistance which might be given to the Russians during the next few weeks by the British and American strategic bomber forces justifies an urgent review of their employment to this end." --Philip Baird Shearer 16:47, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I think you've just disproved your point. You're mentioning theatre of operations, actions involving both the eastern and the western front at the same time... that's totally outside the realm of tactics, and into strategy. Anyway, if you just want to disrupt railway transport you don't firebomb, you use different kinds of bombs. --Lou Crazy 00:24, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Dresden-Goebbels Last Victory The debate about the legtimacy of the strategic bombing offensive has now focused on a single point-the destruction of Dresden. Was the raid justified in tactical terms? Yes, it was. Was it specifically aimed at the killing of civilians? No, it was not. Not only was Dresden an important transport hub, used to transfer men and materials to the eastern front, it was also by 1945 a major centre of war manufactury. It was the last remaining significant target in eastern Germany. Most important of all the prefered target, Berlin, was too well-defended to serve the task Bomber Command had set itself-delivering a final knock-out blow against the enemy. By early 1945 the RAF was running short of the kind of high explosive bombs used to 'soften up' industrial targets in the past, and Dresden-aside from its strategic importance-was vulnerable to incendiary devices, of which there was a plentiful supply. The other side to this whole equation is the criminal incomptetence of the Nazi authorities in failing to ensure that the city was properly defended, lacking in both anti-aircraft cover and shelter provision. Martin Mutschmann, Gauleiter of Saxony, was later to admit as much, though he himself had ensured that at least his own family would be provided with shelter.

But in the end the real victor of the whole Dresden debate is Josef Goebbels. It was to be he who at an early stage defined the terms in which the raid would be perceived by history, from the bogus casualty figures to the wanton destruction of 'cultural innocence'. It suited the Soviets, left with a heap of ruins, to perpetuate the whole myth, with references in the Communist press to 'Anglo-American air gangsters', just as it suited David Irving and other pro-Nazi historians to attempt to blur the moral boundries between acts of war and atrocities. Goebbels would be proud-the bigger the lie the more likely it is to be believed. Apologise for Dresden? Never. White Guard 01:10, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you on Dresden being a victory for Goebbels. It certainly wasn't a bright moment in the history of the allies. That's why so many people in the UK distanced themselves from it so soon!

--Lou Crazy 00:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"Not only was Dresden an important transport hub, used to transfer men and materials to the eastern front, it was also by 1945 a major centre of war manufactury." That's a lie. The city had no industry and it was bombed after it was filled with reffuges from Soviet-occupied Germany. Mitsos 09:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I have no intention of responding to the above. I will, however, engage with any other user who wishes to explore the point. White Guard 02:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, Lou. I was away. Anyway you're right we shouldn't assume anything is "common sense", but let's just figure this: 7000 Goumiers survive the battle. They are given 50 hours to rape and pillage. In that time they rape 60,000 women, children, elderly, and animals. This gives the average Goumier a rape rate of 4 rapes/day! If one assumes that a few of these men didn't participate because they feared retribution, were decent people or disciplined soldiers, had trouble finding victims, or were too physically exhausted after mountain warfare to rape four times a day, then the statistics become even more unbelievable. Personally I think that a group of men that is capable of taking mountains filled with well-entrenched German defenders can't be all bad soldiers, or human garbage. Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources is being stretched rather far given the "outlandishness" of the claims and the fact that English sources are preferred, but not mandatory.

As for timeliness. You're right- we should go after living criminals if we can catch them and give them fair trials. As for dead individuals or groups, I guess it would be much easier for me to consider an accusation if it came soon after the war rather than fifty years later, and didn't rely so much on statments that are alleged to have been said by the accused. But you have a point. If more evidence is presented, I will look at it. I also noticed that the link article is rather new, has a tag, and will probably improve with time, so I will leave the link for now. Haber 04:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Hey, we all have a real life (or so I hope), so delays are to be expected. They happen to me, too. I agree with you that 60.000 rapes is probably too much. Maybe some of them were raped, some only suffered some other forms of violence. But consider these facts:

• Many goumiers were executed right after the action by their officers
• The french government paid compensations to some thousands of victims
• The italian government paid compensations (albeit late) to other victims, because of a law where it assumed the burden of compensating for allied-caused damage

To me, this means that the event is real, and although the number of victims can be exagerated (as always) it is certainly a war atrocity.

And it isn't something which surfaced too late. The executions happened within days (in some cases, hours). The french goverment had paid its compensations before 1952.

--Lou Crazy 00:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect, White Guard, I find you comments to be grotesque.

Dresden as 'Goebbels last victory?' That's absurd. Would you have us believe that everyone who feels pity for the defenseless German civilians who were killed in Dresden is a proponet of Nazism and Nazi racial ideology? Because if that's true, then I suppose everyone who feels pity for defenseless British civilians who were killed in London is a proponent of British imperialism and British racial ideology.

Automatically branding everyone who disagrees with you as a Nazi is the worst kind of slander, and totally destructive to civil discussion.

So I suppose you would have us believe that the wanton destruction of lives and property that was the fire-bombing of Dresden was justfied simply because Dresden was an important German city. Perhaps you also believe that the Blitz is justified simply because London is an important British city?

Its also interesting how you use sanitizing language: you say that incendary bombs 'soften up' 'targets'. Actually, incendary bombs burn and destroy men, women, and children. And the city was 'vulnerable' to 'the final knock-out blow'. Yes, vulnerable because they were defenseless civlians living in flammable wooden houses. And it was to be 'the final knock-out blow' even though there were no military personnel in the city- no one who could fight back. Defenseless. As you yourself point out, that's why it was chosen.

And you call the Germans the criminals! Its their own fault for being helpless, you say! Lets blame the victim, shall we? Lets blame the British for not being able to properly defend London, lets call them the real criminals of the Blitz! Could anything be more insane?

But at least your honest: you are very open in admitting- it would be a confession if it wasn't so brazen- that you don't much care about the Germans who were killed. Its not worth apologizing for, not worth feeling sorry for.

Imagine if the Germans failed to apologize for their murders, for their crimes! The world would be up in arms! But if the Germans are the ones who suffer, the crime is less grevious, more palatible.

Perhaps German lives are not as valuable? --Filippo Argenti 02:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the atomic bombing of two Japanese cities

not are considered as war crimes in USA, but it is from the rest of the world. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Arigato1 (talk • contribs) 17:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

Do you have a attributable source to back up that statment? --Philip Baird Shearer 09:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Arigato1, there has been a serious discussion on the topic over the past few days. However, there has yet to be any documentation brought out from reputable sources that the bombings were a war crime. You claim that the rest of the world considers this a war crime, so there must be some proof to back up this statement. Until you can provide some sources, your viewpoint would be considered original research, and the idea itself would be considered a fringe theory. CodeCarpenter 19:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

RfC:Was Atomic Bombing of Japan a War Crime

Actually three issues: 1. Is this article about actual prosecuted war crimes or can anyone's assumed war crime be added? 2. Does the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki constitute a war crime? 3. Can references given by Americans automatically get removed as "biased" when discussing American actions as a war crime or not a war crime?

There are a couple of people that are actively reverting on both sides of the issue, and this page needs to be stabilized. The assistance of Admins would be appreciated. CodeCarpenter 15:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Commenting via RfC: This article should reflect only academic and mainstream views on Allied War Crimes. So, no not just anyone's speculation should be included. If there are scholars that think the bombing of Japan was a war crime it should be discussed. Stick with academic and peer reviewed sources on the controversial topics and it should be okay. IvoShandor 19:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

My two cents - I would think the article should include both prosecuted and alleged war crimes, but they should be separated into different sections, and properly sourced if they are alleged. The question of whether the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes or not is not ours to decide. Provide legitimate, reliable sources stating that it was a war crime and it can be listed in the article. If not, then it cannot be allowed to remain. As for the references by Americans, you can't be serious. That is unbelievably anti-American POV-pushing. This article isn't about American war crimes only; they weren't the only member of the Allies. I guess we can only allow editors from Germany, Italy, and Japan to edit this article. There is no ownership of articles; neither is there a rule allowing a certain segment of editors to be blocked from editing articles based solely on their nationality. Parsecboy 20:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Just for clarification, I was not advocating the positions, just asking for comment. I tried to keep the questions neutral. For the record, I figure that 1. A war crime is a crime if it is put up to a trial. 2. Since it met the restrictions of the rules listed in the Dresden bombings, the bombs dropped on Japan were not war crimes. 3. Since the US is known for it's free press, deleting a reference because it is pro-US is just wrong. References are references regardless of their point of origin, as long as they are from a recognized source. But that is just my opinion, and I was looking for some others before putting mine. Sorry for the confusion. CodeCarpenter 20:43, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't talking to you, CodeCarpenter. I know you were just listing the issues at hand. I was speaking to the editors who advocate restricting American sources. Parsecboy 21:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

IvoShandor and Parsecboy have you read the entry for the A-bombings? If so why talk in vague terms and not comment on the quality of the references supplied for the A-bombings? IvoShandor why only scholars are not court cases better?

CodeCarpenter not all war crimes come to trial for example see Le Paradis massacre and Wormhoudt massacre, which is why we have the sentence in the introduction which reads "Other incidents are alleged by certain historians to have been crimes under the law of war in operation at the time, but that for a variety of reasons were not investigated by the Allied powers during the war, or they were investigated and a decision was taken not to prosecute." --Philip Baird Shearer 21:04, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I do not feel strongly against the alleged items, but in the title of the document, it says Allied war crimes, with no clarifier saying alleged. However, alleged carnivorous plants (protocarnivorous) are in carnivorous plants, so it is not a strong objection, just a language objection. I just know that if I added OJ or Robert Blake to the list of murderers, it would get removed, due to a higher legal standard being in place. In some of the cases in the quote above, the equivalent of a Grand Jury looked over the evidence and decided that there was not enough evidence that a crime was committed. It was just my opinion as an outsider. I can see keeping the unprosecuted cases in a separate section here though as suggested by Parsecboy, since a separate page for alleged war crimes would get messy and lengthy. PS: Fritz Knochlein from the Le Paradis massacre DID go to trial, was found guilty , and was hanged. The other trial lacked sufficient evidence, (i.e. survivors), and so would go under the 'alleged' category, I guess. CodeCarpenter 21:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Re - Philip; Both of the sources supplied to support the assertion that the A-bombings were not war crimes aren't very relevant. The document by Bolton only mentions the bombings once, in one sentence. The second source talks generally of the rules of aerial combat, but does not mention one way or another a judgement on the bombings.

The sentence in the introduction is insufficient. It does not differentiate between tried and alleged war crimes in the actual list, which is unacceptable. Parsecboy 21:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The difference is not always that clear because politics gets involved. For example at Nuremberg Trials it stated that unrestricted submarine warfare was a breach of treaty obligations. And it noted that the Allies had done that, but no one from the a Allied side was tried for the crime. So did the Allies commit a war crime or not in adopting unrestricted submarine warfare?

It is beyond doubt that the Soviets committed mass rape in eastern Germany. But few if any were prosecuted for those crimes. Should the historical record as mentioned by many sources one of the most prominent English language sources being the Military historian Anthony Beevor or should we not include it in this article as there were no trails?

The two sources given for the A-bomb was not a war crime are sufficient to show that there is a contrary view and to give a NPOV. It goes without saying that the war time government of the USA did not think that they were committing a crime and the sources given, show that the current US government still thinks that no crime was committed under the international law framed by the treaties that the USA has ratified, and the second source explains how little international law there was in this area in 1945. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:28, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

CodeCarpenter I think you are confused about something. There is a difference between alleging that OJ committed a murder, and stating that Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered (by person or persons unknown). Jack the Ripper was never bought to trial but his victims were murdered. It is a difference between a list of perpetrators and a list of victims. The latter tends to be a more complete list :-( It is beyond doubt that the Wormhoudt massacre took place and that it was a war crime, but unlike the Le Paradis massacre the perpetrator(s) were never brought to justice. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:46, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

In this case though, it is not just the victim, but the statement that is was a crime that is at issue. Marilyn Monroe would not be on a list of murder victims (except in some conspiracy theory books), even though Nicole Brown Simpson would be. However, listing JFK as the killer of Marilyn Monroe would be a stretch, similar to calling the atomic bombings a war crime, IMO. Since this page lists not only the war crime but the Allied perpetrator, I feel it does fall under the OJ example. Jack the Ripper admitted his crime judged to be a crime in every society and only did not get tried because he did not get caught (see Osama Bin Laden), while America is being accused of having commited a crime by a couple of people here that is not only not considered a crime by many others, but America is not in hiding or on the run for their actions. If this was a mythical murder trial, America would rightly claim self-defense, and the trial would be thrown out of court, and no crime would be listed for their act of self defense. CodeCarpenter 23:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

CodeCarpenter, this cannot be compared to a murder trial, and those Japanese infants killed in the bombings weren't throwing grenades at Americans, so self-defence wouldn't work either. This is more comparable to the fire-bombing of Dresden during WWII. This was a deliberate targeting of civilians, Hiroshima was a city with practically nil military value. Using your reasoning CodeCarpenter, Hitler was not responsible for the murder of 6 million jews because he was never tried. This whole dispute can be solved by stating in the article something along the lines of "The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are heavily disputed, with many people on both sides of the issue."

--Jadger 06:43, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the infants weren't throwing grenades, but I'm sure that if the eventual invasion of the Japanese mainland did take place, the majority of the civilians would've resisted. One thing you must remember is that war is not pleasant. It is not gentlemanly. People die in war; sometimes the wrong people, but it's not necessarily intentional. As for Hiroshima having "nil military value", perhaps you're not aware that it was an important army depot.

I have advocated from the start of this RfC that we simply split the war crimes that were actually tried, with a verdict spelled out, and the war crimes that were/are alleged but never brought to trial into two separate sections on this article. Parsecboy 13:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

There's already a whole section on the controversy: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki#Debate over bombings

—wwoods 08:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

There is a problem on the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki page though, which is kernel of the problem for all articles like this were there are advocates on both sides of an issue like "was it a war crime or not". It is "does one put such articles in the Category:War crimes?". This is AFAICT this is a binary decision: either Yes or No where there is no possibility of a "However sentence". --Philip Baird Shearer 10:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Short answers 1) No one ever agrees on what this article should be about. Personally I think that the title does not match the contents, but I have no desire to fight that battle right now. 2) No, the atomic bombings were not war crimes. 3) American sources should not be excluded. Haber 12:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Parsecboy said: It is not gentlemanly. People die in war; sometimes the wrong people, but it's not necessarily intentional. well, in this case it was intentional, the Americans knew that civilians and infants lived in the city, and intentionally targeted it knowing these civilians would die. It was not an army depot, it was a city that was based around the treatment of wounded soldiers, if in defining a military target you use the number of invalides, then yes, Hiroshima was a military target. But other then that, it was not a military target.

The fact that we are having this discussion points out in the first place that it is viewed as a war crime, maybe not by everyone, but by a sizeable number of people.

--Jadger 02:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you can say Hiroshima had no military value, outside of a "number of invalides". Hata's 2nd General Army, which controlled the defense of all of southern Japan was headquartered there. It was a supply and logisitics center, as well as a communication center. As for the civilians argument, it's no different from any other conventional bombing raid conducted during the war. Are all of those war crimes? What about any time an army shelled a city with artillery? Civilians surely died. War crimes all? What about those city battles where thousands of civilians died in the crossfire? Are all those soldiers war criminals? I don't see how the A-bombings are up on this pedestal. These two events where civilians died are somehow on a totally different plane than every other event. Surely you cannot argue the deaths of civilians in conventional bombings or during firefights are more "justified" than those who died in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Parsecboy 15:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

This was a deliberate targetting of civilians, surely you can't support that? This is entirely different than conventional bombings, because conventional bombings are meant to destroy a target/factory and its immediate surroundings. This is more comparable to the bombing of Rotterdam or Dresden than it is to a conventional bombing, because conventional bombings atleast pretended they were trying to hit a specific target rather than civilians. As for your explanation of its military importance, that is using a bazooka on an anthill, it was unwarranted.

--Jadger 17:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it was a deliberate targeting of a city. One thing you must remember is that WWII was a total war. In total wars, everything becomes a target; cities are attacked because they are industrial bases, transportation and logisitics nodes, etc. The goal is to force an opposing country into submission in the "cheapest" (for lack of a better term) way possible. You also have to take into account the purpose of the bombings. It wasn't to deliberately kill civilians, it was to cow the Japanese into surrendering, to avoid an incredibly costly (in terms of military and civilian lives lost) invasion. The argument that Japan was ready to surrender, and had the Allies indicated that they would've allowed Hirohito to retain his position, they would have surrendered without the A-bombs/August Storm is irrelvant. Hindsight is 20/20. Based on previous examples of the Japanese adherence to Bushido (i.e., the cliff suicides in the Marianas rather than surrender), it was very logical to believe the Japanese would not surrender until they were completely destroyed. Parsecboy 20:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Your whole argument is Original Research, and cannot be verified at all. In most other cases cities were not targeted, the railway stations, factories, etc. were targeted, they were in the cities, but it did not mean the whole city was the target. You can not excuse something that happened and say "that was (total) war", we must acknowledge that it happened and that it was a horrible thing and move on. The atomic bombings were different in that they were meant to destroy the whole city, and to force the Japanese government to surrender by telling them "If you don't surrender, we will do this to more of your civilians"

--Jadger 02:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

In Europe the USAAF did target railway stations, factories, etc, as they did initially in Japan. They then turned to the RAF European strategy of targeting an areas in Japan not specific targets. The proponents of a total war consider the means of production are legitimate targets. As, (over the last 200 years), the amount of hardware that each combatant needs to fight has increased, so the logistics chain back to the factory and the support infrastructure that those factory workers need are seen as legitimate targets in a full scale/total war. That some innocents (like children and others not directly involved in the war) are then killed, is considered by those who support such a strategy as collateral damage justified by military necessity. Before and during World War II there was not positive international law which prohibited the bombing of civilian infrastructure from the air. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Two quick responses. 1. America can claim self-defense. I was using the single person as an illustrative point to help simplify my point. The suggestion that Hitler was not a criminal becuase he did not go to trial is a straw man. He would have gone to trial had he not suicided (is that a word?). For clarification, though, I will say not only crimes that go to trail, but crimes that would have gone to trial had the people responsible survived for trial. Had Muhammed Atta somehow survived 9-11, he would have gone to trial, a Grand Jury would have found sufficient evidence to bring him to trial. No Grand Jury on the past 60 years has found sufficient evidence to bring America to trial for the bombings. 2. The reason we are having this discussion is not due to a sizeable number of people that follow the war crimes viewpoint, but due to my request for outside viewpoints after a couple of very aggressive and insulting reverters continued to remove American viewpoints as biased, revert War Crimes into this and other related pages, and to call anyone that dared to contradict them vandals. The fact that they have insulted people who have attempted polite discussion with them, and that they have yet to show up in this more reasoned discussion shows that their goal (not yours Jagder, but theirs) was merely confrontation, not a desire to reach the truth. CodeCarpenter 12:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Jadger, explain where my original research is. You apparently agree the purpose of the bombings were to cow the Japanese into surrendering. I'm sure we could find many sources that label WWII as a total war. The Japanese did commit mass suicide instead of surrendering in the Marianas. I'm also sure we could find sources stating that many in the military believed Japan would not surrender without being completely destroyed. You say You can not excuse something that happened and say "that was (total) war"... . Well, you also cannot look at an event that happened 60 years ago from today's standpoint. You must look at it in the context of the time in which it occurred, using only the information that those who made the decisions had, to properly understand why they did what they did. Like I said earlier, hindsight is 20/20. Parsecboy 12:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The argument that Japan was ready to surrender, and had the Allies indicated that they would've allowed Hirohito to retain his position, they would have surrendered without the A-bombs/August Storm is irrelvant. that is OR, so is It wasn't to deliberately kill civilians, it was to cow the Japanese into surrendering, to avoid an incredibly costly (in terms of military and civilian lives lost) invasion. because an invasion wasn't going to be necessary anyways, the Japanese had already started arranging for peace talks before the first A bomb was dropped. And the intentional targetting of a place where you know thousands of civilians is entirely a war crime. unless you think the bombing of Frampol was not a war crime. It was totally reckless and ignored the obvious loss of innocent life. Would you poison your dog's food (killing your dog) just to kill the racoon that comes around each night and eats its food? of course not, it was overkill and reckless.

yes, it was a total war, I think you are confused, total war does not mean basic humanity can be thrown out the window and international laws can be broken. And for the record, I don't necessarily think it was a warcrime in the strictest sense of the word, but should be included on this page because many would see it as an atrocity and this article is about atrocious things done by the Allies.

--Jadger 07:33, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Jadger, why aren't you listening to me? You cannot look at the events at the end of the Pacific War from the perspective of today. From the US leadership's perspective, Japan had thus far refused to surrender unconditionally. Therefore, an invasion was, to them, necessary. It doesn't matter what we now know. To properly understand the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you must only use the information available to those who made the decisions. A: Japan refuses to surrender unconditionally. B: the Japanese have a history of incredibly tenacious and suicidal defense. Therefore, the option becomes either an incredibly costly invasion or attempt to force their surrender by attacking them with atomic weapons. You would be far more accurate to call your apparent assertion that the A-bombings were deliberate murders of Japanese civilians OR. As for your comment on total war, there were no international laws at the time saying you cannot use Atomic weapons or even that you cannot bomb cities. Total war simply means every aspect of a nation's military/industrial complex becomes a target, from the individual soldier with a rifle all the way back to the civilian factories that produce the bullets. Civilians are part of the war machine, and are therefore a target. Soldiers are no less human than civilians. Why is it perfectly ok to kill soldiers by the millions, but civilians must be spared? Because the civilians were the lucky ones to not be drafted? Parsecboy 12:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

This article is about "Allied war crimes", the word atrocity is too subjective. However, some think that the A-bombings were a war crime. At least one court has pronounced it as such, (which is the source given) and it ought to be included for that reason. However I also think it needs another sentence to balance the POV -- as there is at the moment but which has been deleted several times recently eg [1]

--Philip Baird Shearer 08:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

First off, the comments that the "Japanese had already started arranging for peace talks before the first A bomb was dropped." is not supported by the facts. They rejected the last offer of surrender by the Allies, even after Tokyo was conventionally bombed. Second, the idea that they only surrendered because the USSR declared war on them seems odd, since the Soviets only declared war (in a war that had been going on for over five years) after the US dropped the A-Bomb. It is convenient for someone to claim the USSR was the deciding factor, but the coincidence that they waited until after the A-Bomb is tough to ignore. Finally, in response to the idea that only civilians were targeted, it must be noted that the Japanese hid their Military Industrial complex within their civilians in order to prevent the kind of strategic bombing that took place in Germany. Please see Bombing of Tokyo in World War II, especially this quote: "Also, the strategic-bombing program that had devastated Germany's industrial complexes was ineffective in Japan where two-thirds of industry was dispersed in homes and small factories employing less than thirty workers." Attempts to pinpoint targets were failing, and more Japanese and American lives were being lost to the conventional bombing attempts that were being used from 1942 onward. CodeCarpenter 23:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

What's going on?

Have we reached a solution here? Or has everyone lost interest? Parsecboy 15:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

The people that were attempting to add the bombings not only did not participate in the discussion, they stopped revrrting once the RfC was sent out. Based upon the Fringe Theory rule, the bombings are not in the list, and the decsion seems to have been accepted. CodeCarpenter 13:49, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Parsecboy 16:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Policy of killing surrendering soldiers and POWs

Referenced from "Prisoner Taking and Prisoner Killing in the Age of Total War: Towards a Political Economy of Military Defeat" War in History 2004 11

There is evidence that "take no prisoners" became policy amongst American troops in the Pacific theater. At the battle for Okinawa 75,000 Japanese soldiers died, while less than 7,500 were taken prisoner. In 1943 it was noted in a secret intelligence report that "only the promise of ice cream and three days' leave would suffice to induce American troops not to kill surrendering Japanese." U.S. troops often regarded the Japanese as sub-human, in much the same way as the Germans regarded the Soviets, leading to similar atrocities.

It was not uncommon for soldiers to boil the flesh off Japanese skulls and send them home as souvenirs to their sweethearts. In May 1944 Life Magazine published a picture of such a souvenir, gazed on by a doting girlfriend. Bearing the autograph of her boyfriend and his friends, it was also inscribed with "...'This is a good Jap – a dead one picked up on the New Guinea beach.’ Natalie, surprised at the gift, named it Tojo."

Out of 9,100,000 mobilized Japanese troops, only 42,543 were officially recorded as POWs prior to the Japanese capitulation. Killing of prisoners became so common that War psychologist had to device formula for how to treat later feelings of guilt amongst soldiers. According to the war correspondent Edgar L. Jones; "We shot prisoners in cold blood, wiped out hospitals, strafed lifeboats . . . finished off the enemy wounded." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stor stark7 (talk • contribs) 02:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC).

With the add of this new section into the article, once again we have someone who tries to stress so-called war crimes committed by the Allied (or, in the case at hand, by the US troops) in order to make those committed by the Axis Powers more acceptable. This is a well known strategy and has been used for instance by people like David Irving a.o. ([2]) All what has been added about this "policy of killing surrending soldiers and POWs" is based on one single book. Which of course explains why only 7,500 Japanese were taken prisoner while 75,000 were killed. So, the cover-up about what happened at Okinawa worked perfectly almost till know. Most of the people were convinced that the fanatic Japanese soldiers prefered to die than to surrender, as most of the books, articles and reports about Okinawe say. In fact this was a cover-up operation created to hide the truth: the Japanese were not fanatics. They tried to surrender but were killed by blood hungry and ruthless American soldiers. Thanks God, someone here restaured the truth. Just like David Irving did in a speech he made at Dresden’s Palace of Culture in February 1990 when he said "The Holocaust suffered by the Germans in Dresden was real. The one against the Jews in the gas chambers of Auschwitz is complete fiction". --Lebob-BE 03:05, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I would think the views of a Holocaust denier shouldn't be taken so seriously. Parsecboy 13:30, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to delete the paragraph in question. The article is better off without it. Haber 13:43, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with removing the paragraph. The allegations by one author who apparently has a pretty loose grip on modern history shouldn't be given much weight. Parsecboy 16:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I think I'd better respond properly to Lebob-BE (talk · contribs)s ramblings.

• 1 Bringing in David Irving is a classic example of trying to muddy the waters. David Irving has absolutely nothing to do with the issue of killing surrendering soldiers. I feel truly sorry for those who actually fell for that attempt at argument. So so very sad...
• 2 "The single book" refers to multiple sources when making its arguments, and it's not a book, it's a scholarly article. You don't like the facts? Tough, but not my problem, maybe you should go and stick your head in the sand so you don't have to hear the unpleasant truth.
• 3 Some random links, to show that it is only people with very poor education/serious deficiency in reading real news and not just the sports pages that haven't gotten the hint that there might be more to history than U.S. WW2 propaganda movies.
  • She named the love gift Tojo from LIFE magazine, 5/22/44 p.35 "Picture of the Week".
  • American troops murdered Japanese PoWs

“ A History of Sexual Violence in Okinawa by U.S. Servicemen. Although formal U.S. occupation ended in 1952, Okinawa remained under U.S. military authority until 1972, when the island reverted to Japanese rule. The United States and Japan signed a SOFA in 1960 to establish, among other things, the jurisdictional boundaries applying to U.S. military personnel on the island. This relationship between the U.S. military and the local populace of Okinawa is marred with hundreds of allegations of sexual crimes. Okinawan police reports from 1945 to 1950, for example, reveal 278 reported rapes by U.S. servicemen, including the rape of a nine month old girl in 1949. Similarly, in 1955, local records indicate that a U.S. serviceman kidnapped, raped, and murdered a six year old Okinawa girl.

With the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972, local authorities gained more authority to address problems caused by the U.S. military, but acts of sexual violence persisted nonetheless. A local human rights group, Okinawan Women Act Against Military Violence, cite Okinawan police records that report U.S. military personnel raped 200 Okinawan women between 1972 and 1997. This number, however, is likely to be artificially low not only because of the difficulty and uncertainty of criminal justice processes, but also because of the historical under-reporting of sex crimes.

”

• • Bodies of WWII Marines killed for rapes found in Okinawa
  • 3 Dead Marines and a Secret of Wartime Okinawa
  • One War Is Enough, by EDGAR L. JONES published in the February 1946 issue of the Atlantic Monthly

“ We Americans have the dangerous tendency in our international thinking to take a holier-than-thou attitude toward other nations. We consider ourselves to be more noble and decent than other peoples, and consequently in a better position to decide what is right and wrong in the world. What kind of war do civilians suppose we fought, anyway? We shot prisoners in cold blood, wiped out hospitals, strafed lifeboats, killed or mistreated enemy civilians, finished off the enemy wounded, tossed the dying into a hole with the dead, and in the Pacific boiled the flesh off enemy skulls to make table ornaments for sweethearts, or carved their bones into letter openers. We topped off our saturation bombing and burning of enemy civilians by dropping atomic bombs on two nearly defenseless cities, thereby setting an all-time record for instantaneous mass slaughter.

As victors we are privileged to try our defeated opponents for their crimes against humanity; but we should be realistic enough to appreciate that if we were on trial for breaking international laws, we should be found guilty on a dozen counts. We fought a dishonorable war, because morality had a low priority in battle. The tougher the fighting, the less room for decency, and in Pacific contests we saw mankind reach the blackest depths of bestiality.

”

• • The secret war Now why do I think about the paragraph at the top of this section when I read this link?
  • "we too are considered an army of rapists"...
  • HNET review of "The GI War against Japan: American Soldiers in Asia and the Pacific during World War II". New York: New York University Press, 2002

“ The first form of fury is most often linked to the hatred American troops felt towards the Japanese. The following words from a lieutenant of the 11th Airborne Division to his mother illustrate vividly this point: "Nothing can describe the hate we feel for the Nips--the destruction, the torture, burning & death of countless civilians, the savage fight without purpose--to us they are dogs and rats--we love to kill them--to me and all of us killing Nips is the greatest sport known--it causes no sensation of killing a human being but we really get a kick out of hearing the bastards scream" (p. 207). This hatred heightened the dehumanization of the Japanese soldiers whether alive or already dead. Most dead Japanese were desecrated and mutilated. "American soldiers on Okinawa were seen urinating into the gaping mouth of the slain. They were 'rebutchered.' 'As the bodies jerked and quivered,' a marine on Guadalcanal wrote of the repeated shooting of corpses, 'we would laugh gleefully and hysterically'" (p. 209). As the GIs closed in on the Japanese archipelago, the more the difference between combatants and noncombatants became fuzzy and almost pointless to them.

For instance, rape--which is considered a way to sharpen aggressiveness of soldiers, steeling male bonding among warriors, and, moreover, "reflects a burning need to establish total dominance of the other" (p. 211)--was a general practice against Japanese women. "The estimate of one Okinawan historian for the entire three-month period of the campaign exceeds 10,000. A figure that does not seem unlikely when one realizes that during the first 10 days of the occupation of Japan there were 1,336 reported cases of rape of Japanese women by American soldiers in Kanagawa prefecture alone" (p. 212).

”

--Stor stark7 ^Talk 00:20, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Are there going to be any more claims that Ferguson is completely clueless or a holocaust denier or whatever, or can we reinstate the paragraph now?--Stor stark7 ^Talk 21:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes more claims. No thanks to reinstatement. Haber 04:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I second that. Parsecboy 11:56, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Well? Convince me then, what are your arguments for not including information sourced to a scholarly source? Your private opinions? This is not a democracy, if you have an opinion, put up the sources backing it or get out!--Stor stark7 ^Talk 20:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If you're to spew nothing but insults and revisionism, then you will see your work reverted over and over again with little to no explanation. I would rather read the sports pages than waste my time reading your sensationalistic cut-and-paste. Haber 21:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm still patiently waiting for you to provide some sort of reasoned or sourced arguments instead of yet more allegations.... Besides reverting sourced material without any reasonable explanation is likely to get you blocked eventually, not that I'd shed any tears over that.--Stor stark7 ^Talk 22:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Niall Ferguson

I removed the section based on a article written by Niall Ferguson "Prisoner Taking and Prisoner Killing in the Age of Total War: Towards a Political Economy of Military Defeat" War in History 11, no. 2 (April 2004): 34-78. because I think all of the sentences need discussing before they are included in the article. --Philip Baird Shearer 16:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The mortality rate for German POW's in U.S. hands was more than 4 times higher than the rate for those who surrendered to the British.

What is his source for this and given a normal distribution for casualties is it significant? --Philip Baird Shearer 16:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Moreover, even if it is 4 times higher than the rates of those who surrendered to the British, it is still 383 lower than the rate of the death among Russian POWs held by the Germans. Therefore, I don’t really see which relation this statement – even if true – could have with possible allied war crimes.--Lebob-BE 17:43, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

So the argument you're making is, yes we may have killed people, but look at the Russians - compared to the numbers they killed the ones we killed don't really count and are therefore best forgotten?--Stor stark7 ^Talk 01:29, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Further, another advantage with surrendering to the British rather than the Americans was that besides treating them better than the U.S. did, the British also refrained from handing prisoners over to the Soviet Union.

What about White Russians and soldiers of the Russian Liberation Army in Operation Keelhaul? --Philip Baird Shearer 16:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Violating the Geneva Convention of 1929, large numbers of German prisoners were transfered between the Allies. The U.S gave 765,000 to France, 76,000 to Benelux countries, and 200,000 to the Soviet Union.

Which articles of the Geneva Convention (1929) was violated? --Philip Baird Shearer 16:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

No provision of the 1929 Geneva Convention prohibited the transfer of POWs from one country to the other. Article 12 of the 1949 Geneva Convention, maybe in light of what happened to German POWs transferred to Russia, introduced such kind of provision. This article notably states that: “Prisoners of war may only be transferred by the Detaining Power to a Power which is a party to the Convention and after the Detaining Power has satisfied itself of the willingness and ability of such transferee Power to apply the Convention. When prisoners of war are transferred under such circumstances, responsibility for the application of the Convention rests on the Power accepting them while they are in its custody.” Thus, in transferring POWs to others countries the USA didn’t infringe any provision of the 1929 Geneva Convention, let alone commit a war crime.--Lebob-BE 17:43, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The U.S. also chose to refuse to accept the surrender of German troops attempting to surrender in Saxony and Bohemia. These soldiers were instead handed over to the Soviet Union.

What is the clause in the 1929 Gerneva Convention that said the US troops had to accept the German troops who wished to surrender to them? Further if the Germans surrender was not accepted how could they have been handed over to the Soviet Union by the US? --Philip Baird Shearer 16:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

From a mere legal point of view, in so far the US Army didn’t accept the surrender of these German troops, the were not POWs and were thus not under protection of the Geneva Convention. There can’t even be question of transferring POWs in the case at hand since these people didn’t have the status of POW.--Lebob-BE 17:43, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

(The Soviet Union in turn handed German prisoners over to other Eastern European nations, for example 70,000 to Poland)

Which article of Geneva Convention was breached by doing this? --Philip Baird Shearer 16:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The Soviet Union could hardly have breached any provision of the Geneva Convention by doing this since the Russians hadn’t signed the Convention. Moreover, as said above, the 1929 Convention didn’t contain any provision that prohibited the transfer of POWs.--Lebob-BE 17:43, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I think as well that all these sentences need to be discussed in depth before being included within the article. Furthermore, I am wondering whether any of these facts constitutes an infringement of the 1929 Geneva Convention, let alone a war crime which, after all, is the subject of this article. --Lebob-BE 17:43, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

@Lebob-BE, reading you rant in the previous section, and then seing you start comparing German warcrimes in this section... seems a bit inconsequential to me. Not that I'm surprised.

The exact quotes from the published article.

¨ That was a widespread sentiment. Until the third quarter of 1944, more than half of all German prisoners were held in the East. But thereafter, the share captured by the Americans rose rapidly, as Figure 7 shows. It is clear that many German units sought to surrender to the Americans in preference to other Allied forces, and particularly the Red Army. With the benefit of hindsight, they would have done better to look for British captors, since the British treated German prisoners better than the Americans did, and were also less willing to hand them over to the Soviets.189 But successful psychological warfare led the Germans to expect the kindest treatment from US forces.

(Footnote text 189) Contrary to the terms of the Geneva Convention of 1929, a substantial number of German prisoners were transferred to other powers by those they surrendered to. The Americans handed over 765000 to France, 76000 to the Benelux countries and 200000 to Russia. In Saxony and Bohemia they also refused to accept the surrender of German troops, who were handed over to the Russians: H. Nawratil, Die deutschen Nachkriegsverluste unter Vertriebenen, Gefangenen und Verschleppter: mit einer bersicht ber die europa¨ischen Nachkriegsverluste (Munich and Berlin, 1988), pp. 36f.

Similar efforts were made to encourage Japanese soldiers to surrender. ‘Surrender passes’ and translations of the Geneva Convention were dropped on Japanese positions, and concerted efforts were made to stamp out the practice of taking no prisoners. On 14 May 1944 General MacArthur sent a telegram to the commander of the Alamo Force demanding an ‘investigation . . . of numerous reports reaching this headquarters that Japanese carrying surrender passes and attempting to surrender in Hollandia area have been killed by our troops’.190 The Psychological Warfare Branch representative at X Corps, Captain William R. Beard, complained that his efforts were being negated ‘by the front-line troops shooting [Japanese] when they made an attempt to surrender’.191 But gradually the message got through, especially to more experienced troops. ‘Don’t shoot the bastard!’ shouted one veteran when a Japanese emerged from a foxhole waving a surrender lea et.192

Obviously I should have used the word Germans more, but I was anxious not to violate copyright to much. As to the rants heard here trying to blacklabel the author, please, The source was listed here as further reading for quite a while, and freely available then to boot. The fact that you obviously never bothered to read it speaks volumes of your "knowledge" of history, since you seem unable to even make an attempt to read available information.

The sources used for death rates. Sources: B. Moore and K. Fedorowich, ‘Prisoners of War’, in B. Moore and K. Fedorowich, Prisoners of War (Oxford and Washington,DC, 1986), p. 1; M. Burleigh, Third Reich (London, Basingstoke and Oxford, 2000), pp. 512–13; S. Hynes, The Soldier’s Tale (New York, 1997), p. 242; S.P.Mackenzie,‘Treatment of Prisoners of War’, Journal of Modern History LXVI (1994), pp. 516–17; J. Keegan (ed.), Times Atlas of the Second World War (London, 1989), p. 205; R. Overmans, ‘German Historiography’, in G. Bischof and S. Ambrose (eds), Eisenhower and the German POWs (Baton Rouge and London, 1992), p. 155.

And just to remind you. I respect your opinions. If you can provide a reliable source that also says the same, they are possibly worthy of inclusion in wikipedia. If not, then stop wasting everybody's time!--Stor stark7 ^Talk 22:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I am still trying to find which clause of the Geneva Convention of 1929 prohibits the transfer of POWs from the detaining Power to another Power. Such a clause is clearly written under Article 12 of the 1949 Convention, but cannot be found in the 1929 Convention. So I still wonder what your point is. --Lebob-BE 22:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The original text the says "less willing to hand them over to the Soviets." which is not the same as "refrained from handing prisoners over to the Soviet Union". Besides I thought throughout the war the British shipped POWs to Canada and it is not at all clear to me that to do so was in breach of the Geneva Convention (1929). Having written most of the article on the 1929 GC and gone through it article by article, I can not remember an article which placed such a prohibition on the movement of prisoners (that is not to say it was not in the Hague regulations on which the GC 1929 was built, unlike GC 1949 supplanted Hague in this area). There is also a further complication because the Allies considered prisoners after the Debellatio of the Third Reich to be Disarmed Enemy Forces not POWs, and as GC 1949 was drafted to cover this, it suggests that that was the prevalent legal understanding that such prisoners were not POWs and covered by GC 1929. All in all I have not yet read anything here that suggests that the text as written and removed is relevant to this article. (For references to the status of Disarmed Enemy Forces see the footnotes to the ICRC in that article). BTW Stor stark7, the above about Debellation is not for your benefit because I see from the talk page of Talk:Disarmed Enemy Forces that you have already considered that page. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

My reading of the [commentary by the ICRC on GCIII] was that transfer of prisoners between powers was not covered by GC 1929. Hence for the need for the additional paragraphs in GCIII. Article 12 (paragraph 2) which were not in GC 1929 Articles 2,25,26 --Philip Baird Shearer 10:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Who added the wrong number of 35,8 % GERMAN POW that died in Soviet captivity that is 100% wrong. No books says that, prove it by scanning the book. The SU took 3,6 million POW and out of those some 378K died, the only way you can reach the fantasy number is by a semi combination of historical perversions and twisting facts. For example the 1949 numbers for German war deaths have been used for very long (3,5 million dead, 2 million missing), but then in 2000 the German Officer and number 1 German historian Rudger Overman released his book "German losses in ww2", where he stated that the 2 million "missing" had actually died in combat, so someone if they so wished, could change the facts to, not died in combat, but died in captivity and that way "estimate" the 35% number, but by doing so the person would totally ignore the archival research of 378k and use his" these numbers feels so right" instead of the archival researched numbers. Or to put it simple 378K is the number of how many Germans died in SU captivity, and those are the recorded number which became available after the fall of the union and any other number is wishful thinking by right right far right wing historians.Rivertimerr 05:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

As the only copy of the book you cite is in German (and I do not speak German), perhaps you could provide a translation of the section you're citing that proves the 35% number wrong. In any case, you cannot logically assert that the 2 million men termed "missing in action" were all killed. Some were undoubtedly taken prisoner, and those soldiers never returned to Germany, or else they wouldn't be missing in combat, now would they? I'm not saying the 35% number is right, but the actual number is somewhere in the 14.7-35% range, and we'll probably never know for sure. Based on this, I am re-inserting the figure range, as there are many reliably-sourced estimates that fall within it. Parsecboy 06:27, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

No no no no no no no, let me Say it, plain and simple: the Germans lost 5,5 million Soldiers not 3,5 million. What Overman did was look through all the archives when east and west Germany became Germany and say that; hey many people listed as civilian deaths were actually Soldiers who had been wounded on the field but later taken back to hospitals and died there, or people had not just reported them as dead or they had died on their way towards hospitals or the records had been misplaced, because in November 1944 the whole German record system collapsed and he is the only one to actually go through it all, and he concluded that the 2 million "missing" weren’t really missing just misplaced in different columns. AND THE POW THAT DIED IN CAPTIVITY, where recorded in Soviet archives that were opened in 1991+, and in those you can see that the number of German Deaths in captivity is 378k, you can read about it in many English book one being, The Dictators, by R, Overy, and no one has ever given any high figure, so that makes me question if at all the alleged book actually does that or the user who added it is just plain and simple lying or twisting the words or just seeing things that are not there.Rivertimerr 10:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

To the "apparent" newbie who has accused me of lying.

• 1. The cited article does indeed give the death percentage as 35.8%!.
• 2. The cited scholarly article is a recent in depth investigation on POWs during WWI and WWII.
• 3. Overman is not a "God". He is a scholar who has made an estimate. According to Wikipedia policy we then include his estimate, as well as other scholarly estimates that may well contradict him. Rivertimerr, it is not your place to decide who is right and who is wrong, and certainly not your place to accuse me of lying or intellectual feebleness in reading Fergusons table!
• 4. Overman seems to have a tendency to understate the casualty numbers due to crimes of the Soviet Union, as [this review of the Dictators] indicates!
• 5 the table in question!

Table 4 Prisoners of war: percentage and chances of dying in captivity

Percentage Chance

British POW in German hands 3.5 1 in 29

British POW in Japanese hands 24.8 1 in 4

American POW in Japanese hands 33.0 1 in 3

Russian POW in German hands 57.5 1 in 2

German POW in British hands 0.03 1 in 3333

German POW in American hands 0.15 1 in 683

German POW in French hands 2.58 1 in 39

German POW in East European hands 32.9 1 in 3

German POW in Russian hands 35.8 1 in 3

Sources: B. Moore and K. Fedorowich, ‘Prisoners of War’, in B. Moore and K. Fedorowich,

Prisoners of War (Oxford and Washington,DC, 1986), p. 1; M. Burleigh, Third Reich (London,

Basingstoke and Oxford, 2000), pp. 512–13; S. Hynes, The Soldier’s Tale (New York, 1997),

p. 242; S.P.Mackenzie,‘Treatment of Prisoners of War’, Journal of Modern History LXVI (1994),

pp. 516–17; J. Keegan (ed.), Times Atlas of the Second World War (London, 1989), p. 205;

R. Overmans, ‘German Historiography’, in G. Bischof and S. Ambrose (eds), Eisenhower and

the German POWs (Baton Rouge and London, 1992), p. 155.

--Stor stark7 ^Talk 11:14, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Prove that the book from 2004 says 35,8%. Who is talking about Overman? The numbers of German POW comes from Richard Overy the Dictators, the link you posted says nothing about German Civilians or casualties, it is a review which can be made by anyone and it says nothing of what you just said. Prove that you alleged book says 35,8% by scanning it and also scan the page where he got that number from, since the archival research says 378k those are the recorded numbers in the archives, it is no estimate. And the numbers of German POW that died comes from Overy, I just mentioned Overman as an example where someone could possibly get the insane number of 35,8%, but clearly you are not telling the truth at all because the link http://www.commentarymagazine.com/cm/main/viewArticle.aip?id=9808&page=1 says nothing, not one word of what you said that is absolute proof that you are not telling the truth..Rivertimerr 00:11, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

First, seeing as you obviously are a bit confused about the rules of wikipedia I suggest you start by reading the links on this page: Wikipedia:Tutorial (Keep in mind). I apologize for using the name "Overman" when clearly I meant to say "Overy", I hope my error has not caused you any further undue emotional harm. The review of "The Dictators" that I posted as an indicator that Overly might be downplaying casualties of the Soviets does say precisely what I claimed it says, and it comes from Commentary (magazine) so I expect they have at least some inkling of what they talk about. I certainly do not intend to scan the page in question from Fergusons article. Yes, it is an article as you'd know if you'd been paying attention. If you want to be really sure that I'm not lying to you and everybody else here, then I suggest you actually make the effort of checking the article out for yourself "War in History, Vol. 11, No. 2, 148-192 (2004)" either by downloading it or by, gasp..., going to a library with either physical or digital access to it. Now, if you want me to take you anywhere close to seriously in the future then I suggest that you calm down and start discussing coherently, although I fear there is little hope for such improvement.--Stor stark7 ^Talk 13:31, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Rivertimer, if you'd actually thoroughly read the article Stor Stark7 had posted, you would have seen this section:

"The West’s “totalitarian temptation” was, of course, incomparably stronger in the case of Communism than in that of National Socialism. Indeed, the habit of playing down the crimes of the former, which tended to be less familiar than the latter’s, is still with us. Overy makes strenuous efforts to be evenhanded in his own critique of the two tyrannies, but even he occasionally falls into the trap. Thus he dwells in devilish detail on the vividly visualized and richly documented bestiality with which the Nazis have scarred the collective memory of Europe, but Soviet atrocities sometimes seem fuzzy in his pages, recalled in impressionistic terms that belie their prodigious and sustained horror."

Please thoroughly read articles your opponents post, or you'll end up sounding like an ignorant POV-pushing ideologue. Parsecboy 19:25, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

unsourced allegations

At the moment these incidents are listed in the article but the article on the Battle of the Bismarck Sea does not investigate the alleged war crime, and the others do not have reliable sources that the incidents were war crimes. If such sources can not be provided with page numbers for books and the names of the people making the allegations they should be removed:

• Battle of the Bismarck Sea- On orders from U.S. Army Air Force General George Kenney, U.S. aircraft strafed and bombed survivors from sunken Japanese warships and transports swimming or floating in the ocean.
• Strafing survivors from the sunken Japanese cruiser Nachi
• Strafing survivors from the sunken Japanese cruiser Kumano in Dasol Bay, Philippines, on November 25, 1944, aircraft from the U.S. carrier Ticonderoga strafed and bombed the survivors of the sunken cruiser as they floated in the water.[citation needed]
• Strafing survivors from the Japanese battleship Yamato and the cruiser Yahagi during Operation Ten-Go.
• Killing survivors from a sunken Japanese transport by Wahoo, January 1943

--Philip Baird Shearer 09:03, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

ok cut them. Haber 12:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I was the one who added all of those except for the Wahoo incident. I assumed that they were war crimes but admit I don't have any cited analyses as to why they should be classified as such. Therefore, I understand your rationale for removing them. Cla68 23:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Possibly not warcrimes but in any case violations of the laws and rules of the sea. But as long as they are not clearly identifiable as warcrimes I'd agree that they don't belong into this article.--Caranorn 12:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Focus

The section that Stor stark7 wishes to introduce about Niall Ferguson's alleged American war crimes against the Japanese has I think raised several an important issues.

Like all crimes, war crimes fall into different categories. Some are only war crimes if the person is caught while still behind enemy lines. People like F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas were given their county's highest awards for their gallantry while on a mission which when German agents preformed similar missions against the British, that if caught in Britain resulted in a guilty verdict for spying and an execution unless the agent was useful in the (Double Cross System). Should all Allied agents who parachuted into Europe be listed here?

During World War II the armies of the major parties to the war were conscript armies. So the criminal profile an army was likely to mirror that of the society from which they came. However two further considerations have to be applied.

• Do most soldiers in most armies commit such a crime? For example petty looting. Taking a bottle of wine is theft and should be paid for, but should every recorded incident of such war crimes be listed in Wikipedia?
• Was the crime part of a systemic failure by the authorities to stop such crimes, (such as the Soviets lack of censure on the mass rapes that took place Germany) or worse still encouraged by the authorities like the Commando Order?

If this page is not to be a list of every petty war crime committed by the Allies then we may need a paragraph explaining this.

Returning to Stor stark7's text: That some most American marines came to see the Japanese as the enemy and less than human is part of the indoctrination that all soldiers conscripted to fight a war are put through. That some of them had a tendency not to want to take prisoners is not surprising given the tenaciousness of the Japanese soldier and their tendency (as the American soldiers rightly or wrongly thought) of some of them not to abide by the laws of war when offering to surrender. But what is important is what was the reaction of the American command system? Did they encourage it or try to stop breaches of the Geneva Conventions. (Usually authorities encourage the taking of prisoners because of the information they can provide and because as Niall Ferguson pointed out in the Pity of War, taking prisoners is the fastest way to inflicting casualties on the enemy). I see no harm in mentioning that such incidents took place particularly if the paragraph is phrased explicitly to mention that this is from a research paper by Niall Ferguson. But not every insident needs to be listed and for a NPOV paragraph it should also be highlighted that no quarter was not the policy of the US Army. I mention this because the section where this is discussed on this talk page is called "#Policy of killing surrendering soldiers and POWs" which implies it was US policy which is was not. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)