Talk:Allied war crimes during World War II/Archive 7

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Request for comment Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#Treatment_of_POWs

The paragraph in question deals with the common practice in parts of the Pacific theater to take no prisoners.

Two sources are available for the information; one is an article referring to a detailed study of memoirs of the Second World War performed by Professor Richard Aldrich of Nottingham University. The second source is a paper by Niall Ferguson, published in "War in History" 2004 11 (2) 148–192.

There are two Issues with repeated edits by editor: [1] Using the summary "copyedit for encyclopedic style" the Editor:

1. Editor waters-out content on previously thoroughly debated and agreed upon paragraph.

Editor removes sentence "According to Aldrich it became common for U.S troops in parts of the Pacific War not to take prisoners."

Editor replaces "analysis" with "claim".

Editor removes credentials of authors, as well as name of the source. (name, credentials and title of the work was added since the subject is apparently controversial it was deemed necessary to state from who and where the information comes from)

Editor attempts to replace "massacred" (the word used in the source for the sentence in question [2]) with "killed".

Editor replaces "Ferguson writes that this practice played a role in the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead being 1:100 in late 1944." (The practice being "no-prisoners") with "Ferguson states that by late 1944, the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead was 1:100."

2 Editor is apparently unhappy with the text singling out U.S. and in particular Australian soldiers. Editor engages in original research/inserting irrelevant material by adding sub-paragraph.[3]

"It is not clear if Aldrich or Ferguson have subjected Chinese, British, and other Allied forces in the Chinese and Burmese campaigns to the same level of scrutiny."

The Editor has tried to insert Original research by providing un-sourced motivations/excuses for war crimes. Using the edit summary "restructured in theatres of war/simplified intro/added pics", and no edit summary at all. [4], [5].

The Editor insists on changing a sentence whose source only supports the use of "U.S. and Australian" into "Allied" [6].

The Editor repeatedly engages in original research, and removes sourced material[7], [8]

--Stor stark7 ^Talk 17:57, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:Richardshusr

Disclaimer: I am an American of Taiwanese descent, born and raised for the most part in the United States. I lived in Japan during my middle school years. Take my comments with whatever grains of salt you deem appropriate.

I have looked at all the diff's provided above. I have not read the long discussions above on this Talk Page. Here are my "off the cuff" impressions based solely on a quick scan of the article, the description of the RFC and diffs provided above. I am not going to attempt to pass judgment on each and every edit dispute. At least not today. Maybe I'll join in as a contributor to this article later.

1. It is important not to assert something as true simply because you can source it to one or two sources.
2. It is important to determine whether Aldrich and Ferguson represent the mainstream opinion or a minority opinion among WWII historians. Minority opinions should not be given undue weight. If A&F represent a minority opinion, this should be communicated to the reader explicitly. I rather expect that they are a minority opinion but that doesn't mean their opinion isn't valid. All new and revolutionary ideas start out as minority opinions. But our job is not to determine whether or not the minority opinion is valid and should become the mainstream opinion. If it is not currently the mainstream opinion, it is our obligation to indicate that to the reader.
3. When something is a minority view or even a disputed view, I prefer the locution "According to source A, X happened" rather than writing "X happened" followed by a citation to source A. This is part of the "communicating to the reader that this is a minority view". Only say "X happened" when there is no controversy at all about whether or not "X happened".
4. It should be recognized that analysis of diaries is ultimately anecdotal evidence. Now, if the number of diaries is very large (say several hundred), then the anecdotal evidence starts to become overwhelming. If it's only 10-20 diaries, there are a lot of potential challenges that can be raised. Anecdotal evidence is inferior to statistical evidence. Some indication of the nature of their work should be given. This is best done by citing the opinions of other historians (see next point).
5. Rather than challenge A&F via OR, it would be preferable to find other historians who critique their allegations. Then summarize the criticisms and provide citations.
6. It is important to mention that the victor controls who gets charged with war crimes and that Allied war crimes were not likely to come before war crime tribunals but would either be the subject of courts-martial or just ignored and covered up.
7. Likewise, it is important to mention that the definition of "war crime" has changed since WWII and thus actions which are now considered war crimes may not have been considered so back then.
8. It is also important to mention that the Japanese did indeed have a "death is preferable to surrender" mentality. This does not excuse the slaughter of POWs but it does explain a "kill them all" mentality on the part of Allied soldiers in the Pacific Theater. If you believe that the enemy will not surrender or, if captured, will not stop trying to kill you, you are going to be less inclined to give him any quarter. Once again, this is not an excuse but it serves as an explanation.

Below I address the points raised in the RFC point-by-point:

1. Editor waters-out content on previously thoroughly debated and agreed upon paragraph.

Editor removes sentence "According to Aldrich it became common for U.S troops in parts of the Pacific War not to take prisoners."

Seems like a bad edit to remove the sentence. However, I would be in favor of watering this down unless it can be shown that it is widely accepted as the minstream opinion that "it became common..." --Richard 20:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Editor replaces "analysis" with "claim".

I would prefer "assertion". "Claim" suggests that the claim is not valid. "Analysis" suggests that it is valid. "Assertion" (IMO) is somewhere between the two. --Richard 20:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Editor removes credentials of authors, as well as name of the source. (name, credentials and title of the work was added since the subject is apparently controversial it was deemed necessary to state from who and where the information comes from)

Without looking at a specific edit, the action above (if true) is a bad thing. --Richard 20:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Editor attempts to replace "massacred" (the word used in the source for the sentence in question [9]) with "killed".

You "kill" less than 10 people. More than 20 is a "massacre" if the victims were defenseless. Especially if they were POWs or attempting to surrender. I will comment that, it appears that both words are used in some places. For example "(Allied soldiers) killed massacred...". One of the two should be removed. --Richard 20:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The editor added the word killed to the sentence in question, it is my assumption that he forgot to delete the word massacred, hence my usage of the phrase "attempts to replace".--Stor stark7 ^Talk 21:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Editor replaces "Ferguson writes that this practice played a role in the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead being 1:100 in late 1944." (The practice being "no-prisoners") with "Ferguson states that by late 1944, the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead was 1:100."

So the editor-in-question is trying to remove the assertion that "this practice played a role"? If so, this is a bad thing. Better to challenge the assertion with a citation to a historian who thinks Ferguson is wrong.

However, if you look at this diff, it seems that the Editor left in the mention of the "no prisoners" practice. It seems the edit changes the assertion that the practice had become standard and waters it down to simply that some Allied personnel were engaging in a "no prisoners" policy. I think more sources are needed here. Is Ferguson's claim the mainstream opinion or a minority viewpoint? Once again, one source is not enough to support a controversial claim. Seek an NPOV stance that presents all substantive viewpoints. --Richard 20:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Both Aldrich and Feerfusson make similar "no prisoners became standard practice" conclusions. Therefore we included both, to explicitly show that it was more than one source making that conclusion. If there had been only one person stating it the text would never have been possible to include in this article due to the resistance of various editors. With one of the statements removed, it would probably be just a matter of time before the other disappeared as well.--Stor stark7 ^Talk 21:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

2 Editor is apparently unhappy with the text singling out U.S. and in particular Australian soldiers. Editor engages in original research/inserting irrelevant material by adding sub-paragraph.[10]

"It is not clear if Aldrich or Ferguson have subjected Chinese, British, and other Allied forces in the Chinese and Burmese campaigns to the same level of scrutiny."

I do not like the above sentence. Either it is clear or it is not clear. If you have the book, you should be able to tell which is the case. Did either author subject other Allied forces to the same level of scrutiny? If not, just say so. Ideally, it would be better to find another historian who critiques their work on this basis. The implication here is that, if they had done so, they would have found that other Allied forces were culpable of similar "crimes". Don't do this by insinuation. Find another reliable source who will say this. --Richard 20:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The Editor has tried to insert Original research by providing un-sourced motivations/excuses for war crimes. Using the edit summary "restructured in theatres of war/simplified intro/added pics", and no edit summary at all. [11],

It's not clear what the motivation of the above edit is but it doesn't seem to me to be "providing un-sourced motivations/excuses for war crimes". I think there are parts of the edit that are badly written. Specifically "Allied personnel were not charged in relation to war crimes or court martialled for them." Really? No courts-martial at all? That should be backed up with a citation. As for the rest, I'm not convinced that the shorter version doesn't cover the same points that the longer version did. Seems to me more like a stylistic difference rather than a content dispute. Please assume good faith. --Richard 20:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry the I should have explained better, the editor made a large number of edits in the article in one edit, all I'm concerned with here are the edits to the section "Treatment of POWs", where the editor removed this text

"In the Pacific War American and Australian soldiers massacred Japanese prisoners of war, according to "The Faraway War", a detailed study of diaries made by Professor Richard Aldrich of Nottingham University. According to Aldrich it became common for U.S troops in parts of the Pacific War not to take prisoners." and replaced it with

"The Empire of Japan was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention, and its forces frequently disregarded its provisions (see Japanese war crimes). During the Pacific War, this attitude was taken up by US and British Commonwealth soldiers, who killed Japanese prisoners of war.".

So where we had a sourced text talking about U.S. and Australian soldiers, and also a text about what the source states, we now have a text using the same source claiming it was "Brittish Commonwealth soldiers". My reflection was, why is it so important not to mention Australians? Also, "According to Aldrich it became common for U.S troops in parts of the Pacific War not to take prisoners." and "American and Australian soldiers massacred Japanese prisoners of war, according to "The Faraway War"" now became "During the Pacific War, this attitude was taken up by US and British Commonwealth soldiers, who killed Japanese prisoners of war."". Now we have a very bland statement which could imply that this hapened, but not very often. And the fact of Japan not being a signatory of the Geneva convention etc...., is in my (by now bad faith assumption) simply a way of providing a un-sourced motive/justification for the killings, i.e. OR.--Stor stark7 ^Talk 21:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[12].

This is a really complex issue. How much of it was racism vs. a response to the Japanese "no surrender" mentality? This question should be brought out explicitly, ideally with citations to reliable sources. The key here is that the "take no prisoners, kill 'em all" mentality was more commonplace in the Pacific Theater than in the European Theater. The debate over why this was so is not an easy one and deserves a more detailed and sophisticated treatment than just a line or two in this article. --Richard 20:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

This was step two of the editors edit, it followed the preceding edit which removed much of the Aldrich text.

The editor engages in OR and states that the Japanese were more inclined to fight to the death, and that this was the reason they were killed. These are thwo OR allegations that need sourcing. The editor now also includes British and other Commonwealth soldiers, i.e. possibly indians, gurkhas and whoever as killers, still without proving sources, except by misusing the Aldrich source who uses neither British nor commonwealth. I provided some info on this "motives" topic on the Talk page at Talk:Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#Some_Other_Ferguson_quotes--Stor stark7 ^Talk 21:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The Editor insists on changing a sentence whose source only supports the use of "U.S. and Australian" into "Allied" [13].

This is bad. The source says "U.S. and Australian". The conversion to "Allied" is not far off since these probably made up the bulk of the Allied forces in the Pacific Theater. Nonetheless, sticking to the source is the best policy. --Richard 20:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The Editor repeatedly engages in original research, and removes sourced material[14],[15]

I like this edit. In particular, I like the sentence "Relatively few POWS were taken, during combat, by either side in the Pacific War. Allied soldiers often killed Japanese personnel who had surrendered." I think this is important background context to present to the reader. What is the OR and what is the source material that was removed? --Richard 20:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The editor removed "In the Pacific War American and Australian soldiers massacred Japanese prisoners of war, according to "The Faraway War", a detailed study of diaries made by Professor Richard Aldrich of Nottingham University. According to Aldrich it became common for U.S troops in parts of the Pacific War not to take prisoners."

and replaced it with "Relatively few POWS were taken, during combat, by either side in the Pacific War. Allied soldiers often killed Japanese personnel who had surrendered."

Thus he introduces an un-sourced sentence, implicitly stating that the Japanese probably did the same things. That may well be, but should be sourced to a source giving this as motive for the massacres. that was the OR. The material that was removed was almost all the material sourced to Richard Aldrich.--Stor stark7 ^Talk 21:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Presumably this edit is the evidence of the Editor removing sourced material. Actually, without reading the removed material carefully, my gut reaction is that it is trying to make the case that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes. I think this is an encyclopedic topic and one that is very difficult to treat from an NPOV stance. Nonetheless, I'd like to understand why the Editor removed so much sourced material. Perhaps he felt that the text had abandoned an NPOV stance. --Richard 20:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, my fault, included in that diff was a removal of text pertinent to the Hiroshima bombings, this since it was a revert done by the Editor. The hiroshima has nothing to do with this RFC, (erhaps it should also be dealt with separately?). Perhaps I shouldn't have included the last diff since it is confusing and basically is the same as the previous edit.--Stor stark7 ^Talk 21:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

An afterthought. This issue is covered somewhere in the articles on the bombings. This article should sumamrize the arguments and then provide a linkage to the more detailed discussion there. --Richard 20:50, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

See above #ICC, there was agreement among several editors to remove that part of the A-Bomb material. As such that part of Grant's edit (1 July 2007)is a restoration of an edit I had already made (30 June 2007). BTW I disagree with your argument that this issue should only summerise that which is written in other articles. I think that the A-bomb entry is fine as it is. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:50, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:Mikkalai

I don't think the two versions about POW seriously differ in facts. Of cource the version by Grant65 contaied a phrase "it is not clear that..." This is clearly wikipedian's judgement, i.e., inadmissible OR, so I deletd it. On the other hand, his version removes unnecessary repetition: (1) source titles are in references and no real need to repeat them in the text (2) the phrase complained as "According to Aldrich it became common..." is a paraphrase of another one: "taking no prisoners became standard practice".

I disagree with you. When a subject is controversial (and they don't come much more controversial than this one), the author of the controversy should be mentioned in the main text and not just in a footnote. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:54, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

My second remark is that the article talk page must discuss article text, rather than what another editor does wrong. Otherwise the discussion becomes a mess. The text must be discussed sentence by sentence rather than accusative diffs. If one wants something in or out, just say what exactly you want. As it looks now, it looks as someone wants to kicks someon else's ass, and someone else helps to do this. This is not the purpose of article talk pages. For example the #Comment by User:Richardshusr says acccusatively "Seems like a bad edit to remove the sentence". The proper, non-confrontational, way would be "Please explain why you deleted this sentence". And so on. You get the idea.

Concluding, I suggest to stop kicking mutual asses right away and start asking questions. `'Míkka 22:42, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Response by Grant

I will respond fully to this RfC in due course. Regarding "kicking asses", Stor made his/her own conduct here an issue with me by: a repeated failure to assume good faith; totally unjustified abuse of me on the grounds of nationality (beginning on July 1 with "I get the distinct feeling that all the fuss here is about you being Australian and not wanting to read the name Australia in the context of this Wikipedia article."); repeated playing of the "race card", and insistence on a biased, disingenuous and highly offensive wording (i.e. namely the passage conveying an impression that US and Australian personnel were solely responsible for war crimes against Japanese POWs). These matters could also be subjects of a RfC. I don't intend to waste unnecessary time on that, however, as Stor's conduct above the RfC speaks for itself. Grant | Talk 10:03, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Grant brings up the question that I questioned if his nationality was the underlying motive for his insistence on replacing the sourced text referring to "U.S. and Australian" with "Allied", alternatively with "U.S. and US and British Commonwealth", and his repeated statements such as "Stor seem to he happy with the article conveying that it was only Americans and Australians who killed Japanese POWs." and "Do you actually believe that it was only "US and Australian soldiers" that did these things?".

I admit I was wrong to bring up his nationality. I do however challenge Grant to provide evidence for his allegation of "repeated playing of the "race card"". I also find it strange that a newly appointed administrator is unapologetic about making statements such as; "I guess it is understandable that someone apparently from Sweden(?) is not very knowledgeable about World War II, especially the Pacific War;" and ; "However, I have to wonder about someone apparently so ignorant about what transpired in 1937-45, and so disinterested in challenging their own preconceptions.".

His continuing insistence that the thoroughly debated on the talk page and sourced text, which was free of any OR or any "highly offensive wording", be changed to accommodate his un-sourced opinions, sometimes falsely attributing them to them to the citations, and in the end his lock-down of discussion by writing "By the way, Stor I have no qualms about "watering down" toxic chemicals or words. If you revert me again, I will ask an admin with no involvement in this debate to lock the article." led to me to see no other option than to ask for comments from outsiders completely uninvolved in this article.

As for Grants statements about my conduct on the talk page above, I do believe Grant would fare no better than me if an RFC was made, I in fact encourage editors to look at the discussions above to better understand the issue. For clarity's sake I insert 3 versions of the paragraph in question below to make it easier to compare. (Grant has made a number of additional versions as well)

Below is the original, thoroughly debated and agreed upon text:

“ In the Pacific War American and Australian soldiers massacred Japanese prisoners of war, according to "The Faraway War", a detailed study of diaries made by Professor Richard Aldrich of Nottingham University. According to Aldrich it became common for U.S troops in parts of the Pacific War not to take prisoners.

This analysis is supported by Niall Fergusson, in "Prisoner Taking and Prisoner Killing in the Age of Total War: Towards a Political Economy of Military Defeat", who states that taking no prisoners became standard practice amongst U.S. troops. Ferguson writes that this practice played a role in the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead being 1:100 in late 1944. In 1944 efforts were taken by the Allied high command to suppress the "no prisoners" practice and instead encourage Japanese soldiers to surrender. According to Ferguson it is plausible that this may account for the drop of the ratio of Japanese prisoners to Japanese dead to 1:7 by July 1945.

”

Grants June 21 edit part 1 and part 2 Note that the edits also affect other parts of the article.

“ The Empire of Japan was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention, and its forces frequently disregarded its provisions relating to POWs (see Japanese war crimes). They were also more inclined to fight to the death than Allied forces, as evidenced by tactics like the kamikaze and banzai charges. These factors influenced US, Australian, British and other Commonwealth soldiers, who often killed Japanese personnel who had surrendered. Niall Fergusson, in "Prisoner Taking and Prisoner Killing in the Age of Total War: Towards a Political Economy of Military Defeat", states that not taking prisoners became standard practice amongst U.S. troops. Ferguson writes that this practice played a role in the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead being 1:100 in late 1944. In 1944 efforts were taken by the Allied high command to suppress the "no prisoners" practice and instead encourage Japanese soldiers to surrender. According to Ferguson it is plausible that this may account for the drop of the ratio of Japanese prisoners to Japanese dead to 1:7 by July 1945. ”

Note the removal of part of the text, e.g. "American and Australian soldiers massacred Japanese prisoners of war" and "According to Aldrich it became common for U.S troops in parts of the Pacific War not to take prisoners.", and its replacement with the less acurate "...often killed Japanese personnel who had surrendered". Note also the needles inclusion of the Japanese non-signing of the Geneva convention, its needless inclusion of Japanese war crimes, the OR about Japanese war crimes being the cause for "Allied" war crimes, and the miss-atribution of this OR to the Aldrich citation. Note also the additional miss-attribution to the Aldrich citation by the addition of "British and other Commonwealth soldiers", yet another "fact" that the source does not support.

Grants July 19 Edit is below.

“ According to Richard Aldrich, who has made made a study of diaries kept by Allied personnel in the Pacific, US and Australian soldiers deliberately massacred killed Japanese prisoners of war. This claim is supported by Niall Fergusson, who states in a 2004 article, that taking no prisoners became standard practice amongst US troops. Ferguson states that by late 1944, the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead was 1:100. During 1944, efforts were taken by the Allied high command to suppress the "no prisoners" practice, and to encourage Japanese soldiers to surrender. According to Ferguson it is plausible that this may account for the drop of the ratio of Japanese prisoners to Japanese dead to 1:7 by July 1945. It is not clear if Aldrich or Ferguson have subjected Chinese, British, and other Allied forces in the Chinese and Burmese campaigns to the same level of scrutiny. ”

Note the addition of the word "killed" in the first sentence, and the removal of most of the Aldrich text. Note also the removal of the part of the Ferguson text, i.e. the part that states that the U.S. no-prisoners policy was the reason for the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead being 1:100. Note also the addition at the bottom of the paragraph of the pointless speculations trying to imply that the other Allied forces did the same.

--Stor stark7 ^Talk 21:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

And your point is? That it's wrong to seek a wording that is acceptable to everyone by editing the page? Grant | Talk 05:57, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

My point is that a brand new administrator who has failed to achieve consensus about his desired changes to an already debated and agreed upon paragraph, changes that are highly questionable (see the RFC above), in the end continues with inserting his changes and threatens thus; "If you revert me again, I will ask an admin with no involvement in this debate to lock the article. Grant | Talk 04:57, 20 July 2007 (UTC)". Note that I have not reverted you after you wrote that, but that others have done so, which goes to show that there is no support for your edits. As for your threat to have the article locked-up by an admin if you don't get your way... I do believe this RFC is the only way to show you that the changes you wish to make are unsupported and in no way contribute to the article.--Stor stark7 ^Talk 20:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Locking an article to avert an edit war is standard practice. I wasn't insisting that my version should be the one on the locked page.

And it was Phil who reverted, not one of the others. He seems to be equally attached to a form of words that he admits he has significant reservations about. No one here has an obligation to maintain a form of words that is mistaken, simply because it has been agreed upon by two editors.

The only phrase which an editor other than Phil removed is: "It is not clear if Aldrich or Ferguson have subjected Chinese, British, and other Allied forces in the Chinese and Burmese campaigns to the same level of scrutiny." Which is a relevant statement of fact isn't it? It isn't clear. Or do Aldrich or Ferguson claim that that they did subject them to the same level of scrutiny? Simple statements of logic are not original research. My other main change was to remove the stuff about Fergusson and Aldrich's credentials and the publications cited; such material is not usually dealt with in the main body of historical texts, although it's reasonable to include it in the footnootes.

And if you think that the above discussion supports your wording, then you are sadly mistaken. Anyway, I know this subject and period well, I know that I'm right and that I can prove it with citations, even though citations are not strictly required as no-one actually disputes my main contentions. I simply haven't had access to a good library. Grant | Talk 23:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

---

I am removing this RFC from the list of RFCs. If it is still active then please resubmit. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a terrible article

Sorry to say that but it really is. Most of it reads like a laundry list that doesn't really help the reader understand the topic. It's more data than it is information.

IMO, the key idea to present here is that "war crimes" are generally associated primarily with the Axis powers (specifically Germany and Japan) and not with the Allied Powers. There were war crimes tribunals and people were convicted and punished. However, there are indications and allegations of war crimes committed by the Allies. The most prominent of these are Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and Katyn Forest. However, no one was ever charged with any of these, let alone convicted. Other "lesser" war crimes have also been alleged. And then take it from there. (Note that I wrote "allegations of war crimes". If there was no crime, there was no reason to try anybody for the non-crime.)

I would urge that we go after this article and turn it into prose rather than just being a laundry list. The treatment of US/Australian war crimes in the Pacific Theater comes closest to being an encyclopedic article. The rest of the article needs to have more prose along those lines.

--Richard 20:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with your analysis. The Katyn Forest massacre was not carried out by an ally of the Allies. It was carried out by a neutral power. The A-bombings are not universally agreed war crimes as they were not a breach of positive international law, but unrestricted submarine warfare was a breach of positive international law and was judged to be so. Incidents such as the Biscari massacre was judged to be a war crime by the Allies. --Philip Baird Shearer 23:02, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Hey, don't shoot me. I'm just the piano player. Katyn Forest is mentioned in this article. Do you propose to remove it? As for the A-bombings, I wrote "indications and allegations of war crimes...". Is this article only about incidents that were adjudged to be Allied war crimes? If so, it will be a short article. Or is it instead an article about war crimes and allegations of war crimes?

And finally, do you disagree with my assessment that this is a badly written article? (if it can be called that)

--Richard 07:32, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

It is a horse designed by a committee so it is a camel. If you take a look at similar articles like List of war crimes, an alternative I introduced there was to use tables. If it were my page things like Katyn Forest would be removed (or as a compromised move back into a seperate section (as I placed it in List of war crimes#Soviet Union perpetrated crimes) well over a year ago and where it still is).

Basically I think that this should be a summary style but any accusation (unlike Allied courts martial) should have the accuser named in the text because they are for the vast majority English speaking readers controversial. Some of the accusations can not be linked to a specific article because one does not exist. For example that the bombing of Germany in 1945 was a war crime -- Three recent books have claimed it was a moral crime -- but under the laws of war as they were during WWII as there was no positive international law stating it was a war crime, and as Nazis like Herman Goering and Hugo Sperrle were not tried for the Blitz it is a matter of opinion if it was a war crime. It is probably better not to have a Wikipedia article on matters of opinion such as these. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:52, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

United Kingdom

There's much more than "German revisionist historian Jörg Friedrich". See for example http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,,1722904,00.html and replace this crap. --HanzoHattori 08:25, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

A. C. Grayling does not call the bombing a war crime, instead he calls it an "immoral act" (page 272) and "moral crime" (pages 272, 274,275) to describe area bombing, he does not use the term "war crime". For more details please see Talk:Allied war crimes during World War II/Archive 2#Aerial bombardment --Philip Baird Shearer 09:29, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh rly?

A.C. Grayling: For this very reason I’m careful to say that I judge area bombing to be a moral crime, thus not using the expression 'war crime', a concept which technically gets its content from the Nuremberg Principles of 1945. But in view of the international law which has arisen since the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 on the question of protecting civilians in time of war – the First Protocol of which is a direct response to area bombing in WWII – retrospectively it is clear that the international community regards it as an act that should be called a war crime. --HanzoHattori 12:27, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes he says it was a moral crime and only treaty law since WWII would make such an act a war crime. BTW Which page are you quoting from? --Philip Baird Shearer

Google is your friend. He fights for FREEDOM (even if not in China) Anyway, "not" a war crime only becuase he says there was no concept of war crime yet when it was commited. But we agree the Nazis AND Allies were commiting war crimes at all, right? Because we have this article and it's not empty, right? And so, "in retropsective", it's "clear" "it as an act that should be called a war crime". (It's all kind of saying nazis were "not" commiting genocide because there was no word "genocide" yet) --HanzoHattori 14:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the source (Three Monkeys Online Bombing Civilians - WWII's 'moral crimes'. A.C. Grayling in interview. (Page 2)) In his book he goes into this in more detail, and particularly about the current use of US airpower. I think that if he is going to be quoted on this issue it should be from his book on the topic, and not an interview where it is not clear if these are oral or written answers.

It is not at all clear that it was a war crime at the time or that Grayling is claiming it was then a war crime in this interview. Indeed most publish scholarly legal opinion I have read claims that it probably was not. The concept of war crimes certainly predates 1945 the first usage of the phrase according to the OED was 1906, and the concepts of things like perfidy are much older than that. For area bombing to be a war crime it would be necessary to show that it breached the customs of war or the treaty obligations of the state, as for example was proven in the case of unrestricted submarine warfare. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:08, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Let's just see this from the today's perspective. Otherwise, Nazis did not commit genocide - there was no term of crime of genocide yet, it was created in response to what was done in the war, and this included the Genocide Convention (same the laws regarding urban carpet bombings). So, should I "correct" all the articles about Nazi Gaermany and the Holocaust? Of course not.

Instead, we have some odd German neo-Nazi "historian" claiming. Uh. --HanzoHattori 19:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Count 3 of the indictment of the 24 Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg Trials included the words "...deliberate and systematic genocide - viz., the extermination of racial and national groups...". But I agree the (most? not sure all) defendants were not found guilty of genocide but other more specific crimes or crimes against humanity. In the case or aerial bombardment what was the crime that was committed that breached the laws of war? It is counter productive and meaningless to say that because something is a breach of positive international law today that everyone who breached these treaty obligation in the past was a war criminal. One can only judge them against the laws as they were in at the time they were at war. Grayling makes the point on page 230 that the international military tribunal (IMT) "was not creating laws ex post facto - so it was therefore claimed - but bringing established law to bear in the special circumstances it faced. The IMT was in effect an instrument of enforcement, not of legislation"

I do not think that Grayling is stating that aerial bombardment was a war crime during World War II. If he was then in Among the dead cities (a book of 281 pages) he had plenty of space to explain how he comes to that conclusion. But as far a I can tell he never states that it was a war crime although according to the index he mentions the phrase on pages 222,229,231-232,245 and 273.

He points out on page 245 first paragraph (one of the indexed pages mentioning war crimes) "The point about strict legality matters in one respect. If all those efforts from Grotius onwards had translated into actual law, then as we see there would be a proper question about whether Allied area bombing broke that law. From a juridical point of view this matters because in the absence of such law, no crime as such was committed: as an ancient principle of Roman law states nullum crimen et nulla poene sine lege there is no crime and no punishment without law. So if there was no law in existence which Allied area bombing broke, then it is not strictly correct to describe area bombing as a 'war crime'." (End of first paragraph). He goes on to explain in later paragraphs why he thinks it a moral crime "... [but] destroying everything ... – contravenes every moral and humanitarian principle debated in connection with the just conduct of war." --Philip Baird Shearer 09:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

AGAIN, there was no law against genocide then (no such word even). So, the Nazis are not guilty of genocide? y/n Talking about Wikipedia. See: [16] --HanzoHattori 07:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

So? --HanzoHattori 13:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

We do not have to decide if the Holocaust was a genocide, all we have to do is report those who state that it was. In this case Grayling has made it clear that he thinks area bombing was a moral crime and explains why he does not think it a war crime. We have reported that Jörg Friedrich thinks it was a war crime. If there is any other notable historian or judicial review that holds the same opinion as him then it should be added. --Philip Baird Shearer 14:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Did you even click the link? No, you didn't. These are motly NOT citations. It's casually linking "Nazis" and "genocide" without even thinking about it. Are we fair to the Nazis? Maybe not, but who cares (I don't, it's just an example). You are obsessed with citing books, but 99& of others are not. Holocaust was a genocide (before the creation of the word "genocide"). Obviously. Carpet bombing of cities was a war crime (before the definition of such war crime). Obviously. Deliberate mass murder of civilians through bombing. (Oh, and it was a crime too when the Germans did it and first, or the Soviets in Finland, or the Japanese - one standard for everybody.) --HanzoHattori 12:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, ignoring is the best solution. --HanzoHattori 08:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Titles and honorifics

Can we move book titles and academic positions from the main text to the footnotes? It makes the article unecessarily wordy, and it is not standard practice in encyclopedias or scholarly works to give titles and the backgrounds of the authors cited, except in footnotes. Grant | Talk 11:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I have no problems with moving academic positions into the footnotes. But before we do which ones are you referring too? I am more leery about book titles because if the subject is controversial it can help to include them in the text. Which ones do you object to? --Philip Baird Shearer 12:41, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm referring to the "Treatment of POWs" section. For example:

"According to The Faraway War, a detailed study of soldier diaries conducted by Professor Richard Aldrich of Nottingham University..." can be reduced to

"According to historian Richard Aldrich, who made a detailed study of soldiers' diaries..."

None of the books are that famous, and we don't need to the titles, the authors' universities or positions at them in the main text. If Nottingham Uni was renowned for Pacific War studies, apologists for Japanese militarism, or some other relevant subject, then it would be worth a mention. But it isn't. Grant | Talk 15:52, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

What do you propose to replace the phrases with? --Philip Baird Shearer 15:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean; I propose to do what I showed in the example above with Aldrich. Grant | Talk 23:56, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Can I assume that no-one objects? Grant | Talk 12:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Magnitude, scope and scale of war crimes

I inserted into the intro a comparison of the magnitude of the Allied war crimes as compared to those of the Germans and Japanese but Philip Baird Shearer deleted it.

I think it is important to provide a comparison between the scale of the Holocaust and the scale of war crimes that the Allies were charged with. Even Hiroshima/Nagasaki/Dresden do not match the Holocaust in scale.

I'm not sure whether there is an appropriate comparison for the war crimes that the Japanese were charged with. Is it reasonable to compare numbers of Allied POWs mistreated by Japanese forces versus numbers of Japanese POWs mistreated by Allied forces? Would there be a significant difference?

Can it be argued that Japanese and German war crimes were intentional strategies formulated and sanctioned by the highest authorities whereas Allied war crimes (other than bombings such as Hiroshima/Nagasaki/Dresden) were more spontaneous, grass-roots actions which higher command may have failed to respond to adequately but did not initiate?

NB: Yes, I realize that Katyn Forest was probably an intentional strategy formulated and sanctioned by Stalin. The difficulty of drawing these distinctions doesn't make it any less important to draw them for the reader.

--Richard 07:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Uh, what?

Francisco Gómez points out in an article published in the International Review of the Red Cross that, with respect to the "anti-city" or "blitz" strategy, that "in examining these events in the light of international humanitarian law, it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property."

It may be factual that he pointed this out, but the quote itself is false. Francisco Gómez (and the person who added this pointless tidbit) apparently never read the Hague Convention of 1907.

--76.224.88.36 05:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Why is the bombing of Dresden not mentioned in this article?

Sorry, Philip Baird Shearer, but this article is also on my watchlist and it has occurred to me that Dresden certainly deserves to be mentioned by name here since the articles say "Many things classified as war crimes today were not such at the time. Some things classified as a war crimes today, such as area bombing, were not war crimes during World War II."

"Incidents that occurred during the involvement of the relevant nation in World War II include the following. Not all of these are agreed to be war crimes."

"The German revisionist historian Jörg Friedrich, claims that "Winston Churchill's decision to [area] bomb a shattered Germany between January and May 1945 was a war crime."

If Hiroshima and Nagasaki are mentioned here, then surely Dresden also deserves mention here as well. Of course, we have to caveat the mention with all the standard reasons why it was not considered a war crime then and why it should or should not be considered a war crime now.

--Richard 08:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

It is in the list [17] and you have quoted it. Find a reliable source that explains why Dresden was a war crime and all other area bombardments with conventional munitions were not, and we can include it by name. The reason that H&N are mentioned specifically is because there is a judicial review of those attacks that found them to be a breach of the laws of war. If such a review is ever held over the bombing of Dresden that found the bombings to be a breach of the laws of war then of course it should be in included here. --Philip Baird Shearer 14:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Propose splitting up this article

Do you think this article might be improved by splitting it up? One article would be titled Allied war crimes in the Pacific Theater during World War II. I'm not sure what the other one would be called. Perhaps Allied war crimes in the European Theater during World War II. My thought here is that there could be two good articles on each theater if we were allowed to focus on each theater separately. Mashing the two together leads to the "laundry list" feel and results in a lack of focus. --Richard 03:17, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I could see a good case for splitting this between the "eastern" and "western" allies. The British, United States, Canadians, Free French vrs. the Soviet Union and Eastern European Nations. From a cultural and historical perspective one can say that Stalin's Soviet Union was not entirely comparable to the other allies. It's well known that Stalin committed crimes against humanity after World War II, and independent of the war. This seems to be relatively well accepted. Also, the war between Germany and the Soviets and other Eastern Allies can be considered a very different dynamic. The British/US/Canadians fought along side each other and also all had involvement in the pacific. The Germans treated the POW's on the Western Fround differently then those on the Eastern, and the USSR responded in kind. It was much a war of attrition. For these reasons, and because of uneasy alience and later estrangement and independance of the fights, I think it would be worth considering whether the "Allies" should be lumped together in such a manner. DrBuzz0 04:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I would support splitting the article similar to suggestions by Richard, but I would have an article called Allied war crimes in Western Europe during World War II, as it is too hard to discuss the quite different circumstances in Eastern Europe in the same article as the issues relating to the Western Allies. So we would also need Soviet war crimes during World War II.

There is also certainly a need for Chinese war crimes during World War II. I have been trying to find out information about the latter but it seems very scarce in English language literature.

I am oppose to dealing with the western Allies in one article, as suggested by DrBuzz0, because conditions were so different in the Pacific War, compared to Europe. Grant | Talk 05:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I can see your point there, but my basic point being that the Soviet Union's policies during the Second World War and the general nature of Stalin's regime is something which really cannot be fairly lumped in with the Western allies, such as the US and British, who were fighting generally separately on the Western front. I see your point about the Pacific vs the European war. Yes, those were very different and the Pacific was really very much American as the major power opposing Japan. I'm thinking "Allied war crimes" is simply too broad for the varying theaters and parties of the second world war. It's almost as distinct as the Japanese and German war crimes: They really can't be lumped together because they're too removed in so many circumstances. I could see how this could be fairly broken into three sections: "The Pacific War" "The Western Allies In Europe" and "The Eastern Front and Soviet Forces." I simply think it's unfair to imply that the US or Brittan is connected to the USSR's actions. But agreed that the Pacific war was also different.DrBuzz0 02:50, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I am opposed to splitting the article, but the large sub article on the Treatment of POWs in the Far East should be moved into its own article with only a one line summary here as Grant has done Stirling work turning it into a generalised accusations. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like you don't like what I've done(?) Grant | Talk 11:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

DrBuzz0, as with the Pacific War, the war in Eastern Europe was fought according to quite different standards than elsewhere (by both sides). That is why I suggested separate articles on Allied war crimes in Western Europe during World War II and Soviet war crimes during World War II.

I stress that I am not actually suggesting this article be split, merely that new articles on those subjects be created. Grant | Talk 10:12, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Death rates

Death rates of POWs held by Axis powers

The list doesn't include Polish POWs in German hands. Does anybody know the number of them and POWs that were Jewish ?--Molobo 23:18, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Errrrm, that would be an Axis war crime and not an Allied one. Grant | Talk 06:48, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Burning Houses

I’ve asked this question here before and because it is so ridiculous I’m going to ask it again. How is burning houses by Canadians a war crime? There were some Canadian and American Shermans right after the end of the war who either did not have enough of the fight or arrived too late to see action and were driving up and down the streets of one German town firing their main guns at houses at random. Some of them burned no doubt. Was this a war crime? Or because it took place after VE day is it considered to not be a war crime? I’ve read the long discussion page and don’t really understand why there is a conflict. For people who have their heads in the sand the Hague Convention is something that is talked about during peace time. During war the rules of war go out the window and killing of the enemy after they surrender, becomes after a while, as natural as killing the enemy on the battlefield. The Canadians also killed prisoners in Italy after they learnt how the peasents had been treated and also killed prisoners in NW Europe. Sometimes because of having no one to spare to escort the prisoners to the back sometimes because of the prisoners smart talking back to their captors and somtimes just because and it happened often with no concern of it being a war crime. Every Army did it and it happened in every war. The Poles in NW Europe were well known for finishing off the wounded enemy after a battle and it was tolerated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brocky44 (talk • contribs) 17:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Here's a little story, by a Canadian soldier who witnessed the war, about how easy it was to kill and a hint that it happened many times.

I don't think we were any better than the Germans, I don't think that for one minute. We did a lot of things too. I've seen them. You couldn't be up to your arse in the thing and not know that what they were doing, we were doing too. There's one man in this town-and I could point him out to you who's killed lots of Germans. And he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met. Officer in the Legion. Helps with the kids' soccer league. Good, decent business man. But I was in the same outfit with him. I know. This was in Holland. There was a lot of snow on the ground. We were on patrol and we ambushed this bunch of Jerries. Eight of them. Two were Panzer officers, because they wore those black uniforms the captains of German tanks wore. The other guys with them were their crew. We saw them coming around the edge of this little forest, and they just walked in and that was it. One officer was a young guy and his English was good and he said they had been trying toget back to their lines. I guess they didn’t like the snow any more than we did, or the cold. He made a couple of little jokes, one about if they got the firewood then we could light the fire and we’d all stay warm. Another little joke he made was we could roast a pig, and we sort of laughed too. He said they’d passed a Dutch farmyard back a bit and there might be a pig-and schnapps. The war was over for him, and I guess he was glad. So we’re standing there and I’m thinking that we’ll have to take these prisoners back, so that would be the end of the patrol. And then this lieutenant, he just turned to the guy with the Bren and he said, “Shoot them.” Just like that. Shoot them down. The officer with the blond hair, the one who was making the jokes, he sort of made a little run forward and put his arms across his chest and he said something and the guy with the Bren just cut loose. He just opened up. He just cut them down every which way, about chest level because he’s shooting from the hip. There were two, I think, still flopping like gaffed salmon, and this guy we called Whitey from Cape Breton-we called him whitey because he was always boasting how good a coalminer he was-he shot those two with a pistol the lieutenant let him carry. That was it. It probably went into our history , I guess, as a German patrol wiped out. None of us really thought too much about it. They might have done the same to us. But I’ll tell you this, a year before, if I’d been there, I’d have been puking up my guts. It only took a minute. Maybe less than that. One of our guys who understood German said what the lieutenant said just before he was shot down was “Mother.”

There is more where that came from. I hope that some Wiki editor has the decency to delete the terrible burning houses war crime and add something a little more believable. Brocky44 04:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Oddity

"in examining these events in the light of international humanitarian law, it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property."

Does this include war crimes?

~~collective conscious

the victors write history

The list of accused war crimes by allied forces is seriously lacking. The number of accusations against the Allied powers for war crimes and the ackowledgement of them is severly inequitable. Viewing numerous military documents form both sides, I ma surprised that the U.S. has not even addressed or denied but ignored many accusations of war crimes by such victims as the Vietnamese. For example, several witnesses and North Vietnamese PAVN units witnessed and testified that U.S. soldiers took a whole village and one by one drowned them in a river. Another examlpe would be My LAi 4 which was a seperate hamlet from the My Lai massacre where B Company was acussed of killing many innocent villagers. B company soldiers never admitted nor denied allegations, they stated they "couldn't remember". The U.S. has ignored numeorus accusations as such. Granted there are many that are easily faked. Yet compare the treatment of accusations of U.S. war crimes to others. Anyone that actually looks at primary rather than secondary sources will see a wealth of information that is unexplored. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.127.109.240 (talk) 04:34, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Wrong war? --LiamE (talk) 19:38, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

US food policy

Why was the US food policy part deleted as well? It was properly sourced. Wiki1609 (talk) 12:58, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

When I deleted it I had not noticed that you had added below the USAAF accusation. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:37, 10 December 2007 (UTC)