Japan

  • After the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7 1941, there was a fear that Japan had plans to invade the US. This never happened, although there had been a few attacks on American soil by Japan, these did very little damage. The only military base ever to be attacked by Japan was Forts Stevens on the…

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  • Cat in the hat;How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and It’s a Wonderful Life are not stories you would associate with WWII or propaganda, and yet they have a distinct ,albeit indirect link to WWII propaganda movies. The name Theodor Seuss Geisel will mean little to many people,although there is a hint in his name which gives…

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  • When we think of the World War II war crime tribunal we usually think about the Nuremberg Trials, however, there were several trials for the Nazis who weren’t the only ones who had committed war crimes. The Japanese Imperial Army was also guilty of atrocities, and some of them were more brutal and evil than…

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  • Kamikaze

    I know what you are thinking “Yet another blog about Japanese suicide bombers” but you’d be wrong. This Japanese kamikaze did not attack anywhere in the pacific but it flew to London instead. The Ki-15 aircraft was originally designed to meet a 1935 Army Air Force requirement. The prototype first took flight in May 1936,…

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  • +++++ Contains Graphic Images++++++ Officially World War II started on September 3 1939,but in all earnestly it had really already started in 1937 with Japan attacking China. We often hear about the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime, however the Japanese were as brutal if not more brutal and evil. The Nanking Massacre was an…

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  • The facts of the case are odd. Five letters were written in early 1942 and mailed by seemingly different people in different U.S. locations to the same person at a Buenos Aires, Argentina, address. In early 1942, five letters were written and mailed by seemingly different people in different U.S. locations to the same person…

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  • A bright Sunday in December Japanese planes blazed out of the sky to strafe and bomb an American warship while it lay at anchor. You’d be forgiven to think this was the Pearl Harbor attack, but you’d be wrong. The sinking of the USS Panay is pretty much forgotten now. But it was one of the…

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  • How do you fight an enemy that is not afraid to kill themselves? In the air they had the Kamikaze pilots on the ground they had troops carrying out Banzai charges, how can you fight an enemy that has absolutely no regard for life? Not even their own lives. How do you fight an army…

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  • Tani was born 22 December 1882 in Okayama Prefecture. He graduated from the 15th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1903 and from the 24th class of the Army War College, where he became an instructor in 1924. The College used his texts on strategy and tactics as required readings. He saw service…

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  • On October 7, 1940, Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum of the Office of Naval Intelligence submitted a memo to Navy Captains Walter Anderson and Dudley Knox (whose endorsement is included in the following scans). Captains Anderson and Knox were two of President Roosevelt’s most trusted military advisors. McCollum wrote that it would be in the interest…

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