"Attack, attack, attack again!" - Halsey
As an island nation, Japan does not have much of an advantage in terms of territory and resources, but when we study Japan's history, we have to admit that the country is often learning advanced culture and technology from other peoples.
As early as the Tang Dynasty, Japan coveted China, so the country decisively launched a war against China, but At that time, Japan was very weak and was not a rival to China at all.
After suffering losses, Japan quickly changed its attitude toward China, hoping to learn something from China that would help its country develop rapidly, so a batch of Envoys sent to China. Later, with the passage of time, the progress of human science and technology promoted the progress of the two industrial revolutions.
Japan once again seized the opportunity and quickly grew into a powerful country that was quite famous in the world at that time. Even so, Japan is worried about the lack of development resources at home.
The Japanese invasion of China
In order to allow its country to continue to develop at a certain speed, Japan decided to launch a war of aggression against China, and the former China was weak and backward, which made Japan think that it could take China in just three months.
However, what Japan did not expect was that China's anti-Japanese enthusiasm was so high that Japan could not occupy all of China within the planned time, but showed decline due to the gradual lengthening of the front.
Unwilling to give up, Japan sneaked up on Pearl Harbor in the United States and began looting supplies from the Pacific. And such a crazy Japan also stimulated the United States to quickly enter the war.
Throughout World War II, the U.S. military in the Pacific theater would strip the Japanese of their lives after they captured them, and you know why?
Pearl Harbor sneak attack
Why should Japan open the Pacific Theater
Here we may as well briefly understand why Japan is looking to the Pacific Theater. First of all, we must know that in the early days of World War II, Japan and the United States were not opposed.
And there is also an economic and trade agreement between the United States and Japan, and the resources such as steel that Japan needs on the battlefield can be obtained from the United States, but as the war progresses, the United States has said that it will no longer fulfill the relevant agreements with Japan.
To a large extent, This made it impossible for Japan to use war resources as freely as before, and if Japan wanted to continue the war, it would inevitably need to find another way to obtain resources.
At that time, Japan targeted two targets, one was the Soviet Union and the other was the United States. Due to the overall strength of the United States, Japan was more inclined to go to war with the Soviet Union, but in the Battle of Nomonkan, Japan suffered a heavy loss at the hands of the Soviet Union.
Drawing of Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater
In the absence of adequate resources, Japan did not want to confront the Soviet Union head-on, so the only choice at this time was the United States. During World War II, the United States had grown quite strongly through its own efforts.
As a new generation of colonists, the United States has a certain amount of resources in Southeast Asia, and as long as the early blow is appropriate, when the United States can intervene in the war, Japan may have eased the resource shortage period.
With this in mind, Japan decisively targeted the United States. On some level, Japan's move seems crazy and absurd, but it does allow Japan to hold out on the battlefield for a while longer.
What Japan did not expect was that the U.S. military industry was very strong, and it basically recovered not long after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and quickly entered the battle.
Japanese forces active in the Pacific Theater
Of course, the biggest headache for Japan is that it has not been able to successfully occupy all of China while the US military is recuperating. This is because if China can be defeated before the United States intervenes in the war, then the whole of China can be used as a source of large-scale war, which can be used as its logistical base against the United States in the Pacific theater.
It is worth mentioning here that in the early stage of the Pacific War, the Japanese army gave priority to occupying many countries in the Pacific region, which made the US military that had just entered the battlefield slightly depressed.
However, because the United States has a strong logistics supply system and a military production system, Japan cannot carry out a protracted war with the US military with its own strategic materials scavenged from China, the Korean Peninsula and other places.
As a result, the more Japan fought, the worse its own situation on the battlefield became. Later, japan even saw a large number of Japanese soldiers captured, which led to a rapid decline in Japan's overall military strength.
The Japanese army that was very crazy on the battlefield
Be sure to strip the Japanese prisoners
For those Japanese prisoners, the United States has always stripped them directly, and the reason for this habit is mainly due to the following three reasons:
In order to prevent the Japanese from hiding weapons in their clothes and taking advantage of the opportunity to kill and injure soldiers;
To avoid the growth of bacteria and viruses in dirty clothes, which can cause infectious diseases to infect national soldiers;
To avenge and humiliate these enemies who were once crazy and cruel on the battlefield.
Friends who know japanese history know that the Japanese people advocate the spirit of Bushido. The spirit of Bushido, as a pathological spirit of thought popular among Japanese samurai, made the Japanese army quite crazy and extreme.
In the Pacific Theater, the U.S. military has more than once encountered Japanese soldiers who have a large amount of explosives or other weapons hidden in their clothes, and they always take advantage of the sudden attack when the U.S. military is not paying attention.
Captured Japanese troops
The so-called "eat a trench and grow a wisdom", the US army can not guarantee that all the Japanese prisoners have lost the will to resist, so simply after catching them directly stripped their clothes, completely eliminating the hidden danger of Japanese prisoners hiding weapons and bombs in their clothes.
It is also worth mentioning that the Japanese army, as a group of people who have been brainwashed by militaristic ideas, the vast majority of people in the army are very loyal to the Japanese emperor.
They were able to carry out suicide attacks without fear of death, also because they believed that this was the only way to prove their loyalty to the emperor and to their country.
In Japan to the late stage of World War II, many Japanese soldiers chose to commit suicide by caesarean section in the face of defeat, which can be imagined how extreme this nation was at that time, which is a good explanation for why the US army will first strip the Japanese army of their clothes after capturing them.
Japanese prisoners
In addition, the US military is also to ensure that the health environment of the troops is good. The main battlefield between the U.S. and Japanese forces was in the Pacific, where the climate was hot and there were always a variety of parasites in the jungles of the major islands.
After the Americans captured the Japanese army, it was impossible to provide them with enough water to bathe and wash their clothes, so that the Japanese prisoners who wore dirty clothes for a long time could easily breed bacteria and viruses.
Most importantly, the humid and dirty environment is also easy to attract parasites, and once the outbreak of infectious diseases is caused, not only the Japanese prisoners in the prisoner of war camp, but also the soldiers in their own countries will be attacked by diseases.
In order to kill the infectious disease infection in advance, the US army simply ordered the Japanese troops to be stripped naked, and regularly gathered them together to wash and rinse with water guns. Although this is a bit troublesome, it can maximize the protection of the living environment of the soldiers.
Captives who were searched
In the end, it was to humiliate and retaliate against these Japanese prisoners. In the long process of evolution, human beings have gradually learned shame and learned to use various materials to make clothes to cover shame.
This marked the continuous progress of human thought, and at the same time the biggest difference between humans and animals, the U.S. army directly stripped the Japanese after capturing them, but also to humiliate the Japanese prisoners, innuendo they are not worthy of being called people.
In addition, in the process of development, Japan has formed a rather complicated etiquette system. The U.S. military chose to strip the Japanese as soon as they captured them in order to torture these self-proclaimed aggressors of a higher nation.
Some captives with tough and extreme personalities simply cannot accept that they are treated in this way, and even try to choose suicide.
brief summary
All in all, during World War II, the U.S. military would find ways to strip Japanese prisoners in order to better protect their own soldiers and humiliate and retaliate against these once crazy and cruel enemies. How arrogant the Japanese army had been on the battlefield before, how embarrassed they would be when they became prisoners.
You must know that the US military will not adhere to the Geneva Conventions like China. Compared with other countries in the world, China can be said to have treated prisoners of war best during World War II, and even China at that time faced various hardships.
Captured Japanese troops