Richard Fernandez, AKA blogger Wretchard the Cat, has a post on Pajamas Media titled The Foundations of Our World on the modern politically correct myths surrounding Hiroshima — America was the original “nuclear sinner” and war criminal while Japan was “innocent victim” — that have become “The Narrative” that the Ruling classes promulgate through the Western education establishment and main stream media.
Just because this is “The Narrative” does not make it the objective truth. There is still a lot of historical information still being unearthed about that era. Information highly destructive of the politically correct narrative in the form of the unearthed history of the Japanese chemical warfare program.
The bottom line up front is that Hiroshima was a center of chemical weapons production for the Japanese and the weapons produced there were used in against Chinese, British and American troops in World War Two.
This is from October 3,1998 edition of the The Okinawa Times, and posted at the http://forum.axishistory.com
An unexploded poisonous gas weapon of the Imperial Japanese Army was found in the remains of an underground Japanese Army hospital used during the land battle on Okinawa in WWII. Although there were no reports of victims of poisonous ordnance during the battle, the finding was testimony that the Japanese Army planned to use poison in defense of Okinawa against the U.S. invasion. The secret grim operation of poison gas use during WWII was excavated after a fifty-three year silence.
Isamu Kuniyoshi, 59, is a man who volunteers on his own to excavate the ruins of War shelters in order to show people the cruelty of war by exhibiting various uncovered articles. In middle of July, as he was looking for War remains in the ruins of Arakaki Army Hospital in Itoman City, he found a glass ball ten centimeters in diameter. The underground hospital was like a deep foxhole, two meters high and extending a hundred twenty meters in length. Kuniyoshi encountered the poisonous weapon, without any gas, about seventy meters from the entrance while digging in the dirt with a scoop.
The explosive was a grenade supposedly containing hydrogen cyanide, known as “chabin,” a teapot in Japanese named after its shape. The article was sent to Kanagawa University for chemical analysis and copper powder, a stabilizing material for cyanide, was found in the glass container. According to Professor Tadaomi Nishikubo, about eighty percent of the ingredients was copper powder which was intentionally put in the glass ball for some reason. Professor Keiichi Tsuneishi, who has studied poisonous gas weapons of the Imperial Japanese Army, commented “From the shape and the copper powder, we can say it is a chabin. It proves that poisonous gas weapons were assigned to Okinawa during the War.” The professor explained that it was the first discovery of chabin at a battle site in War history.
The Japanese Army secretariat worked on the research and development of poison gas weapons. A hydrogen cyanide grenade, the chabin, was used in anti-tank operations. A soldier would throw the grenade into the air vent of a tank. Because the soldier had to get as close as possible, the operation was considered a suicide attack. The British Army had recorded that chabin were used in the Burma Campaign and also in China. There had been no reports of poisonous gas being used in the Okinawa Campaign.
The Japanese Army had produced three hundred thirty thousand chabin in Hiroshima and Tokyo by the end of WWII. According to testimonies of those who worked in a chemical factory, chabin were secretly sent to China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Singapore. There was no record of poison gas on Okinawa.
Information on poison gas weaponry was hidden or abandoned in order to escape international accusation at the end of the War, but tracing the relationship between the Okinawa Campaign and poison gas has just been initiated by the event of Kuniyoshi’s excavation.
This is a technical evaluation of the Japanese hydrocyanic acid “chabin” weapon:
T. I. B.Vol. 4 No. 3
May – Jun 1999
Page 12
From our past:
A question was asked about a Japanese hand grenade. Gordon Rottman sent in this response:
The weapon in question is as follows (extracted from my WWII grenade book):
Model 1 Frangible Toxic Gas Hand Grenade (SEISAN SHURUDAN) Glass gas grenades were captured on Guadalcanal and in Burma early in the war. Its designation is unconfirmed and is believed to have actually been developed in the 1930s. They were also identified as “T.B. grenades” by Allied intelligence, but the meaning is unknown. These are the gas grenades once employed against British tanks in Burma near Imphal in 1942. They were filled with liquid hydrocyanic acid (AC), a blood gas derived from hydrogen cyanide. These grenades were initially reported as filled with 80 percent hydrogen cyanide (aka prussic acid). They were found stabilized with either powdered copper (Cu) or arsenic trichloride (AsCl3). Both types had metal crown caps. The copper-stabilized type had a rounded bottom with a cork plug and the other a flat bottom and a rubber plug under the caps. The copper-stabilized type was packed in a metal can and the second in a cylindrical cardboard container. Both types were further packed individually in larger cylindrical metal cans with a web carrying strap. The inner containers were double walled (sides, bottom, and lid) and filled with neutralizing agent-soaked sawdust. The arsenic trichloride-stabilized type were called the 172 B-K and 172 C-K by Allied intelligence after container markings, but these were almost certainly lot numbers rather than designations. (In early 1943, the US Military Intelligence Division reported a similar grenade being used by the Germans, but this turned out to be a mistake due to misidentification of Japanese grenades captured on Guadalcanal and returned to the States where they were mixed up.)
Weight: 1.2 lbs Diameter: 3.9 in
Construction: glass body, steel cap Filler: 12.2 oz liquid hydrocyanic acid with stabilizer
Fuze: none
Causality Radius: INA
Identification: clear glass body, yellowish (copper-stabilized) or greenish (arsenic trichloride-stabilized) liquid, light olive drab shipping can with brown band
Fig. 9-18
There was also a glass screening smoke grenade of similar design. Yes, it is in violation of the Hague Convention, but so was mistreatment of POWs. Gordon Rottman
I have tracked at least three instances of the Japanese using this weapon against the Anglo-Americans.
The British 7th Queen’s Own Hussars Regiment in Imphal Burma was close assaulted by Japanese infantry armed in with these “Chabin” gas weapons 1942.
American Army troops in Guadalcanal were hit with them on two separate occasions on 23 and 28 January 1943. Both incidences were described as “Desperate acts by individual soldiers” in the histories I researched.
Significant stocks of Japanese chemical weapons were captured in Leyte by American Army units and both the Japanese Army and Navy used chemical weapons against American forces in Luzon, despite official orders in the name of the Emperor not too.
The 1st Cavalry Division was hit several times by hand held and 75mm field gun fired chemical munitions in Manila in February 1945. It is not clear from the US 6th Army field reports I have read it it was Japanese Army or Navy ground troops who were the culprits.
Finally, Filipino Guerrilla’s reported to US 6th Army in January – February 1945 that the Japanese garrison in Davao, Mindanao had planted mustard gas land mines and tested the blood agent AC in Chabin hand grenades on dogs.
The American Army “Victor V” river campaign from Illana Bay in Western Mindanao to Davao by General Eichelberger is much more easily explained by his need to avoid those mustard gas mine fields on the beaches and bridges of Davao.
All this new information won’t make a difference to those carrying and deeply invested in the old narrative, but it will make a difference to you the reader, if you are willing to look at the past with an open mind.
If you go over to Megan McArdle’s thread on the Greg Gutfield proposed gay bar next door to the ground zero mosque, you will see lots of people commenting who refuse to acknowledge the next enemy, let alone one from 60 years ago. There is a common theme; America is bad. Had these people been numerous 200 years ago, the colonies would still be clinging to the Atlantic.
It doesn’t matter that Hiroshima was the site of chemical weapons production. It matters only that it was on the mainland of Japan, and had sufficient population to make the point. The fact that there were bad things going on there is simply a bonus for destroying the city.
I’m sure somewhere here can confirm or disprove this, but I recall reading that Kyoto was taken off the list of A-bomb targets because it was recognized for its unique role in Japanese culture and history, and that vaporizing it would deprive the nation of (for lack of a better phrasing) an integral part of its soul.
Wikipedia claims that U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson was the driver behind the decision to take Kyoto off the list, but doesn’t give any reasoning for it.
If true, it’s curious that the rabidly racist, bloodthirsty Americans would have such cultural understanding and appreciation for the “other.” It simply doesn’t fit the Narrative.
Percy Dovetonsils,
Most of the sources I have read credit Joseph Grew, the US ambassador to Japan immediately before the war, with putting Kyoto and some other smaller cities at the end of the bombing priority. In any case, because of its quasi-religious role in Japanese culture, Kyoto had very little industrial development back then and as such wasn’t much of a target anyway. However, had the fighting progressed to the mainland, Kyoto would have been destroyed.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were intentionally spared specifically to serve as possible demonstration targets for the atomic bomb. This had the added bonus of causing the Japanese to transfer military commands and war industries to the cities, which were on the coast, instead of hiding them away in the mountains. Had the atomic bomb failed, they would have been wiped off the earth even more thoroughly with conventional bombing immediately prior to the Kyushu landings.
I scanned the following from a March 1945 US 6th Army intelligence report on the Japanese chemical land mines in Davao, Mindanao.
From: 1201 28 Feb 1945
To: 1200 7 Mar 1945
CHEMICAL WARFARE INTELLIGENCE
The following infonnation on the possible use of poison-gas mines by the Japanese was obtained from guerrilla sources and is submitted as a matter of interest.
DAVAO: l0 January -Poison gas mines in steel cylindrica1 tubes 10 cm in diameter with black band around ‘center of ‘body, are buried along streets of DAVAO City proper.’ 50 ‘meters apart connected by wires buried underground, Electrically controlled mines probably to be opened when attacking forces occuy city area proper.
DAVAO: 11 January -Poison gas mines similar tc those buried in DAVAO City streets proper also buried from’ DAVAO RIVER mouth along beach to western part TMJJNK:J barriot 50 meters ap art with fuzes connected by wire laid above ground. Gas immediately released when wire touched or pulled. Preceding report supersede’s report previously submitted, as those mines being contact explosive land mines. Reference poison gas mines buried along streets DAVAO City proper. Santa Tomas Claudio from bridge to Jones Monument, Claveria Uyanguran, Ponciao Reyes from Jones Monument to San Pedro, Piapi Street from Santa Ma to San Pedro, all streets in court and jail area, all streets in Sar”ta Ma wharf area.
DAVAO: 19 January -Information from Filipino operatives Vlho saw cylinders as described in our messages, were told contained poison gas. Same story upon requestioning. Further report additional cylinders, same type as pre-reported laid along beach from Talomo to Sira’71an. We are attempting to obtain independent verification. h
DAVAO: 22 January -Reference our past reports of poison gas in DAVAO Province area; still attempting to obtain absolute verification. Reports were sutmitted by two Filipino operatives serving as chauffeurs for Nips in DAVAO Province area. Their other past reports have been
highly, reliable. Special effort being put on this. InforInation will be forwarded as received.
“28 February -source is considered reliable. Eye witness reported test of poison gas mines laid in the streets of DAVAD City Dog and cat were tied approximately ten meters from gas mines Japs approximately 120 meters avmy released the gas by means of a electric switch. White vapor was seen rising from the mine. In twenty minutes both animals were dead, after prolonged agony (NOTE: gas used was probably blood and nerve poison, possibly AC)
I’d bless you.
Narrative busting can take many forms. Write a video game with the goal being to invade Japan and end WW II. You lose when total casualties exceed those for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
One factor usually missing from the Hiroshima narrative is that the Japanese were killing, either actively or through starvation and neglect, large numbers of civilians in the vast territories they occupied right up to the end of the war. Most estimates I’ve read place the number of deaths at 250,000 a month mostly in China.
If the atom bomb hastened the end of the war by just 20 days, it saved lives on that basis alone.
Strategypage.com has joined the “Bust the Hiroshima narrative ” parade.
See:
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20100812.aspx
Japan Wants To Rewrite World War II
August 12, 2010:
World War II, which killed over a hundred million people, had a profound effect on the nations where it was fought. Japan (which began invading in 1937) and Germany (1939) were the two main aggressors, and after the war, the Germans and Japanese had a different reaction to their bad behavior during the war. The Germans (most of them) were remorseful and guilt ridden.
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The Japanese immediately tried to rewrite history, and are still at it. Within days of Japans surrender on August 15, 1945, coded messages went out from Tokyo to Japanese diplomats around the world, ordering them to start a campaign portraying Japan as a victim in the war, and to play down Japanese atrocities and play up Japanese civilian losses in the recent atomic bomb attacks. These particular messages were not decrypted by the United States until years after the war. That’s because the war was over, there were other priorities (like cracking Russian codes) and the Japanese the messages were recorded and filed away. By the time the Japanese messages were deciphered, the Cold War had begun, and Japan was needed as an ally against the communist menace. Those decrypted messages were kept secret for decades, along with most of the details of how Allied code breakers had read most of the enemies (and some friends) secret messages throughout the war.
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What was not so secret were Japanese efforts to ignore the war and portray themselves as victims. Many Japanese opposed rewriting history, which was often quite blatant. This meddling with historical facts regularly caused problems with neighbors, especially China. But the Japanese were insistent on evading responsibility. They still are, and many Japanese really believe it.
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Meanwhile, the horrific actions of Japan during World War II were largely forgotten in the West, although not in the Asian nations where the Japanese committed most of these atrocities badly. It all began in July, 1937 when Japan openly made war on China. This came after years of incursions, raids, skirmishes, and occasional battles. The Japanese had occupied much of the Chinese countryside in the late 1930s and committed enough atrocities for American journalists to get a steady supply of gruesome stories, what with their troops’ penchant for conducting bayonet practice on Chinese prisoners and similar horrors. The situation in China was thus always quite an issue in America, although less so in Europe (where they had Hitler and his Nazis to make them nervous.) It was Japanese aggression in China that caused the United States to impose a raw materials embargo on Japan, and “forced Japan” (as the Japanese like to describe it) to attack the United States in December, 1941. Japan had to have those raw materials, especially oil from Dutch colonies in Indonesia, in order to keep its war in China going.
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And many of the atrocities Japanese troops committed were seen by Japanese officers simply as a way to improve morale by letting the troops take out their frustrations on the locals. After all, the women raped and men murdered were not Japanese. So what did it matter? This racist attitude influenced everything the Japanese soldier did. When fighting the formidable American soldiers and marines, the Japanese were particularly enraged. How could these non-Japanese dare to actually defeat us? A combination of frustration and contempt caused Japanese soldiers to be even more vicious. Prisoners often received particularly harsh treatment. Not just because they were non-Japanese, but mainly because the Japanese did not consider surrender an option. So if foreigners surrendered, they were not real men, not real soldiers. They had disgraced themselves and deserved whatever bad treatment the Japanese could come up with. This led to things like using prisoners for bayonet practice, or live subjects for Japanese army doctors to practice surgery on.
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At the end of the war, before the atomic bombs were dropped, the Japanese high command sent orders to all commanders of prisoner of war camps to be prepared to kill all their prisoners on short notice, especially if enemy forces were nearby. The Allies became aware of this order, and when the Japanese finally agreed to surrender, the Japanese were told to rescind the “kill all prisoners” order, or else.
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If the Allies agreed to simply blockade Japan, and starve them out, millions of Japanese would die from disease and starvation over the Winter of 1945-46, and tens of millions more if the blockade were continued. The “kill prisoners” order would probably lead to the death of thousands of Allied prisoners of war, including many civilians who were also being held. The invasion was ordered (in case the atomic bombs did not work, or did not persuade the Japanese to give up) because the American public was very much in favor of ending the war quickly, by any means possible. But over the last 65 years, the Japanese have created a fantasy version of World War II in which they were victims, their many atrocities never happened and the atomic bombs were war crimes, not key factors in halting the Japanese created horrors.