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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (43152)	2/3/2002 3:42:48 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

"THERE ARE NO CIVILIANS IN JAPAN." "The Last Great Victory", Stanley Weintraub, Truman Talley Books, 1995 amazon.com pp. 203-205 Nothing else more personally brought home-literally-to the population of Japan the defensive plight of the nation than the People's Volunteer Corps. On June 13 the moribund Imperial Rule Assistance Associations, neighborhood patriotic organizations, had been dissolved so that their members could join what the Tokyo police referred to as the "final people's movement." Civilian men under 65 and women under forty-five were qualified for what was described as volunteer fighting corps, but in practice the army would not let them use precious rifles and ammunition and at first they were put to work clearing air raid debris or digging shelters . Following the expected landings, the government intended them to be home front kamikazes, prepared to die using makeshift weapons. ...... For the new draftees, rifles were unnecessary as the “special attack” strategy for infantrymen was to train with a thirty-five pound weight - earth or rocks - strapped to the back and practice digging a foxhole. Once the enemy landed, the recruit was able to hide in his foxhole with a few days supply of food. By then the weight would be a bomb the army intended to rush into production. When the soldier saw an enemy tank approaching, he ws to leave his foxhole, run toward the tank or other armored vehicle, release the safety device, which operated like a large grenade, and hurl the bomb. The time between release and detonation was three seconds, which left little chance to perform the operation again another day. Bit men accepted the kamikaze drill stoically. At thirty-two, with a husband in the army in China, a brother in the Air Force, and another brother in the navy “special attack” kaiten unit, Toki Tanaka, worked in the hills near Inami gathering and bundling thatch, which she hauled on her back. She was also a reservist. “We practiced with bamboo spears on the schoolground under the blazing sun”, she remembered. “Some fainted because of the heat. Men made the spears for us and hung up dolls made of straw, shaped like men. We wrapped our heads with hachimaki and wore the sash of the National Defense Women’s Association across our chest. We did our best. If you opposed anything about the war, of course, you were a traitor. You had to say, ‘Yes, yes,’ whatever the subject. But when I thought thought of my husband’s hardship at the front, doing that seemed much more natural.” .......... Drill, prayer, and punishment were recognizably insufficient preparation to repel an invasion. Civilian “volunteers” - often before or after a long day’s work - were set to constructing pillboxes, barbed wire, and tank traps along the shoreline. A student corps was organized to root out pine stumps from trees already cut down for lumber. The pine resin was to be turned into aviation fuel, as the alcohol from fermented sweet potatoes, once only a staple food ration. A drill master told his student group, “Two hundred pine stumps will keep one airplane flying for an hour.” The People’s Volunteer Corps had already caused Colonel Harry F. Cunningham, intelligence officer of the Fifth Air Force in China, to declare in his report on July 21. “The entire population is [now] a proper Military Target....THERE ARE NO CIVILIANS IN JAPAN. {Emphasis in the original} We are making War and making it in the all-out fashion to save Ameerican lives, shorten the agony which War is, and seeks to bring about an enduring Peace. We intend to seek out the enemy wherever he or she is, in the greatest possible numbers, in the shortest possible time.” Perhaps the key word in his manifesto was she It suggested the total resistance many expected when the final pushes came. END OF QUOTE Sure doesn't sound like a people ready to surrender. I notice you failed to address this question: HOW WERE YOU GOING TO MAKE THESE PEOPLE SURRENDER?????? What does this have to do with the Bomb? The Bomb made them surrender. I'm done with you. If you don't get it yet, then you are simply willfully ignorant or intentionally stupid. And facts are no cure for that. Try electric shock therapy.

To: Solon who wrote (43152)	2/4/2002 12:33:28 AM
From: Michael M	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Solon says -- "There are some technical problems with referring to these kids as pilots. In 19444, many of them had up to 75 or 100 hours of training. In 1945, most of them had less than 10-15 hours (no gas, unfortunately, for them). If you wish to call them "pilots"...then fine. Do you wish to designate them as "air force"?!...fine. Overall, there was no more gas; the planes were crap; and the "pilots" had no training." Well, Mr Fathead, I suppose their "training" was at least as extensive as that given young Palestinians who strap on bombs and head for paradise via some popular restaurant or shopping area. Deadly is deadly -- period.