The survivors from the Battle of Manila reflects civilian massacres, city destruction and resilience to share historical lesson and foster reconciliation for future generations to remember them. They also emphasized the importance of remembering atrocities in order to prevent future…
“A former kamikaze pilot is sharing his story with a German audience for the first time 75 years after his suicide mission was unexpectedly called off in the closing days of World War II.”
‘ In the early 1930s, the Japanese government sent about 320,000 people to Manchukuo – officially known as Manchuria. Most of them served in the military or as bureaucrats, along with businessmen and families from rural parts of Japan who…
“In 1945 President Harry Truman declared Sept. 2 as Victory Over Japan Day. Japan surrendered aboard the USS Missouri. It was the official end of World War II. But the suffering wasn’t over for Henry Chamberlain, who had been captured on…
“On the morning of September 2, 1945, Lt. Cmdr. James Starnes stood on the deck of the USS Missouri, surrounded by his fellow seamen, hundreds of Allied warships and the blue waters of Tokyo Bay.”
“Struggling a bit with a left arm that has never straightened out, Sumiteru Taniguchi slowly peeled the undershirt off his frail 86-year-old body to show two visitors his scars from the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki.”
“If the war had been prolonged for half a year, all Japanese immigrants would have starved to death,” Zensho Kinjo says of the situation faced by Japanese settlers in Palau toward the end of World War II in 1945. Kinjo, 92,…
“Palau had been forgotten by Japan,” said Minoru Ueki, 84, a former Palau ambassador to Japan. He was born in 1931 on Koror Island, Palau, to a Japanese father and Palauan mother during the Japanese mandate. He attended the same national…
“One of only a handful of Japanese veterans who survived the battle of Iwo Jima – one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Pacific war – spent a recent memorial service on the island alongside US veterans after being told…
“In 1990, when Ota was first elected governor of Okinawa, he began pushing for a memorial to Okinawa’s war dead. “I decided that we inscribe the names forever, since that is the only proof that they existed in this world. All…
“Tezuka (1928-1989) experienced a large-scale air raid in Osaka when he was working at a factory as a member of the students labor corps and was running about to escape dropping firebombs. On the night of Aug. 15, 1945, after…
“2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, but, in some ways, the epochal conflict is far from over. A host of commemorations are opening up old wounds in parts of the world, or have become staging grounds for current…
“Now, after more than a decade in limbo, the film, “Spirits’ Homecoming,” will continue filming next month. Mr. Cho, who has made two feature films and about 200 commercials, documentaries, music videos and short films, plans to release it by…
“Corralled in an empty room, visitors observe a moment of silence before being guided through four areas with the themes memory, remembrance, healing and recording.”
“The sound of clay pots smashing against a stone floor shattered the cold spring morning. Zhang Xiantu woke. Japanese soldiers were in her home, breaking bowls as they searched for food. Zhang, 16 and just married, tried to run. But…
A few voices the younger generations should listen to, remember, and pass on: “We old people are puny in influence. But we can not let the Abe administration do whatever it wants to do… I believe in a Chinese saying that…
“Rediscovered film shows attacks by US aircraft on Japanese warships, factories and military installations in dying days of WWII”
The Musashi in brief, by Reiji Yoshida: What was the Musashi? Why were such mammoth battleships planned in the first place? Did the Musashi and Yamato contribute greatly to Japan’s war effort?
“China should stop fixating on Japan’s wartime past and focus on improving future cooperation, Japan’s top government spokesman said Monday. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga was responding to a comment by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang who said yesterday that…
“Two groups related to South Korea and China are jointly planning to put up statues of girls as symbols of “comfort women” who were forced to work at wartime Japanese military brothels, sources said Thursday.”
“The ROC government is set to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II with a series of commemorative events, according to Cabinet spokesman Sun Lih-chyun March 9. A total of 16 activities will be held July 7…
“On March 10, 1945, U.S. B-29 bombers flew over Tokyo in the dead of night, dumping massive payloads of cluster bombs equipped with a then-recent invention: napalm. A fifth of Tokyo was left a smoldering expanse of charred bodies and…
“Attempts to distort the truth about World War II are an insult to the memory of the victims of Nazism and millions of Soviet soldiers who died for the liberation of Europe, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told a…
“China will publish historical records of Japan’s past militarism as part of its commemoration this year of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, a senior official has said. Yu Zhengsheng, the fourth-highest ranking member of the…