The Australian Military Through the Eyes of Japanese Women POWs скачать в хорошем качестве

The Australian Military Through the Eyes of Japanese Women POWs

February 1942. The Empire of Japan stood at the height of its power across the Pacific Ocean. Japanese soldiers had conquered Singapore, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and large parts of China. Back home in Japan, every newspaper, every radio broadcast, and every government poster told the same story. The Western nations were weak. The white soldiers were cowards who would run from battle. But the propaganda carried a darker warning too. If Japanese civilians were ever captured by Western forces, they would face unspeakable torture. The Australians, the Americans, and the British would show no mercy. They would treat prisoners worse than animals. Japanese women were told that capture meant certain death, but only after suffering horrors too terrible to speak about. This was what Kimiko Tanaka believed when Australian soldiers found her hiding in a bombed-out school building in Rabaul, New Guinea.