Japan still lying about WW2

Shinzo Abe, Japanese Prime Minister

It's hard to believe that after all this time, Japan is still in denial about their behaviour in WW2.

Japan has asked a US publisher, McGraw-Hill, to "correct" a school textbook that talks about women who were forced to work in military brothels as "comfort women."

They said "grave errors and descriptions conflict with our nation's stance on the issue of "comfort women."

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe doesn't agree with mainstream historians who say that around 200,000 women, mainly from Korea but also from China, Taiwan the the Philippines, were forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers in a formalised system of slavery.

The PM would rather the world believe that the women were common prostitutes, not worthy of concern.

McGraw-Hill Education confirmed they had been approached to change the description of 'comfort women' in one of their publications but said "Scholars are aligned behind the historical fact of 'comfort women' and we unequivocally stand behind the writing, research and presentation of our authors."

In the 1990s, a series of articles were written about a former Japanese soldier who claimed he was involved in rounding up Korean women to work in brothels.  He was quickly labelled a liar but the paper stubbornly refused to withdraw the articles.  That was until last year, when Japan's Liberal Asahi Shimbun finally retracted them.

The right-wing PM was delighted and insisted the paper apologise.

But comfort women isn't Japan's only concern, they want China to change their history books too.

Chinese President Xi Jinping

They have asked that any reference made to the 300,000 Chinese people massacred by Japanese soldiers as they swept through the Chinese city of Nanjing, be obliterated from history.

Chinese President Xi Jinping made the comment in a speech just before Christmas 2014, calling on Tokyo to acknowledge the gravity of its past crimes.  

But Australians old enough to remember know all about Japanese cruelty because of what they did to our soldier in WW2.

Australian war trials were held in 1946 in Morotai, Wewak, Labuan, Rabaul, Darwin, Singapore, Hong Kong and Manus Island. In all, Australia conducted nearly 300 trials in which 924 Japanese servicemen were accused of war crimes.

Accused in Australian court, 1946

Of these, 644 were convicted and 148 sentenced to death by firing squad.  Eleven sentences were commuted.

Sargeant Seiichi Okada, also known as 'doctor death', for his role as medical orderly was sentenced to ten years in Singapore.  The Korean Arai Koei, also known as 'boy bastard', was sentenced to death by hanging for his treatment of prisoners on the Burma side of the railway.

Lieut Seizo Tanaka, executed in 1946 on Morotai, wrote to a family member.

It is decided that I will be shot at 7am on the 6th March.  I am sentenced to death, but not because I did a shameful act, rather I think it was an honour for me...by my culture, I am resigned facing death.