Postscript on Japanese Skulls

The article mentions how when "Hiroshima: a Soldiers View" was originally published he recieved alot of mail regarding the subject. Most of them were from soldiers and veterans cheering and acknolwedging the trophy skulls, but one marine was objecting to the fact that a common, much envied wartime trophy among the marine corps was a "well washed Japanese Skull".

The vet, stated he was a private in the marine infantry on Tulagi, Guadalcanal, Roi-Namur and Saipan and that he never heard of such barbaric practices.

Fussel explains that there are four possible reasons to how this private could have avoided noticing the common trophies:

1. he was remarkably careless in his notice of what was going on.
2. he was more intimate with the affairs of they typing pool well then the line of fire
   
3. decently brought up and a nice person, he opted to see no evil.
4. his memory, like so many others, was happy to erase all evil memories.

Fussell explains how while visiting a friend it took his host no more than 30 seconds to find a shoe box filled with photos depicting the gruesome trophies.

"one was displayed atop a pole, like a warning at the entrance of a native village"


The method of how these trophies skulls were made is particularly gruesome. First they were boiled in a metal vat, and two marines were busy poking it and turning it with sticks.

Then they removed any extra flesh with lye. After that they attached the skull to a string and dragged it behind them for a few miles to get rid of all the extra flesh.

Lastly, they scrubbed they skulls with Lye strong laundry soap, as to get it squeaky clean.

The skulls, were evidence of how well the respective troops had accomplished their mission, which was to "kill him before he kills you". Regardless, it was believed that this trophy habit, was not half as bad or as brutal as the "ruthless Japs" were. The article states, " why have more respect for the skull of a Jap than the skull of a weasel, a rat, or any other form of mad, soulless vermin?"

This famous picture depicts a skull with the inscription, "Found in New Guinea" that was sent to his girlfriend in Phoenix, AZ. Life Magazine featured this in the magazine.

Return Address:
The Reverend Tsunezo Wachi,
President, Association of Iwo Jima,
2-24-23 Higashicho, Kichijoji,
Musashinoshi, Tokyo, Japan, 180.

                      From Light to Heavy duty

The inexorable progress from light to heavy duty can be read in the history of the posters issued on behalf of the American war effort. One poster of 1942 depicts Joe Louis charging with a slim, long bayonet ( soon to be replaced by the less graceful but more effective short and stocky version) attached to a long, slender Springfield rifle. The caption reads 'were going to do our part.. and we will win because were on Gods side' BUT a year later who is on God's side seems no longer to matter much, for now open depictions of corpses begin to displace considerations of moral right"


The reason why this poster is so significant because posters like this played a huge part in this war, at the beginning of the war you saw these positive, clean cut posters and as the war starts to get dirty and people start to see how horrible it is and how many people are dieing from posters and other sources of media it gets to be prevalent that this war needed to end. With future posters had an ugly cadaver of a tank crewman sprawled amidst realistically messy battle detritus- discouraged web equipment, unused clips of rifle ammunition, His helmet is violently tipped forward, vealing the vulnerable back of his head.

                                                  

                                                                                 AND THE POINT OF THIS
                                                     this happens every three minutes.

STAY ON THE JOB AND GET OVER IT!

"The total wars of modern history give the decision to the side with the biggest factories"

For every shell Krupp fired- General motors sent back four

"Dead bodies everywhere, some mangled or torn apart, The American and German equally awful. some mangled and torn apart, The American and German equally awful."

"The people had not thought of war in terms of men being killed....

 There is no easy way to win a war, there is no panacea which will prevent men from being killed"

World war II, had a massive increase in war supplies, not only in how much was being produced, but what was being produced. At the beginning of the war no one knew how violent and dirty it would get until thousands of lives started to be lost.

Military Weapons during the war

A Night In A German Munitions Factory

“Approximately 1,600,000 women joined the workforce between 1914 and 1918 in Government departments, public transport, the post office, as clerks in business, as land workers and in factories, especially in the dangerous munitions factories which were employing 950,000 women by Armistice Day (as compared to 700,000 in Germany)” (http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/womenww1_four.htm)

A Night in German Munitions Factory by Käte Kestien tells us a story about a typical day in the factory in the life of women during World War I. When the war started most of the men left for the front lines, which left no one to work. Although receiving welfare, women had to go to work in order to support the household. Most of the women, who did work in the munitions factories, chose to work the night shift because they would have to be home caring for the children during the day. The unfortunate side of this is that most of these women did not get much time to sleep before coming into work. This is one of the many things that added to the dangerous working conditions. There are a couple of key quotes that I have picked out, which summarizes the story.

“It’s the ether ‘said an elderly worker’ you’ll get used to it. Tomorrow you won’t even notice it.”

I feel this quote is a great way to visualize the way it must have smelled in the factory. “Munitionettes produced 80% of the weapons and shells used by the British Army and daily risked their lives working with poisonous substances without adequate protective clothing or the required safety measures.”(http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/womenww1_four.htm)

“I was working with gun powder which had to be filled into missiles”

“It was my job to reach past razor sharp blades, grab the neatly cut sticks of gun powder and push them across the table where four pairs of hands were putting them into bundles and packing them into cases.

The materials and machines that are described here (gun powder, missiles, razor sharp blades) are dangerous on their own and when you put them together, they seem to be a disaster waiting to happen.

“The machine had severed half her hand” “She simply had not been quick enough”

“Her response, “Thank God, its only the left.”

the child of the enemy

THE CHILD OF THE ENEMY : Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

Historic and literary representations of the first world war have traditionally been male centred, constructed around the powerful imagery of trench warfare and the haunting words of a small group of tragic soldier poets. Colette,  was one of the "other" voices of war, pursued through the writings of women who lived through,served in or otherwise experienced the nightmare first hand.                                                                                           

Child of the Enemy was written about the woman during WWI, Its written about occupying soldiers having sex with women in the occupied territory. Some of that sex was consensual, some prostitution, some was rape.

It talks from a womans point of view and how they feel having these babies. " They areno longer in those first hours, those first days of dark madness in which they cried out their shame and asked themselves: "what am i to do?" Do you really think that a bitter, nine month meditation bears no fruit? By all means, give shelter to those who need it, give them support and whatever else they may need: work..some baby clothes.. but after that leave them alone sothey can get on with it. Even the most desperate and vindictive of victim mothers, will in the end, not really be capable of a crime, despite those who are already absolving her in advance.

A war child refers to a child born to a native parent and a parent belonging to a foreign military force (usually an occupying force, but also soldiers stationed at military bases on foreign soil). It also refers to children of parents collaborating with an occupying force. Having a child with a member of a belligerent foreign military, throughout history and across cultures, is often considered a grave betrayal of social values. Commonly, the native parent is disowned by family, friends and society at large.

Children whose either parent was part of an occupying force or whose parent(s) collaborated with enemy forces were innocent of any war crimes committed by their parents. Yet these children have felt condemned by the crimes uncovered in the subsequent prosecution of their parents' acts. As they grew to adolescence and adulthood, many of them harbored the feelings of guilt and shame.

....Leave her be; no doubt she does not know herself. But it will come to her in time. She suffers, but the optimism transmitted to the female laden with a precious human life, will subdue her torment. It will plead for the child which trembling there, endows its mother with an extra instinct.

But let us have confidence in the moment when she will see, exhausted and subdued, defenceless against her best instincts, that the monster is only a new-born baby, nothing but a baby greedy for life, a baby with vacant eyes and silvery down, with crimped and silky hands like a poppy which has only just opened its cup

Leave the woman alone.Say nothing...Hold your PEACE

Randolph Bourne: The War and The Intellectuals

Randolph Bourne was an American journalist. His article The War and The Intellectuals was published in a literary journal called The Seven Arts in June of 1917, a few months after the United States entered the war. In the article, Bourne wrote critically of the intellectual class and their backing of the war.  

 "If our intellectuals were going to lead the administration, they might conceivably have tried to find some way of securing peace by making neutrality effective. They might have turned their intellectual energy not to the problem of jockeying the nation into war, but to the problem of using our vast neutral power to attain democratic ends for the rest of the world and ourselves without the use of the malevolent technique of war. They might have failed. The point is that they scarcely tried."

Bourne felt that the intellectuals of the age should have tried harder to find a solution for the problems in Europe that wouldn't result in war. He thought that American neutrality should have been used to resolve the issues at the root of the war.

 "We go to war to save the world from subjugation! But the German intellectuals went to war to save their culture from barbarization! And the French went to war to save their beautiful France! And the English to save international honor! And Russia, most altruistic and self-sacrificing of all, to save a small State from destruction! Whence is our miraculous intuition of our moral spotlessness? Whence our confidence that history will not unravel huge economic and imperialist forces upon which our rationalizations float like bubbles?"

Bourne disagreed with the "reasons" that America went to war. He saw those reasons as rationalizations and excuses made by intellectuals who were not strong enough to stand up against the tide and push for the unpopular anti-war agenda. He did not think that those excuses would hold up under deeper scrutiny.

"The case of the intellectuals seems, therefore, only very speciously rational. They could have used their energy to force a just peace or at least to devise other means than war for carrying through American policy. They could have used their intellectual energy to ensure that our participation in the war meant the international order which they wish. Intellect was not so used. It was used to lead an apathetic nation into an irresponsible war, without guarantees from those belligerents whose cause we were saving."

Again, Bourne thought that the United States should not have entered the war. He thought that we should have used our distance and neutrality to bring about a peaceful resolution to the war. He did not think that the intellectuals effectively used their intelligence to diplomatically resolve the issues behind the war. 

"There seems no choice for the intellectual but to join the mass of acceptance. But again the terrible dilemma arises,  – either support what is going on, in which case you count for nothing because you are swallowed in the mass and great incalculable forces bear you on; or remain aloof, passively resistant, in which case you count for nothing because you are outside the machinery of reality."

 Bourne saw war not as a foregone conclusion, but something to be fought against relentlessly. He understood why so many intellectuals went along with the war. He saw that they thought fighting against it was hopeless and that being for the war would at least keep them free and from being persecuted. But still, he argued against it. He argued that war was not the solution, but the bigger problem. He was disappointed in American intellectuals for going along with the war and he fervently tried to dissuade them from that path.

Conscience and Compulsion John Dewey 1914

Dewey believed that the mixed feelings regarding the war were all due to the moral upbringing of the youth during the time. He believed the war to be necessary and inevitable, but also knew that the beliefs the youth were raised with lead to the confusion of the time.

Dewey goes on to say that it isn’t strange that thousands of the youth were perplexed and morally confused with the idea of war. The youth grew up surrounded by Pro-Peace ideals. The clergymen didn’t even discuss politics as it was so closely related with “the struggle for Economic power”. They were raised by parents that had strict ideals on war and taught those theories to the children, and as he states it was a “penalty” that was due to the upbringing and unusual moral emphasis that focused on the emotions and morals rather than the Specific purposes. War was a crime because of murder, and “The belief that by NOT doing something, by keeping out of war our responsibilities would be met.”

A quote that best explains and summarizes his overall idea is as follows….

“…The denial of the efficiency of force, no matter how controlled, to modify disposition; in short the inveterate habit of separating ends from means and then identifying morals with ends thus emasculated…are the source of much of the perplexity of conscience from the idealistic youth has suffered.”

Dewey states lists some specific situations that lead to this moral hatred of war...

The bad aftertaste from the Spanish American War,

The Contentment generated by successful industrialism,

The General Humanitarianism,

The gradual substitution of calculating rationalism for the older romantic patriotism”

As per Dewey, “ all of these things and many more fell in with that general spirit of Good Will which is essential America, to create a sense of war as the Supreme Stupidity” . The youth of the time grew up with the ideals of war being a moral tragedy and looked at war with disgust. It seemed to be the murder “and murder of a peculiarly stupid sort”. This being said, of course the youth was confused on whether to join the war and be loyal to their country or if it was wrong to join the war, and go against their morals. As Dewey puts it “How could wrong so suddenly become right?” President Wilson was Illustrating war as something that was necessary in order to keep the peace. He made the war to be almost, Morally necessary. While on the other hand the youth were now being told to go against everything they were raised to believe was right. The youth were now being told that in order to have peace they need to go to war, and this idea was the most perplexing to them.

"The African Roots of War"

BY: W.E Burghardt DuBois

In the article, 'The African Roots of War' W.E. Burghardt DuBois explains the role that Africa played in causing World War. Many people saw Africa as this place so removed from World War but the Scramble for Africa was exactly what lead to war.

"Nearly every human empire that has arisen in the world, material and spiritual, has found some of its greatest crises on this continent of Africa,..."

This quote talks about how Africa has contributed to every place in the world in one way or another. DuBois point out how many scientific findings and even the religion of Christianity began in Africa. The nature resources of Africa had so much potential for expanding wealth that other nations rushed there in hopes of becoming rich.

"Yet in a very real sense Africa is a prime cause of this terrible overturning of civilization which we have lived to see and these words seek to show how in the Dark Continent are hidden the roots, not simply of war to-day but of the menace of war to-morrow"

The scramble for Africa was full of murder, rape, lies and theft. People knew that Continent was being robbed blind but those who weren't participating decided to look the other way. America and Britain went into Africa and took billions of African people which left them helpless to victimization by other nations.

Once in Africa the different nation looked to justify there presence by calling natives child-like and barbaric they said they stayed only to help civilize the people. Who were they to walk away from a people in need they said it was 'The White Man's Burden' to help out these people who couldn't help themselves. They said they were there as missionaries to give these people religion and stop them from being lazy by giving them meaning full work to do.

The attitude of superiority and divine right over other as well as the need to exploit other is what leads to the development of the color line.The citizens of France, America and Britain were no longer excepting the low wages and exploitation handed to them by the wealthy class. Europe had experience a revolution called The Enlightenment and European citizens were no longer excepting the inferior treatment. Unfourtanately thej obs that these nations had Dark Continents (i.e.:Africa, Asia, West Indies and Central America) doing were jobs that the took away from their working class.

"resultant jealousies and bitter hatreds continually fester along the color line. We must fight the Chinese, the laborer argues....We must keep the Negroes in their places, or Negroes will take our jobs."

The feelings and thoughts expressed in this quote is what would eventually lead to war and DuBois foresaw it. He warned that if peace was to be kept the reason for war would have to be eliminated. In order to avoid war the exploiting nation would have to extend the democratic attitudes to the Dark Continents not just their native lands.

When presented with the idea of Universal democracy it was said to be impossible they felt like if they left Africa, Africans would be unable to take care of themselves. I ask what were Africans doing before Eurpean influence? Were they not businessmen, farmers, parents and providers..

Well DuBois was right eventually the dishonesty, jealousy and the need for more power, laborers and resources would lead to the Exploiting nations going to war with each other.