The Knights of Bushido : A Short History of Japanese War Crimes

by Edward Frederick Langley Russell and Lord Russell Of Liverpool

Book Overview

Detailed chronicle of Japan's cruel, gruesome war crimes.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0739421107
• ISBN13: 9780739421109
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Military Book Club
• Length: 335 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

I Might Throw My "Sony" in the Ocean After Finishing This Book!

Lord Russel of Liverpool, whose real name was Edward Frederick Langley Russell (1895 to 1981) published this book in 1958. After being queried to write a Japanese version as a companion to the book he wrote on the history of Nazi war crimes, he began this work. The Scourge of the Swastika: A History of Nazi War Crimes During World War II Lord Russell set out to meticulously chart the barbaric path of destruction the Japanese military perpetuated between 1931 to 1945. This book takes the reader on the rampage the Japanese troops took through China, S.E. Asia, Java, Sumatra, Borneo and other countries, executing citizens, raping innocent women, massacring prisoners of war on both land and out at sea, and finally, exploiting P.O.W's and native populations Lord Russell curiously names this book "The Knights of Bushido". The term "Bushido" means the "Way of the Warrior". This was a Japanese code of conduct which described the concept of bravery, courtesy, and especially of the "ideal knight". Personifying "Bushido", the Japanese soldier was supposed to embody the "seven virtues" of this code, which were "rectitude" (integrity and moral excellence), "courage", "benevolence" (kindness), "respect", "honesty" , "honor" and "loyalty". After reading this book, it is very hard for the reader to juxtapose the Japanese code of conduct with the atrocities the forces of the "Rising Sun" committed, which was everything from murder and rape, to torture and cannibalism. Surviving The Sword: Prisoners Of The Japanese 1942-45 I initially tried to find this "Bushido" on exploring how the Japanese forced women to serve as "Comfort Women" (prostitutes used to serve and satisfy the sexual desires and burn off excess testosterone of the Japanese military machine. Cries of the Korean Comfort Women But in this endeavor, the Japanese pursuance of this theoretically honorable code was not to be found. Lord Russell starts off with a horrifying example of the plunder the Japanese wrought in China, starting with the fictitious Sept. 18, 1931 "Mukden, China Incident", an incident that simply never occurred. Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II Falsely claiming that a Chinese Brigade had attacked a Japanese patrol on a railway in Mukden, the "Rising Sun" government used this as a spurious justification to invade and occupy Manchuria, and eventually land it's troops on Hong Kong, French Indo-China, Thailand, Malaya, the Netherland East Indies, the Philippines, New Guinea, all territory lying between Eastern India and Burma on the one hand, Australia and New Zealand on the other. The reader of this book will aghastly digest Lord Russell's description of the massacre of 200,000 Chinese civilians and P.O.W's in the first six weeks of the Japanese "Central China Expeditionary Force" occupation of Nanking.The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II As Lord Liverpool described: "The Japanese troops were then let loose like the hordes of Geng

I Might Throw My "Sony" In The Ocean After Finishing This Book!

Lord Russel of Liverpool, whose real name was Edward Frederick Langley Russell (1895 to 1981) published this book in 1958. After being queried to write a Japanese version as a companion to the book he wrote on the history of Nazi war crimes, he began this work. The Scourge of the Swastika: A History of Nazi War Crimes During World War II Lord Russell set out to meticulously chart the barbaric path of destruction the Japanese military perpetuated between 1931 to 1945. This book takes the reader on the rampage the Japanese troops took through China, S.E. Asia, Java, Sumatra, Borneo and other countries, executing citizens, raping innocent women, massacring prisoners of war on both land and out at sea, and finally, exploiting P.O.W's and native populations Lord Russell curiously names this book "The Knights of Bushido". The term "Bushido" means the "Way of the Warrior". This was a Japanese code of conduct which described the concept of bravery, courtesy, and especially of the "ideal knight". Personifying "Bushido", the Japanese soldier was supposed to embody the "seven virtues" of this code, which were "rectitude" (integrity and moral excellence), "courage", "benevolence" (kindness), "respect", "honesty" , "honor" and "loyalty". After reading this book, it is very hard for the reader to juxtapose the Japanese code of conduct with the atrocities the forces of the "Rising Sun" committed, which was everything from murder and rape, to torture and cannibalism. Surviving The Sword: Prisoners Of The Japanese 1942-45 I initially tried to find this "Bushido" on exploring how the Japanese forced women to serve as "Comfort Women" (prostitutes used to serve and satisfy the sexual desires and burn off excess testosterone of the Japanese military machine. Cries of the Korean Comfort Women But in this endeavor, the Japanese pursuance of this theoretically honorable code was not to be found. Lord Russell starts off with a horrifying example of the plunder the Japanese wrought in China, starting with the fictitious Sept. 18, 1931 "Mukden, China Incident", an incident that simply never occurred. Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II Falsely claiming that a Chinese Brigade had attacked a Japanese patrol on a railway in Mukden, the "Rising Sun" government used this as a spurious justification to invade and occupy Manchuria, and eventually land it's troops on Hong Kong, French Indo-China, Thailand, Malaya, the Netherland East Indies, the Philippines, New Guinea, all territory lying between Eastern India and Burma on the one hand, Australia and New Zealand on the other. The reader of this book will aghastly digest Lord Russell's description of the massacre of 200,000 Chinese civilians and P.O.W's in the first six weeks of the Japanese "Central China Expeditionary Force" occupation of Nanking. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II As Lord Liverpool described: "The Japanese troops were then let loose like the hordes of Genghi

A "MUST" Read

Both these books "The Knights of Bushido" and "The Scourge of the Swastika" are brilliantly written and from an Englishman with as little emotion as poossbile. I am 62 years old and read both these books when I was 12 years old. My Mother,a forward thinking woman, purchased both books with the idea that her daughters should read and know the facts of both enemies during a recent war. Statistics now say(in 2006) that less than 60% of under sixteen year olds in Britian are aware that the massacre of Jews at various concentration camps took place. Based on that fact and others I have gained from recent media coverage I will purchase again both of these books and circulate them among my children , grand-children and great grandchildren, not for bitterness or to continue hatred, but rather to inform as the saying is " If history is not known it is easy to repeat, as the knowledge of the consequences is unknown"

KNIGHTHOOD IN PRACTICE

This is a British lawyer's narrative of Japanese atrocities in WWII and in the years immediately preceding. Baron Russell of Liverpool was a senior legal advisor to the British Army of the Rhine during the nazi war trials, and on the basis that someone who writes history is a historian, he qualifies for that title too. Russell starts his narration in the early 30's with the Japanese concession in Manchuria, the running warfare this involved with the Kuo Min Tang government of Chiang Kai-shek, and the conduct of the Japanese military during that period. His purpose in taking his start-point here is to analyse, to some extent at least, the roots and origins of the mind-sets that led certain human beings to behave in the way they did during WWII. Russell's analysis takes him and us as far as this - Japanese imperial culture was based on total loyalty to the Emperor. A faction in the army took a fanatical interpretation of this loyalty, not one that was amenable to reason, and saw or purported to see a divine destiny for Japan in dominating the far east and possibly more than just that. So absolute was this mission that no consideration of humanitarian values, and no laws that stood in the way of the mission's fulfilment, could be tolerated. Russell does not try to probe much deeper that this, and I would say rightly not. His book was first published in 1958 following the success of his earlier Scourge of the Swastika. The prime virtue of his writing is precisely that it recounts the events from a lawyer's perspective, not totally detached by any means, but having its focus on facts rather than on expressions of outrage, and steering clear of sensationalism. He does not try to account for the change in Japanese posture from its traditional isolationism to this new spirit of aggression, and he does not try to assess the extent to which the religious or quasi-religious element was genuine and to what extent a garb for something more secular, like the contemporary nationalism in Germany. Still less does he probe the basic question of what `faith' may be said to be in the first place or ask (let alone try to answer) the question that should be asked of any believer in any religion, namely `Why?' Why believe in the divinity of the Emperor rather than in, say, Zeus and Hera? Why indeed. I support entirely the limitations he has accepted for himself. He had quite enough to do in following his agenda of factual accuracy, his lawyer's perspective is valuable furthermore in assessing matters of legal interpretation, and his unemotional tone helps the reader's focus too. Here and there we catch glimpses of theories that must have crossed his mind, such as in the mention of inferiority complex at one point, but he sticks to his last and does not pursue these. I found that my own interest was less in the grand political scenarios and strategies than in what little the book contains about the mentality of those perpetrating the atrocities. There are excerpts, f

Well Written, Well Researched

We've seen the movies, the Hollywood glamour of Japanese POW camps in such movies as "Bridge over the River Kwai" and "Empire of the Sun". I had read hints of Japanese brutality, I knew about the rise of the military culture within the government and I, of course, knew of Bushido and the characteristic, xenophobic racism of the Japanese. But I was not prepared for the reality of the Japanese scourge upon the Orient. This fantastic book chronicles the war crimes of the Japanese soldiers and government from the very beginning of the Sino-Japanese conflict and the Rape of Nanking to the frenzied coverup when defeat became evident and the atomic bombs fell. The author relies heavily upon what was uncovered during the war crime trials of the Japanese hierarchy, as well as testimony from both Allied and Japanese soldiers. The brutality and inhuman conditions of the POW camps, the horrid transportation by ship, and the long death marches (the most famous of which, Bataan) inflicted upon the Allies, the Chinese, the Pacific Islanders, the Indians, and everyone who crossed the path of the Japanese are detailed so meticulously you can see the human skeletons, feel the agony of the raped and slaughtered Chinese, and weep for those prisoners burned alive or bayoneted only because their care had become a burden.I adore Japanese culture. Bushido is an honorable path for a warrior and the Samurai who practiced it, honorable men. But you cannot forget an atrocity for an honorable past or an affluent future. With all the candid and realistic portrayals of WWII in Europe and the Nazi concentration camps we have seen come out of Hollywood in the last decade, I am surprised that there is no accurate screen memorial to the millions fallen under the boot of the Japanese. This book is great for a WWII buff or student of Japanese or Asian culture.