An American soldier cradling a wounded Japanese boy and sheltering him from the rain in the cockpit of an airplane during the Battle of Saipan waiting to transport him to a hospital, July 1944.
Japanese troops were usually not as well equipped or led as the Germans, but they made up for it with a terrifying stubbornness. Over the course of WWII across all of Asia, over 2 million Japanese soldiers were killed while less than 50,000 were captured. In contrast, the Germans during the Normandy campaign lost over 100,000 killed but 200,000 surrendered. That’s a huge difference, and one that’s probably hard to wrap your head around, so it is helpful to have an anecdote to really illustrate this.
These men would rather see home again than carve open their stomachs for honor
On the island of Saipan, it took the US 3 weeks to defeat the garrison of a tiny 44 square mile island. In the last days of the battle, only about 4,000 Japanese soldiers were left out of an original force of over 30,000. They were running low on food and ammunition and were cornered by 70,000 American troops with zero chance of victory or escape. Rather than surrender, they all charged together into the teeth of American machine guns in what became the largest banzai charge of the war. Incredibly, even the severely wounded joined in, with men on crutches literally hobbling to their deaths. Almost all 4,000 were killed (About 50 survived and escaped into the mountains, mounting a guerrilla campaign that continued past the end of WWII), and their general committed seppuku afterwards, imitating the samurai of old.
Imperial Japanese casualties at Saipan after a banzai charge
As the war dragged on even longer into mid 1945, Japanese forces were rolled back on all fronts. The Allies had liberated most of the Pacific, landing in the Philippines, pushing into Burma, and seizing Japanese soil. Even China, which had largely been on the defensive for nearly 8 years, made successful offensives against Japan that year. It was only under these conditions that Japanese soldiers started surrendering, and even then in miniscule amounts compared to in the West, where the Germans didn’t think mass suicide to kill one more enemy soldier was worth it. In the Takenaga Incident on May 3, 1945, Australian soldiers captured 42 IJA personnel in what was the largest mass surrender of the war. Try thinking about that for a moment. Over 10 million Japanese served in WWII. Millions were killed. And the most who surrendered together was just 42 men. That is a terrifying determination.
Well stated. People commenting that these banzai charges were doomed to fail and profoundly idiotic from a tactical standpoint, are correct. But I proffer that the Japanese knew they had lost. This was not a desperate last effort to turn the battle in their favor. It was a mass suicide. Japanese love to do everything in a group. They exalt the hive mindset of the group above that of the individual. However, as Edward stated, they believed they would die and go to heaven and preserve their family honor at the same time. It was their best option out from their twisted perspective. I believe those Japanese sentiments were/are complete vanity. They thought otherwise. This wasn’t about tactics. It was their way of quitting.
There was an element of strategy in the banzai attack, similar to the kamikaze attack, however; they sought to inspire horror in their enemy, in hopes their will would fail; it’s easy to order a suicide attack, if it fails, others die, and the leader could atone through an act of seppuku or suicide in another form, without consequences. It just didn’t work with the USMC, USN & US Army; or the Russian troops, who swept across Manchukwo.
when the sick japs where raping dogs babies and anything else were they doing that in groups ?
Weird, when western troops do it it's heroic and sacrificial but when someone on the opposite side does it, it's stupid and fanatic.
(Reply to Hung Vu). Battle of Camarone, in Mexico. Beseiged, 65 soldiers of the French Foreign Legion charged against 2000 mexican soldiers, almost to the last man. That is not WWII but they were western troops.
Good. You found one example.
Now, find hundreds of other examples. Because what western troops did as an exception, Japanese troops did as a rule.
Charge of the Light Brigade is one example.
The ‘last stand’ - which is exactly what Japanese troops unwilling to surrender were making - has hundreds of examples. See Last stand.
The Battle off Samar: The Sacrifice of "Taffy 3"
There you go. Never one finer.
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