WHY WERE THE JAPANESE SO CRUEL IN WORLD WAR II?
WHY WERE THE JAPANESE SO CRUEL IN WORLD WAR II? Before and during World War II, Japanese forces murdered millions of civilians and prisoners of war. Why? On Feb. 16, 1942, Japanese troops herded 23 Australian women into the surf from a beach on Bangka Island in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia). All but one of the women were army nurses, captured after Japanese bombers sank the ship on which they were attempting escape from Singapore. The nurses wore uniforms clearly emblazoned with the Red Cross. When the captives reached waist-deep water, machine-gun fire echoed across the beach ad jungle-covered hills. Screams and splashing accompanied the bursts of gunfire. Then, as abruptly, the firing stopped, and the beach fell silent. Miraculously, one of the nurses was still alive. Wounded in the torso, 26-year-old Vivian Bullwinkel floated in the sea, her head tilted to one side to gulp air as the surf pushed her gently toward the beach. Minutes earlier the Japanese soldiers