Article

2005-12-16 China-Japan-Koreas

Battleship epic reignites anger over Japan's wartime excesses

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Posted by Steve White 2005-12-16 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11129 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The ship still sinks at the end, right?

Posted by JAB 2005-12-16 00:12|| 2005-12-16 00:12|| Front Page Top

#2 Well sort of, they secretly convert the ruin of the Japanese battleship Yamato into a massive spaceship, complete with a new, incredibly powerful weapon called the "wave motion gun".

Posted by Grinesing Slererong3182 2005-12-16 01:41|| 2005-12-16 01:41|| Front Page Top

#3 I'd rather see a movie on the sinking of the Shinano. Much more entertaining cat-and mouse game between Shinano, her three escorts and the USS Archer-Fish. Great read by the Archer-Fish CO, Enright.

Posted by Rory B. Bellows 2005-12-16 03:17|| 2005-12-16 03:17|| Front Page Top

#4 I believe one sailor's comment in the movie amount to "Postwar Japan's prosperity is predicated on us getting pwn'ed."

Paraphrased, of course, but seriously.

Posted by Edward Yee 2005-12-16 03:56|| http://edwardyee.fanworks.net]">[http://edwardyee.fanworks.net] 2005-12-16 03:56|| Front Page Top

#5 Article: More than 260 metres long and weighing 64,000 tonnes, the Yamato was commissioned days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbour.

Almost four years to build a ship, and they were the ones who kicked off the war. Rummy was right - you go to war with the military you have, not the one you would like to have.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-12-16 03:58|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-12-16 03:58|| Front Page Top

#6 The Japanese love any story about people sacrificing themselves for the group.

They especially love the Yamato. They made a cartoon show about some people who dredge up the Yamato, buff it out, and make it into a spaceship(wtf?). I don't get it, either. I'm glad that the Yamato met such an inglorious end, otherwise we'd never hear the end of it.

Posted by gromky">gromky 2005-12-16 05:00|| http://communistposters.com/]">[http://communistposters.com/] 2005-12-16 05:00|| Front Page Top

#7 Almost four years to build a ship, and they were the ones who kicked off the war.

Hum the Yamato transported Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto during the battle of Midway.

The significative fact is that during the war Japan was only able to launch a battleship (Musashi, Yamato's ssiter ship) and a couple major carriers. It looks like after entering the war the Japanese industry became pathetically unefficient in about every area: merchant ships, war ships or planes. Even if we account for Japan's problems into shipping raw materials from Indonesia or China to Japan it still looks Japan was not efficient.

BTW: it should have been clear that battleships were no longer the capital ship and that what was needed was carriers, carriers, carriers and the planes to equip them. Not Yamatos or Musashis. But apparently the Japanese were very slow to unsdertand that it was the carrier who was now important. Look at Midway: Yamamoto is on a battleship at hundreds of miles of his carriers and keeping radio silence so he is completely unable to help, lead or even advise Nagumo. And I once saw an interview of a Japanese survivor: the Japanse didn't feel defeated. When we think about it: they only lost four "unimportant" ships and not a single battleship.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-12-16 05:05|| 2005-12-16 05:05|| Front Page Top

#8 JFM: Hum the Yamato transported Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto during the battle of Midway.

You're right - I misread the passage. I thought the movie was referring to the Musashi, which was launched against the USN before its armor was ready, and sunk by a sub.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-12-16 05:28|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-12-16 05:28|| Front Page Top

#9 JFM: It looks like after entering the war the Japanese industry became pathetically unefficient in about every area: merchant ships, war ships or planes. Even if we account for Japan's problems into shipping raw materials from Indonesia or China to Japan it still looks Japan was not efficient.

I think that's still true today - at the strategic level, Japan is still inefficient, which is why it has not been able to overtake the US at the GDP per capita level. Japan has a lot of fine companies in individual industries, but at the level of strategy that makes up comprehensive national strength, they're just not there yet.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-12-16 05:33|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-12-16 05:33|| Front Page Top

#10 Another important point is that this is not really an anti-war movie. Those types of movies usually highlight good men on both sides of the conflict and depicts what is felt to be the squandering of their lives in senseless conflict. My impression is that this movie will say that the war was bad because Japan lost, and thus wasted the lives of its young men. The moral here seems not to be that war is bad, but that it is bad when Japan loses.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-12-16 05:37|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-12-16 05:37|| Front Page Top

#11 First point:I enjoyed the movie"Sink the Bismark"can't see why this couldn't be a good movie too.
2nd,Leading up-to and during WW2 there were Battleship Warriors who couldn't come to grips with the idea that Battleships were no longer King.

Posted by raptor 2005-12-16 06:29|| 2005-12-16 06:29|| Front Page Top

#12 Note: When I said that the Japanese didn't fel defeated after Midway I should have said "at junior officer level" meaning that the importance of carriers had still not wholly impregnated the IJN. It is evident that Yamamoto did feel defeated since he withdrew but it is not less evident that if he had really grasped the importance of carriers and that their fate would determine the outcome of the action and perhaps of the war then he would have sailed on the Akagi or the Hyriu instead of on the Yamato.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-12-16 07:09|| 2005-12-16 07:09|| Front Page Top

#13 Another important point is that this is not really an anti-war movie. Those types of movies usually highlight good men on both sides of the conflict

Yeah, I remind a movie whose time I don't remember but who starred Robert Mitchum and was made in the sixties (that detail has its importance). It depicts a regiment of Rangers being ambushed and anihilated in the weeks before the taking of Rome. At the end of it, Mitchum and another soldier chat about "men who are sent to war and why? Fotr no special reasons". Of course, last time it came on TV the French the ~~anti-semitic, pro-palestinian, histerically anti-american~~ leftist TV magazine "Telerama": hailed the movie for "its hulanistic message and its comndemnation of the aburdity of war". I made the calculation and in the two minutes of the dialogue between Mitchum and the other guy there were 12 persons (three or four them being children) who had been gassed). Making that kind of calculations makes the whole scene (and the Telerama critic) look unbearably obscene.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-12-16 07:29|| 2005-12-16 07:29|| Front Page Top

#14 A repost without the typos

Another important point is that this is not really an anti-war movie. Those types of movies usually highlight good men on both sides of the conflict

Yeah, I remind a movie whose title I don't remember but it starred Robert Mitchum and was made in the sixties (that detail has its importance). It depicts a regiment of Rangers being ambushed and anihilated in the weeks before the taking of Rome. At the end of it, Mitchum and another soldier chat about "men who are sent to war and why? For no special reasons". Of course, last time it came on TV the French ~~anti-semitic, pro-palestinian, histerically anti-american~~ leftist TV magazine "Telerama": hailed the movie for "its humanistic message and its condemnation of the aburdity of war". I made the calculation and in the two minutes of the dialogue between Mitchum and the other guy there were 12 persons (three or four them being children) who had been gassed. Making that kind of calculations makes the whole scene (and the Telerama critic) and the people who talk of the abusrdity of war look unbearably obscene.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-12-16 07:49|| 2005-12-16 07:49|| Front Page Top

#15 I'll wait till I see it. Yhen I'll judge.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2005-12-16 08:05|| 2005-12-16 08:05|| Front Page Top

#16 Japan and China are similar in many regards. They don't have a problem with war. They just hate losing. You won't find any Chinese critiques of its imperial wars - they were all fought in China's defense. Japan's the same way - there's no real critique of 1895 as this land grab of Korea and Taiwan. Meanwhile, stateside, we have guys slamming the whole idea of a European presence in North America, Manifest Destiny, the war with Mexico, the war with the Spanish empire, etc. Even the most unreconstructed conservative American accepts that what we carried out were land grabs.

The Japanese and the Chinese just gloss over it altogether. To them, winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. With the Chinese, it's worse - a peace treaty at the end of hostilities is just like a Muslim hudna (a ceasefire) to them - their term is "unequal treaty". This means that they reserve the right to reverse the defeat at some later time, even though the original peace treaty involved foreign concessions in that China's opponent agreed not to make further inroads into Chinese territory.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-12-16 08:53|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-12-16 08:53|| Front Page Top

#17 At least they didn't rewrite history and have Godzilla awaken due to global warming spawned earthquakes and sink the ship.

Posted by BrerRabbit 2005-12-16 09:42|| 2005-12-16 09:42|| Front Page Top

#18 When you get down to it, the combat record of the 'Yamato' is a joke. My personal favorite is the way it contributed almost nothing to the Battle of Samar Island -- the 'Yamato' ran from a spread of torpedoes launched from an American destroyer and that essentially took it out of the fight.

Posted by Patrick Phillips 2005-12-16 09:47|| 2005-12-16 09:47|| Front Page Top

#19 The ship still sinks at the end, right?

Yes, after hitting an iceberg.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-12-16 11:00|| 2005-12-16 11:00|| Front Page Top

#20 Somebody let Kadokawa out of jail? He was doing time for trying to smuggle nose-candy through a Japanese airport last time I checked. He used to be a semi-decent anime producer - specialized in hour-long films based on popular fantasy novels or manga & aimed almost exclusively at the actual fans of those original works - the movies themselves were mildly indescipherable to the casual viewer who hadn't read the novels or comics in question. Very, very pretty movies, though. Full of aesthetic merit.

And I've seen about all I'd ever care to see about the sodding Yamato and its famous suicide run. Wonder if Kadokawa's finances are being floated by right-wing political money these days, instead of petty coke deals?

Posted by Mitch H.">Mitch H. 2005-12-16 11:20|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]">[http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/] 2005-12-16 11:20|| Front Page Top

#21 Patrick,

The Battle off Samar would make for a great movie too. Somebody should film Hornsberger's book. Imagine the scene on the sinking Samuel Roberts with the dying Paul Henry Carr begging for help to fire the last shell from his wrecked gun…

Posted by Eric Jablow">Eric Jablow 2005-12-16 12:52|| 2005-12-16 12:52|| Front Page Top

#22 Eric is referring to Hornfischer's book The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors

Which is one of the best books about the naval war in the Pacific. It would make a great present for any Rantburger.

As far as a movie, it would have to cover both the battle and the tragedy of the American crews waiting to be rescued as they floated in rafts and life jackets for days in the ocean.

Posted by Penguin 2005-12-16 13:22|| 2005-12-16 13:22|| Front Page Top

#23 Penguin's right about Last Stand. One of the small episodes in the book tells how, in an earlier shore bombardment mission, one of the tin cans killed a sword-waving Japanese officer with a shot from a 5-inch piece of naval artillery aimed at the officer individually. The American Way of War.

Posted by Matt 2005-12-16 15:20|| 2005-12-16 15:20|| Front Page Top

#24 Or, Dude, you only thought you were playing Chicago Rules.

Posted by Matt 2005-12-16 15:28|| 2005-12-16 15:28|| Front Page Top

#25 Breaking news. Here is the ultra-secret scenario for "Yamato, the last battle".

A girl has enlisted in the Navy in order to follow her lover. They are assigned to the Yamato. Thie ship is sent in a desperate mission to Okinawan waters, she fends off the attacks of a gazillion American planes, then the two lovers have a scene where they "play plane" at the bow of Yamato. But in his eagerness to bring to the emperor news of the great Japanese victory, Yamato's captain sets the Yamato at full speed and the ship sinks after hitting an iceberg.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-12-16 16:03|| 2005-12-16 16:03|| Front Page Top

#26 Oops. I was writing from work.

Posted by Eric Jablow">Eric Jablow 2005-12-16 17:45|| 2005-12-16 17:45|| Front Page Top

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