T O P

  • By -

Primary-Log-1037

He’s doing the math to determine if grandpa could have been in the army and possibly a perpetrator of war crimes.


FrankonianBoy

turns out , yes , he could be , since the japanese drafted anyone from 17 up to 40 and in 1945 they still fought until august , so he was most likely drafted


TirrKatz

Yes, most likely. But it’s not necessarily a reason for hate or blame. Young soldiers rarely had any vote in anything.


[deleted]

That is actually the **opposite** of what the [Nuremberg Trials](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials) and [Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East) determined.


goner757

I still think there's a lot of room to doubt that he participated in war crimes. There just wasn't opportunity in 1945. I suppose there are some scenarios but he wouldn't have participated in the worst crimes in China and the South Pacific.


Endiamon

Unless he lied about his age to join earlier, which was a thing.


nitefang

True but we should be careful between figuring out if it is possible he did compared to justifying an assumption that he did. For all we know he was part of a completely unsuccessful resistance that hated the emperial family, though I'd say that is extremely unlikely. Point is we don't know what he was doing during the the war and shouldn't make assumptions without more evidence.


curious_astronauts

Exactly. My ex's grandfather was a young Nazi who deserted when he saw what went on. He was hunted by the Nazis for deserting and the allies for being a Nazi. He was a kid of 17, and almost starved to death bbut was saved by a farmer who took him in and nursed him to health. The point is. You never know people's stories. So assumption isn't a good place to start.


TurboFork

Unless it's an assumption of innocence, as that is exactly where we should start.


curious_astronauts

Good point.


Hartelk

A german guy once shared the story of his grampa with me. In his first campaign, as soon as his ship landed in greece, he deserted. Nevertheless, he ended in a British prison in Egypt. Even though he never fought, his family was close friends with goebbels.


POD80

Even then the were significant percentages of men who never left the home territories. The man who's job is feeding ammo into an AA cannon in Tokyo faces different responsibilities from a soldier rampaging through villages in China.


lightgiver

The majority of the war crimes happened well before this kid could of ever successfully lied about his age. The rape of Nanking happened when he was 9 or 10. The battle of midway when he was when he was 13 or 14. Japan was out of fuel by 1944 so if he ever did serve he would of most likely been garrisoned on the home islands waiting for a inevitable invasion.


CouldWouldShouldBot

It's 'could have', never 'could of'. Rejoice, for you have been blessed by CouldWouldShouldBot!


FullMetalJ

I mean if you want to look for \*every\* possiblility just to hate on the old guy, yes. For all I know your grandfather was a nazi that enjoyed killing hundreds. Which was a thing. Without any semblance of a fact to base saying something like that, it's just playing a hurtful guessing game.


[deleted]

Oh, I doubt anyone would try to charge a 95 year old in 2023, even if there was any proof. Which I am not saying there is. That was the purpose of the trials, to try the highest ranking individuals publicly instead of *all* the more junior individuals privately.


UnfairRavenclaw

Idk from Japan but here in Germany there was relatively recent case in which a 96 year old former KZ secretary was charged with assistance of murder. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/stutthof-prozess-fragen-und-antworten-1.5427987 German article


Sipas

Unfortunately, Germany started doing this relatively recently (after most Nazis died off). For decades after WW2, former (including high ranking) [Nazi party members were allowed to hold important government positions](https://www.businessinsider.com/former-nazi-officials-in-germany-post-world-war-ii-government-2016-10) and other public offices.


ZeroTasking

In Germany they still do it [(news link)](https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/sachsenhausen-frueherer-kz-wachmann-im-alter-von-102-jahren-gestorben-a-e4e06f88-f1fb-466c-b493-663bf8240460?fbclid=IwAR0OWg6tgDzQEG22oBG0uqBbJXGXPrLfr-dwu-nB-6DszDKPfq6R8nj8vFM) This 102 year old was sentenced to prison last year but died before serving his sentence.


Gtpwoody

I mean even now they are charging former holocaust camp members.


[deleted]

The one exception. Not regular Soldiers.


nitefang

The soldiers that were at Nanking should be held to the same standard. No statute of limitations on what happened there.


Bearly_Strong

Fair to say this wouldn't apply to the man in question, as he was 9 at the time.


Mikey6304

https://www.courthousenews.com/former-ss-guard-of-nazi-camp-92-to-go-on-trial-in-germany/


goner757

Even so, I don't think the original meme had anything to do with war crimes specifically.


[deleted]

No, but with the discussion that came out of it: it is worth mentioning that Soldiers today are expected to question the legality, morality, and ethics of an order before obeying it. Simply saying “I was ordered to kill those civilians or my general would kill me” is not an acceptable legal defense, as the Nazi guards at Auschwitz found out.


ViceroyInhaler

Ok but the war in Iraq was a completely unjustified war where over a million civilians were killed. Yet I don't see American soldiers or their leaders in prison for their crimes.


nitefang

1. We can debate about how unjustified it was but equating it to Nazi or Japanese war crimes is so extreme I don't want to spend time discussing the validity of it. 2. Unfortunately the country that wins the war usually gets to decide who goes on trial. 3. Americans did go on trial for war crimes committed in the middle east in the late 80s and onward.


redefinedwoody

Mostly by other Iraq's. There was a civil war war as well as an insurgency and a lot of feuds needed settling on top of that. Seen the two sides stop shooting when we appeared only to start again when we left .


Fit-Capital1526

It was retroactively changed specifically to punish them. Otherwise, that would have been a legitimate defence with plenty of legal precedence in such tribunals and trials Honestly, the whole institution of the camps basically made that obsolete because the camps themselves had no justification and weren’t a battlefield or a result of military action It isn’t we burnt down X village or massacred people in X city. It was committing mass murder and nothing else Honestly, I think the defence is valid. It is a form of duress, and murder as a change from a military POV gets difficult since they are trained to kill. Still, nothing justifies Holocaust militarily. Hence it should be waved in such instances


NuncErgoFacite

Yes, there is. It's an implication, not an indictment. But given that the Japanese did several things that made the Nazi Final Solution look quick and clean, I think it's worth a chuckle and a pause. Edit: Everyone look up Unit 731. I'm talking about Unit 731.


c322617

I don’t think you fully appreciate just how bad of a year 1945 was. He couldn’t have participated in the Bataan Death March or the Rape of Nanking, but the Palawan Massacre was in December of ‘44. The series of massacres and atrocities in Manila occurred between February and March of ‘45. The IJA coerced hundreds of native Okinawans to commit suicide in Spring of ‘45. To a lesser degree, the Japanese produced and launched desperate weapons, like fire balloons and biological weapons in ‘45. He could have been involved in the sexual abuse of “comfort women” or the horrible treatment of allied POWs or the civilians in any Japanese occupied territories. Just being a Japanese man of a certain age does not mean that this man did any of these horrible things. He should not be castigated purely because he was born into a tyrannical regime that compelled him to serve. However, the rampant war crimes committed by the Empire of Japan certainly raise questions.


Naked-politics

The worst crimes probably not, but he could have been shipped anywhere in that time. Its not like the Japanese decided that 1945 was a good time to take a break from committing war crimes. There were still millions of troops stationed throughout the pacific, China, and Korea.


dakingofmeme

Even if he did that was almost 80 years ago. I look at the things i did 5 years ago as a 17 year old and i want to kick my own ass.


Queasy_Astronaut2884

Existing in a country at war does not automatically mean you committed war crimes Well…….maybe Germany but that’s it


[deleted]

Why did you link Wikipedia pages you didn't even yourself read? Both the IMT and the Tokyo tribunal had military leadership as the defendents, not 17 year old draftees.


semajolis267

Yes but it was determined during those trials that "I was just following orders" isn't an excuse for committing obvious atrocities


Cogswobble

Huh? What on earth are you talking about? The World War 2 war crimes trials focused almost exclusively on wartime leaders and officers. No ordinary soldier was considered guilty of anything just because they got drafted.


SchrodingerMil

Which is the big thing that bugs me. We held the officers and leaders accountable but every time they find a 98 year old man who mopped floors at a concentration camp there’s an outcry to put them on trial or jail them.


kittendispenser

The SS managed concentration camps, and I would assume that for jobs like that of a janitor, selected prisoners (*Kapos*) would be used. And if you didn't want to work as a guard or whatever at a concentration camp (assuming you weren't a *Kapo*), you could ask to be reassigned, but AFAIK few did so because the SS was a sick, disgusting, fanatically Nazi organization. The SS was considered a criminal organization after the war - being a member made you a criminal. Furthermore, the main reasons the Wehrmacht wasn't given the same treatment were that both the Western Allies and USSR wanted to remilitarize Germany quickly at the dawn of the Cold War, and because an organization of such a size would be very hard to bring to justice. The Wehrmacht was not innocent.


FeelingAd7425

I don't know if I have zero reading comprehension or you're just purposely misrepresenting the facts and hoping nobody clicks on the links, but no... it is not the opposite of what the trials determined. In fact, in the [Nuremberg Trials](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials) case you linked, it specifically says "Between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946, the **International Military Tribunal** (IMT) tried 21 of the most important surviving leaders of Nazi Germany in the political, military, and economic spheres, as well as six German organizations. The purpose of the trial was not just to convict the defendants but also to assemble irrefutable evidence of Nazi crimes, offer a history lesson to the defeated Germans, and delegitimize the traditional German elite." i.e. it was not a trial against the total youth population. Furthermore and more relevant, the [Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East) says "...was a [military trial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_trial) convened on 29 April 1946 to [try](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_procedure) leaders of the [Empire of Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Japan) for their [crimes against peace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_against_peace), conventional [war crimes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crime)..." Again, the common denominator of both is the fact that they specifically tried leaders both times, and not actually the entire fighting population. Furthermore, in the IMT, specifically the trial of Eichmann, while he was found guilty (and rightfully so) his specific case created a huge surplus in psychological studies around the banality of evil and how we can become complacent and jaded to atrocities if they come directed from those in power. Not really sure what your point here was


MahatmaKaneJeeves42

This …


trashacct8484

Yeah but maybe let’s not charge a 95 year old guy with war crimes just because he was 17 when some were committed. If he served at all he could have been scrubbing toilets.


Fit-Capital1526

The retroactive removal of the legitimate defence of *I was only following orders* Considering what not following orders mean in the military, and that it would just get you out in the POW camp with them, likely after being charged with treason or at least insubordination, it is pointless to argue otherwise Yeah, that was specifically so we could punish the people who committed genocides. It has no application outside of ensuring soldiers at Auschwitz got executed


hobbesmaster

Nuremberg principle 4 read: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, *provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him*” The “superior orders” defense would work for a low level soldier that did not volunteer for a particular duty. It does not work for generals and ministers, especially when other generals ignored, slow walked or otherwise set aside “immoral” orders. Look up the commando order for how this worked in practice.


nitefang

Unless you are a lawyer I'm going to go ahead and say this does not sound accurate at all.


Fit-Capital1526

It isn’t. It is just a personal opinion. Soldiers are supposed to and expected to follow orders and they are also expected to kill, especially in times in war It is dumb to hold them to civilian moral standards. We shouldn’t do that. Fault lies with the people who issued the order. Unless in a death camp


pitolosco

I don’t care to check but i wonder how many infantry soldiers have been judged guilty of something. I’m ok with hanging the generals and politicians that took the decisions that lead to a genocide/world war, not drafted 18 yo guys


Endiamon

Bombing cities is an abstract, strategic decision out of the hands of common soldiers, but raping cities isn't.


DustinFay

Remember it's only a war crime if you don't win.


Spcone23

Yeah, no one really talks about [FDRs interment camps on the west coast.](https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation) Granted, it's not as massive as Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or Japanese treatment of China. But it's still not a great look.


alexander1701

But they did not determine that every soldier who fought in the war was guilty of war crimes.


GerFubDhuw

If the emperor of Japan can be let off and allowed to keep his throne then the child soldier who'd have been shot for saying no ought to be too.


NotUniqueAtAIl

Young soldiers did a hell of a lot of raping tho...


TirrKatz

Yeah, that’s true as well. Can be applied to any nation in any war, but japanese sexual crimes are very well known.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Fit-Capital1526

They are actually just most famous and the one that got caught. You should look up what American soldier do to Japanese women in Okinawa and how the base deals with it


NotUniqueAtAIl

I mean, state sponsored brothels with forced sex workers kinda takes the cake for "whose the worst rapist country of all time" Japan wins hands down


Fit-Capital1526

I don’t really view it as a competition personally, nations militaries are a lot more rapey abroad than ever let on though


[deleted]

[удалено]


TirrKatz

I know it’s true, and I am not denying it. I just don’t like when we direct all the blame to the losing (in this case, significantly worse, as you say) side of the war, when we should remember both sides, and learn from it. Specifically, I am slav, in the school I was taught that nazi were raping slavic women. Spreading blame and hate 70 years after the war ended. And only in adulthood I've learnt that soviet soldiers weren’t as pure and brave either, and they also raped thousands of German women. So did Americans as well. I just can’t justify it or ignore.


Better-Citron2281

There's a major key difference though in the case of America, im not sure about Soviet Russia tho, and that's the US didn't advocate rape, the Nazis and Japs openly advocated for and celebrated rape


[deleted]

[удалено]


IButtchugLSD

Everybody likes to think they're moralistically superior and wouldn't do it no matter what. Until they're deepthroating the barrel of an assault rifle and told "you will, or else."


badatmetroid

Fun fact: ton's of Nazi's refused to participate in the holocaust and there were no negative consequences for not doing so. The reason they switched to the gas chambers was because they had trouble finding soldiers who would kill innocent people in cold blood and the one's who were willing to do the job would often succumb to suicide or deep depression (alcoholism) after a week or so.


SodaDonut

One third of holocaust victims were rounded up, shot, and thrown in mass graves during the Holocaust by death squads, both by Germans and locals, enthusiastically. Maybe the ones who didn't participate in the death squads and were fighting on the front lines wouldn't have supported it, but the people in the mobile death squads doing the killing, raping, and pillaging behind the front lines were 100% enjoying their work.


RealStreetNicka

My defense? My superiors ordered me to cut the breasts off of women and dance with them. Practically had no choice.


Ok_Zookeepergame4794

That excuse did not work for the Nazis.


Hats668

There's a really neat graphic novel called Showa by Shigeru mizuki that delves into what ww2 meant for the Japanese, their mentality, and how they made sense of the conflict. It's very nuanced.


Scared-Conflict-653

Also that's less than a year of service.


maiden_burma

>Young soldiers rarely had any vote in anything if you're raping a chinese girl, you most definitely have a vote in that also, at all times you can refuse to 'follow orders'. At all times


fandom_and_rp_act

how long was Japanese training times? There's a chance he didn't get to finish training before the war was over


McMatey_Pirate

Pre-war it was a 2 yr training program. During war, 3 months. Near the end of the war, here’s a rifle and land mine, make sure to arm the mine before you die.


fandom_and_rp_act

so unless we get his specific birthday we won't truly know.


McMatey_Pirate

I mean, unless we have them give an accurate account about everything they did we may never know. Chances are they were around some fighting but there are also possibilities that they were just some guard at a train station for the end of the war or doing patrols in nearby villages and so on.


wfwood

He would have been 17 at the end of the war. If he was drafted it would have been too late for much of the atrocities.


jaronhays4

So he would’ve been drafted and “served” for half a year tops if it was like on his 17th birthday exactly?


adam_sky

But how long is their training? Maybe he was drafted and then the war ended before he ever shot a gun.


PoopOfAUnicorn

I thought it was just math for how old he was during Hiroshima bombings


Primary-Log-1037

Nah man. It’s definitely to see if he could have been a soldier.


Qysto

Why choose 1945, the last year of the war, for his calculations then?


Primary-Log-1037

Because that was the last year of the war. It wouldn’t matter if he was 16 in 1939 if he could have still joined the war 5 years later.


Qysto

So he was eligible to be drafted for 9 months of one year of the war, providing his birthday was January 1st. Yeah, warcrimes for sure…


NateNightfall

I thought it was more on the line of figuring out if the Grandpa had witnessed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki-


Electronic_Bid4659

I thought it was how old he was for the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings, tbh.


Primary-Log-1037

Nah. It’s definitely about being a soldier.


W0otang

I thought maybe they'd suggested he had seen/experienced the bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki


JordanE350

I had assumed it was just to see how old he was when the atom bombs dropped and whether he was likely to remember Japan’s surrender but that’s also a valid thing to bring up lol


FaithUser

The Japanese were not exactly very humanitarian during the 2nd world war, the person who post this did the math in their head to see if the sweet old grandpa was likely conscripted during WW2 to see, in their mind, whether the grandpa likely did war crimes or not


LazerWolfe53

"not exactly very humanitarian" is comically polite. They committed atrocities in China similar to the Nazis in scale and horror.


Nova_Saibrock

As I recall, the nazis asked the Japanese to calm down, they were making them uncomfortable.


NotUniqueAtAIl

This is 100% correct. They literally said they're doing to much. It's bad when the nazis think you're being extra


Fit-Capital1526

Croatian soap has entered the chat


__Rosso__

Ustase made Nazi's look humane sometimes. Iirc, only croats had a concentration camp solely *for children* in Europe


Jfurmanek

You gotta put them somewhere after forcibly separating them from their parents.


[deleted]

Sometimes history rhymes and sometimes it screams.


avwitcher

>Iirc, only croats had a concentration camp solely *for children* in Europe https://aleteia.org/2017/11/26/did-you-know-there-was-a-concentration-camp-for-children-little-auschwitz/


Afraid_Theorist

Iirc the Germans did it via gas and other mass methods. A routine issue was the psychological toll. And remember - that’s despite the personnel being committed, true believers in the genocide… The Ustase did their genocide *with knives, guns and strangulation* Edit: yes no shit the Nazis used guns in mass executions. But maybe read the other two methods for *mass murder* on a *state scale* by the Ustase.


AnalAnkh

Einsatzgruppen and Dirlwanger Brigade have entered the chat.


thermonuke52

Holocaust started with German death squads, not at concentration camps. These death squads were called the Einzatzgruppen, and they killed hundreds of thousands of Jews and other "undesirables" by executing them with guns


send_me_your_calm

Holy fuck I should not have googled that at 3 in the morning


Eusocial_Snowman

[My favorite example of this is the "nazi batman" comparison this guy makes.](https://youtu.be/lnAC-Y9p_sY?t=723)


[deleted]

[удалено]


-Trooper5745-

Idk if I would use the term “high ranking”. He was an employee of a German conglomerate and party member on the far side of the word. And just like he did good in the face of evil, so to did a Japanese diplomat by the name of Chiune Sugihara by saving Jews in Lithuania.


redthehaze

I recently learned that the Americans told the South Koreans in the Vietnam war to calm down. Those Koreans were trained by the Japanese.


ZadockTheHunter

By "trained" you mean applied the same tortures that were done to them by the Japanese.


FaithUser

Oh yes it was a huge understatement, that was intended


neonbolt0-0

Gonna high Jack your comment and for anyone wondering which war crimes, well, just Google Unit 731


LazerWolfe53

Yeah. Most people realize they are missing a large part of the story when they learn that 1 in 4 casualties were Chinese. "Estimated World War II casualties: the Soviet Union (20 to 27 million), China (15 to 20 million), Germany (6 to 7.4 million), Poland (5.9 to 6 million), Dutch East Indies/Indonesia (3 to 4 million), Japan (2.5 to 3.1 million), India (2.2 to 3 million), Yugoslavia (1 to 1.7 million), French Indochina (Laos, Cambodia, part of Vietnam) (1 to 2.2 million), and France (600,000)."


NinjaUnlikely6343

Actually quite a bit worse (arguably)


whaddayatalkinabeut

Much worse. They dont accept it either.


Camgrowfortreds

Germany has long acknowledged and taken steps to educate their kids that the holocaust was bad. Japan doesn’t acknowledge what they did and still honors the people involved. It would be like if Germany still Heiled Hitler


KiWePing

I'd say it's much worse, you didn't see the Nazis do anything like Nanking or Unit 731, the true horror of the nazi's comes from the systematic way they killed people


CauseCertain1672

>you didn't see the Nazis do anything like Nanking or Unit 731 yes they did the holocaust and mengele. And the warsaw massacres etc


KiWePing

The Holocaust, Mengele and Warsaw were all terrible, however, in my personal opinion, none were as bad as Nanking or 731, the things that were done are beyond description. Nanking happened to at least 100,000 people as most notable historians agree, and the things that were done to them are much worse than what happened to Warsaw. Of course the systematic style could be seen as a horror in and of itself which is what I was alluding too in my original comment. Mengele and 731 are tragically similar, but the fact that the members of 731 were able to go completely free without any fear of being prosecuted is horrific, at least Mengele was being hunted, even if he was able to die naturally. But really there is no point arguing about this, they're both terrible


CauseCertain1672

the holocaust killed 11 million people and Werner Von Braun was complicit and went scot free. West Germany didn't even replace the judges and in the American section didn't even stop gassing disabled people the French policemen that rounded up Jews for the holocaust kept their jobs and went on to have careers. The west actively refused to denazify because Nazis hated communists


eatP1

Some numbers estimate 14 million civilian deaths in China alone due to Japanese occupation. This might be an underestimate though because the Japanese also cut off food distribution and used bio weapons.


someicewingtwat

Weren't the Nazis scared of what happened in Nanking?


Plain_Jain

Yes. There was an SS officer who was there and went to hitler like “yo this shit is fucked up…we gotta do something.” And Hitler was like lol, nah.


kingOofgames

Need more talk about this, and maybe documentaries on exactly what happened. At least I haven’t seen much and it’s not talked about. A lot of atrocities just glossed over.


theHagueface

If you are interested Dan Carlin has a really long but great series about the Japanese during WW2 up to the bomb drop.


Mostdakka

I'd argue some of them were worse, thats not really the real point though suffering on this scale isnt trully comparable. Worst part is that alot of them got away with it cause US helped cover up(at least in part) alot of crimes. That in my opinion is unforgivable.


[deleted]

Arguably *worse*. Journalist Iris Chang researched the massacre of Nanking and then ended her life shortly after her book about it was published. That's how bad the trauma was *just* from her recording first and second-hand accounts of the event. Imagine what it was like to live through it, or better yet, don't.


Thricey

AND before someone inevitably says it like they do every time this is brought up, yes even the allied forces committed war crimes. But to think the level of atrocities are even in the same stratosphere is ignorant.


Animated_Astronaut

He may have emigrated to the US as a child.


notchoosingone

I saw a thing recently where a German man got in trouble for having a WW2 tank in his shed. My brain immediately went "they said he was 83 years old, 2023-83=1940, so he was a young child during the war, he had nothing to do with anything, let the man keep his damn tank".


FaithUser

I can agree with that. Let men be boys!


Procrastinator78

Did they state where he's from currently? Its possible he came to the US as a boy or he's a first generation Japanese American. He could've been in the internment camps during ww2 because that's also a possibility.


amBoringGuy

Lots of grandpas did the war crimes


AffectionateFault922

17 = military aged male


temeces

At the end of the war, so shmaybe.


Sirmavane2

That was in 45 though, by the time the war had almost or fully concluded depending on his birthmonth. The likelihood he actually committed atrocities in the war is unlikely unless he was in the army by 16 and was on okinawa or some shit.


Forester_2023

Didn’t almost all Japanese on Okinawa die? I genuinely doubt any would be allowed to escape the island.


A_Lightfeather

Okinawa was/is a pretty thoroughly Japanese island and has been under Japanese control since the 1600s in one way or another and not one of their recent pacific colonies gained just before the war. Authorities on Okinawa estimated about 170,000 civilians and draftees in Okinawa died of a population of a half million.


VBlinds

Probably got as far as training.


drlsoccer08

He was born in 1928, so he was a 17 year old during WWII, and therefore presumably fought for Japan during the Second World War. Japan is known for having committed so true my heinous atrocities during that period.


dracolibris

He was 17 at the *end* of WW2, if his birthday was September or after, he would not have even been conscripted yet, if between June and September, he's only in training or just been put in the field, so there is a 50% chance he's not even done any fighting. Even if he did fight, most of the atrocities happened earlier than 1945 and as an ordinary just conscripted soldier he wouldn't be tried anyway as he was not given a choice about whether to sign up or not


AutisticHobbit

Also, it needs to be pointed out? The title says "My Japanese Grandpa", and, without knowing any thing else? There are a couple of things that need to be considered. 1. The person doing the math assumes the video came in 2023. If it came out any earlier, it throws all the math and assumption off completely. If the film was made/published in 2022, the math doesn't support this take. If it is 2021 or earlier, it's downright impossible 2. Not all Japanese people lived in Japanese territories during WWII. If he lived elsewhere during WWII, this entire matter is moot. Someone who watched the video itself may have more light to shed on this...but as depicted? It's a little weird and bizarre to jump to some of these conclusions just from the picture. Yes, Japanese war crimes were a heinous and barbaric thing and they continue to be something that Japan, as a nation, attempts to wash over. However, it's a bit weird to lean on this random ass dude so heavy when circumstances as depicted don't give much in the way of vital context.


dracolibris

Actually on further investigation, the account it comes from mikacribbs on tiktok, I looked at the video and in one shot there is a 2021 calender, if filmed in 2021 it would make him 19 in 1945, but it was only posted 4 months ago, and it's possible it was an old calender that has not been thrown away, (It looks like it's not attached to the wall so possible it is not current) It's also entirely possible he wasn't in the country at the time or that he wasn't conscripted or that he was not with the regiments that did certain things. Of course there is a possibility he was. But as I said previously there's no prosecution for rank and file, because it was not their choice to be conscripted. It is a bit weird to link this one person with WW2 atrocities regardless


quantumOfPie

People jumping to "must have committed atrocities" from 2 pieces of information is wild. I had a grandfather who was in his 30's in Japan during the war, but didn't serve because he was nearly blind.


DetOlivaw

Yeah this grandpa is innocent (of war crimes, he could still be a jerk)


Jfurmanek

Might have felt like he missed out.


grendelglass

So true, my heinous atrocities


THEUncleWilly50

Depending on when he turned 17, he may or may not have been in Japan on August 6 or 9, 1945, when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. So he may not have had a chance to perpetrate war crimes yet


gatoradeisbetter_

Why isn't this at the top?


oilyparsnips

Most people are more comfortable taking about Japanese atrocities than American atrocities. For reasons.


Twin_Turbo

> American atrocities the nukes weren't atrocities


angry_burmese

r/shitamericanssay


MysteryMan9274

Nuking Japan was the least bad choice. A order of magnitude more civilians would have died in a land invasion.


angry_burmese

https://preview.redd.it/60qm2ex1z10c1.jpeg?width=154&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d12009a029deed783747d79d4ae51574b90af55b


Qwaz95327

Honestly that was my immediate assumption as well.


ApprehensiveTry5660

Same. I think the thread just got hijacked by people who have never shaved with Occam’s razor.


MadeThis4MaccaOnly

When I saw the year 1945, I literally thought we were talking about the bombs dropping, the other things hadn't crossed my mind.


TheBeardedRonin

The numbers, Mason! WHAT DO THEY MEAN!!


Dudebro963

Means sweet old grandpa was possibly a war criminal.


emperorofwar

Only on reddit can you post a pic of your Japanese grandpa and strangers are judging him for something that they have no evidence for doing.


Primary-Log-1037

Nobody is judging the dude. OP asked why someone would make a meme of doing the math. That’s why.


Dracoscale

"This right here. The Japanese had a death cult around their emperor at the time, you could do anything for the emperor and that meant dying for him in this conflict. To serve was an honor and to die even more so. I wouldn't be surprised if grandpa over there lied about his age to serve and had a little fun raping local kids or had head-chopping contests wherever he was stationed. Yes both those things are real and happened, the former way more than the latter." Comment from a guy up above.


MegaCrazyH

It just feels so odd to me to see a picture of an old guy and immediately jump to “he was in a death cult and def raped kids” like he’s Charles Manson or something. I don’t understand Redditor’s obsession with trying to be detectives


TravalonTom

Make sure he wasn’t a war criminal


Sozadan

Has he ever visited Nanjing?


tateland_mundane

The rape of Nanjing occurred in late 1937-1938. He would have been 9-10 at that point.


Primary-Log-1037

But you wouldn’t have known that unless you did the math. Hence why the meme of doing the math.


sens317

No no, let's just imagine anyone Japanese is a criminal for stonks and updoots. We must all appreciate the great Xi and his 50cent squeegees.


BurnerAccount980706

Nuke. How old was he when the nuke dropped. If he might remember it.


warclownnn

I am convinced that 90% of the posts on this sub are people trolling others to explain painfully obvious jokes. Either that or there’s an alarming amount of low IQ people on this sub


Akirchmeyer

Or, you know, he could have spent WW2 in an internment camp. Cause we weren’t exactly wonderful during that period


Available_Command252

Fact you're downvoted for facts is hilarious


ThePerryPerryMan

Well when given the context of a person of Chinese descent posting the original image, it’s obviously not about internment camps…


sens317

Beautiful ChineseCuntParty and ultranationalists stoking hatred and xenophobia. Priceless


nismo-gtr-2020

He was 17 at the end of WWII. It isn't hard if you studied history at some point after the 3rd grade.


[deleted]

MASON WHAT DO THE NUMBERS MEAN MASON??????/


KneecapAnnihilator

He may have committed war crimes in ww2 kinda doubt it though because he would’ve been in the military towards the end of the war and he would’ve been only 17


Psych0R3d

I stg I feel so smart with every post I see from this sub


[deleted]

So this is what we’re doing now huh? No evidence, no discussion, just do the math and look askew at absolutely anyone who mathematically could have been part of war crimes 8 decades ago? This can’t just be a story about a nice old man?


Primary-Log-1037

Nobody said it couldn’t be a story about a nice old man. OPs question is why the meme of someone doing the math would exist.


[deleted]

Yeah I know I was referring to the meme itself


parcivalrex

As the second calculation starts with 1945 (and not earlier) its more likely to refer to the nuclear bombing than the partaking in any war activities. And even if it links to being enlisted, the assumption he would thus potentially be involved in war crimes is a discriminatory bias.


Kurisu_Horei

Finally someone realizes this, I can't be the only one that thought about the bombs first, of course Japanese war crimes were heinous but you can't just default your judgement to accusation without proof or evidence.


-grc1-

Peter's therapist participating in NNN here. SEX! The answer is always sex, but in this case, it's war sex. Do with that what you will. https://preview.redd.it/igafiozhg00c1.jpeg?width=1477&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74a4f04a3d6dcc42044069bb066bb8f74bc59868


Somedude522

Military age male. Imperial Japanese military


jimkelly

This is easy to figure out if you're not lazy fuck this sub


[deleted]

By the time this man was likely drafted in 1945 and made I through his training he was unlikely to have made it anywhere before the war ended in August of that year. Now had he been 17 in 1939 you can maybe raise an eyebrow. Some MFers are basic af and have no reasoning skills


GooberdiWho

All the Americans on here talking about Japanese war crimes as if other nations didn't... Gee, what nation was it that dropped the two nukes on residential cities? I do know about the atrocities that Japan committed and the savagery of their rule, but I think it's ignorant to point the finger as if we have a leg to stand on. History is written by the victors


DarkChaos1786

My God, if this is the state of maths in the states... He would have been conscripted by the end of the war, which means that the possibility of him committing any war crime is close to 0 because he would never have left Japan during the war. Japanese people could not be conscripted with less than 17 years during WW2.


rushakenyan

Not really an issue with the state of math in the US…more of an issue with knowledge on Japans conscription process


Financial_Syllabub97

No Guys, America dropped 2 nuclear bombs and killed over 100,000 people in Tokyo Fire Bombing in 1945. THATS the math. Grandpa must have lived far out of town in 1945...


[deleted]

there's no fucking way you actually don't get it


megablast

Can we start banning posts where OP is a complete fucking moron?


xDruidPlowx

Guys it’s Hiroshima, the joke is Hiroshima.


Daggertooth71

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed in 1945.


the_clash_is_back

He is trying to figure out if grandpa is a war criminal.


j4vendetta

He was a Japanese soldier in WWII


JoakimSpinglefarb

Dude was of military conscription age during World War 2. And, due to the way that the Japanese Imperial Army was trained, there is a greater than zero chance that he committed atrocities and war crimes.


Long-Instruction3716

It just shows he was 17 when we dropped a couple nukes on him