Guardian: A mayor in Japan has been condemned by the US government for declaring that sex slaves known as “comfort women” were a necessity during the second world war – at the same time as China has told its TV studios to tone down anti-Japanese storylines related to the period. Toru Hashimoto, the mayor of Osaka, stood by his remarks [...]
The Telegraph: An outspoken nationalist mayor said the Japanese military’s forced prostitution of Asian women before and during World War II was necessary to “maintain discipline” in the ranks and provide rest for soldiers who risked their lives in battle. The comments are already raising ire in neighbouring countries that bore the brunt of Japan’s wartime aggression and that [...]
Washington Post – Japan has acknowledged that it conducted only a limited investigation before claiming there was no official evidence that its imperial troops coerced Asian women into sexual slavery before and during World War II. A parliamentary statement signed Tuesday by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged the government had a set of documents produced by a postwar international military [...]
The Bridge from Hell: Prisoners of War lay sleepers on the Death Railway at River Kwai The Daily Mail reports: It was known, for good reason, as the Death Railway. In 1942, after the fall of Singapore, the Japanese army ordered the construction of a jungle railroad from Bangkok to Rangoon to support its assault on India. Almost 260 miles [...]
Boston.com: Rhode Island memorialized a World War II pilot from Cranston on Friday, 69 years after his capture and execution by the Japanese. Lt. Robert Thorpe was declared missing in action 1944 when his P-47 was shot down over New Guinea. Years later, following war crimes trials in Japan, his family learned he’d been interrogated, tortured and then beheaded when [...]
A German broadcaster has dropped repeat showings of a detective series after it emerged its late star had served in Hitler’s SS. Horst Tappert, who played Derrick in the show of the same name, had kept his military past a secret up until his death in 2008. But last month archives revealed he had served in the Totenkopf panzer division, [...]
Israel’s official intelligence agency, Mossad, had as one of its principal assigned tasks the pursuit and capture of accused Nazi war criminals. Throughout the 1950s, many Jews and other victims of the Holocaust also dedicated themselves to finding Eichmann and other notorious Nazis. Among them was the Jewish Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. In 1954, Wiesenthal saw a letter received by [...]
The Japanese Ambassador to South Korea has spoken out against the statue erected across the street from the front of the Japanese Embassy in memorial of those who served as “comfort women,” or sexual slaves, to the Imperial Army during World War II. Ambassador Koro Bessho says that he sees the monument in the form of a young woman sitting [...]
Full-fledged panic is erupting in East Prussia in January 1945. Tales of Russian revenge for the Nazi invasion of the “Motherland” spread like wildfire all the way to the Wilhelm Gustloff’s port in Gotenhafen’s Oxhöft Pier. Hundreds of thousands of German refugees continue to stream in to the Danzig , hoping for safe passage to the West. Alarm widens even [...]
North Korea’s increasingly fragile relationship with the outside world is being further threatened by an obscure Japanese rock band who have released a song insulting Korean women. The song, by a band called Scramble, addresses the sensitive issue of ‘comfort women’ – the name given to the women forced into prostitution by the Japanese in the Second World War. The [...]
Obituaries: Major David Taylor, who has died aged 92, won an MC in 1944 at the Normandy bridgehead.May 23, 2013
Bournemouth WWII air raid 70th anniversary memorial to be unveiledMay 23, 2013
Churchill and Stalin made ‘merry’ until early hoursMay 23, 2013
Reluctant hero’ of Warsaw Ghetto uprising dies at 93: Tributes paid to one of final survivors who took on Nazis in 1943May 23, 2013
Hell’s Angels Veteran flys againMay 23, 2013
Huntington State Office Building Will Be Renamed for Rosie the RivetersMay 22, 2013
‘I never knew people could love an old man so much’: WWII vet, 91, ‘saved from daughter’s eviction’ after $138,000 raised onlineMay 22, 2013
Bomber Command veterans boycotting ‘insulting’ awardMay 22, 2013
Countdown to raising the Dornier commencesMay 22, 2013
When wartime appearances were deceiving by designMay 22, 2013
American fighter still hidden under North Wales beachMay 22, 2013
What to Bring to a War: A Packing List for WWII Army NursesMay 22, 2013
Drunkenness, jeep accidents, sexual assault – The Dark Side of LiberationMay 22, 2013
Dame Judi Dench launches £1.5m campaign for maintenance of Bomber Command MemorialMay 22, 2013
Obituaries Brigadier-General Zdenek Skarvada: Spitfire pilot who later underwent forced labourMay 22, 2013
Russia to Scrap World’s Biggest Nuclear SubsMay 22, 2013
Raising a World War II Bomber From the English ChannelMay 22, 2013
New Interactive Timeline and Map Allows You to Explore the History of World War IMay 22, 2013
87 shipwrecks, most from WWII, could leak oil near US, but no ‘ticking time bombs’May 22, 2013
Cold War cartography: Mapping where Soviets could – and could not – go in 1950′s AmericaMay 21, 2013
