Reprisals are the only recourse to force a nation to abide by rules, or to punish them for breaking them.
It's the only reasonable response when you don't have to resources to accept surrender, and it's the only moral response to finding women vivisected alive in various states of pregnancy, and POWs tortured and painfully executed like a game with point systems and all.
Nevermind that actors who don't agree to and abide by the conventions can claim no protection or recourse through them.
It was exceedingly rare for a Japanese soldier to surrender to US or other allied soldiers throughout the pacific theater. It was by and large against Japanese military doctrine to surrender. Most soldiers who were beset by the allies took to individual suicide or attempted to feign surrender to lure soldiers in in order to blow themselves and allied soldiers up with grenades.
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To address something in the above comment. The sentence "It's the only reasonable response when you don't have to resources to accept surrender" is factually incorrect barring only a few examples to the contrary, i.e. Peleliu. In most campaigns on the pacific theater the US had a means and had set up areas to house and move captured Japanese POW'S. As an example look to the campaign in Papa New Guinea where various ANZAC and US soldiers attempted to take prisoners but were killed in the process.
As far as I've read supply was very rarely the issue and Japanese military doctrine was.
So to recap I'm right and I'm right.
There were cases where soldiers and marines didn't have the means to take prisoners, and the Japanese policy of suicide or perfidy made taking POWs unfeasible otherwise.
No, you were incorrect in your assertion that us warcrimes were committed due to Japanese war crimes in China. The fact Japan committed war crimes in China had little to no affect on ground forces in the Pacific's theaters inability to take prisoners throughout the war.
I don't guess I understand what your argument is at this point tbh. That warcrimes beget warcrimes? Then you're partially correct but at no point is that the sole reason why warcrimes occurred. My point is that their is more to why these actions occurred than solely your assertion that they happened due to retaliatory reasons. The only point in your first post i wholly refuted, barring my example in my first comment, was on the supply issue. That argument holds no water in all but one seige.
It's the only reasonable response when you don't have to resources to accept surrender, and it's the only moral response to finding women vivisected alive in various states of pregnancy, and POWs tortured and painfully executed like a game with point systems and all.
Nevermind that actors who don't agree to and abide by the conventions can claim no protection or recourse through them.
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To address something in the above comment. The sentence "It's the only reasonable response when you don't have to resources to accept surrender" is factually incorrect barring only a few examples to the contrary, i.e. Peleliu. In most campaigns on the pacific theater the US had a means and had set up areas to house and move captured Japanese POW'S. As an example look to the campaign in Papa New Guinea where various ANZAC and US soldiers attempted to take prisoners but were killed in the process.
As far as I've read supply was very rarely the issue and Japanese military doctrine was.
There were cases where soldiers and marines didn't have the means to take prisoners, and the Japanese policy of suicide or perfidy made taking POWs unfeasible otherwise.