The Most Shocking ALLIED War Crimes

I am reminded of a line from the movie Breaker Morant: "The barbarities of war are not committed by abnormal men. The tragedy of war is the acts , when calmly viewed afterwards, are committed by normal men in abnormal circumstances. "

It should be noted that roughly 11,000 German Americans and 3,000 Italian Americans were also interned around the same time as their Japanese American counterparts.

I am actually SHOCKED that an english speaking youtuber would talk about this subject. For what its worth, thank you for doing this. Even in Germany when WWII is discussed in school, teachers act like the allies were angles and committed no war crimes, at all.

For me the worst has to be the The Laconia incident. Refers to an event during World War II in September 1942 when a German U-boat, U-156, torpedoed the British troopship RMS Laconia. Unusually, the U-boat's crew then began rescue operations for the survivors, including the ship's passengers and prisoners of war. However, when the German submarine was spotted by American aircraft, it was attacked. The incident led to changes in the German U-boat rescue policy. The most fkd up thing about this is the fact that the americans blatantly ignored a huge Red Cross flag on the foredeck on the sub, 4 lifeboats full of people being towed and started a bombing run. All they destroyed were 2 lifeboats of around 100 people from the RMS Laconia. The Captain of the sub wanted to start evacuations after torpedoing, because it was "the right thing to do and we are their only hope". There was also a second German sub, one Italian sub and 2 French warships on their way to aid. The bombing runs left the U-156 moderately damaged, but still managing to submerge. To the remaining RMS Laconia's survivors, the U-156 re-emerged after the americans left, leaving them in awe. The Germans at this point had had enough and considered the now 4-day rescue mission over and left. The German U-boat rescue policy was changed so that no rescue effort shall be made unless there is a full guarantee of the sub and it's crew's safety. One of the remaining lifeboats that weren't picked up again by the same German subs and transferred to the French warship, drifted around for 27 days until they found land in the Liberian coast. 16 out of the 68 souls in that boat survived. The Laconia incident was also used in the Nuremberg trials, where the German Admiral Karl Döniz only got a 10-year sentence because of what the U-156 and the U-507 had done to rescue survivors. I may have not remembered every detail correctly as i mostly wrote this from memory. Feel free to correct me if i'm wrong

All of these are taught in UK schools... Or they used to be. "A warcrime is only a warcrime if you lose."

I worked at a retirement home a few years ago. A Japanese american lady and her husband both had been in the Japanese internment camp when they were little kids. She had pretty advanced dementia and sometimes she would think she was a little girl in the camp. Honestly, heartbreaking to see her reliving that time 75 years later.

There's also the strategic firebombing of Tokyo, which in some ways was worse than the atomic bombs. Curtis LeMay, the architect of the firebombing campaign actually said "I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal."

I vividly remember when I was a sophomore in highschool (1999) when it came time to cover the events that led to WW2 in Europe and the Pacific. There came a point when my history teacher, informed us that what he was about to discuss was about the less than stellar behavior/crimes performed by The Allies (i.e. Japanese Internment Camps and much more). He also made it known that these topics were not part of the lesson plan approved by the school board. But he said that he wouldn't be able to call himself an educator if he didn't teach us everything and not gloss over or outright skip certain issues.

I'm always surprised how much this surprises people. "No, my people wouldn't have done this!" Chances are, they already have.

Mers-el-Kebir WAS NOT a surprise attack. The British fleet (Force H) arrived and parlayed with French admiral for several hours. An ultimatum was given: either sail out and join the British, sail to neutral ports in the Caribbean, or be destroyed. The French admiral refused both latter options and Somerville (commanding Force H) opened fire on the port with the big guns of his fleet. There was no surprise air attack, although aircraft were in use after the expiration of the British ultimatum. 4:39

It's never "good guys vs bad guys" in history, It's always "our valiant knights in shining armour vs their evil monsters".

My father in law was a British P O W just out side Dresden (Paratrooper captured at Arnhem) he with is fellow POW'S were asked if they would clear the street of Dead, which they all agreed to do. a very unforgettable job, always spoken of throwing bodies, on to backs of lorries, but a kindness to children being placed gently on to lorries. A hard man moved to tears.

Bloody hell. We all know these things happened, but are not told about them. Thank you Simon. A part 2 would be appreciated.

I once had an Eastern German textbook for English that was used in schools. They used the phrase "the English bombed Dresden heavily" as an example to explain the difference between adjectives and adverbs. They also had many texts that extolled the achievements of the British communist party and the protest against the Vietnam war and its violent suppressions by American police forces. Interestingly the textbooks for Russian never used examples like "the red army raped many women in Germany" to teach the Russian language.

The 3rd story is even more sad because a German U-Boat Commander, Werner Hartenstein did the total opposite. He risked his crew's life to save survivors of a ship they just sank, called the Allies and gave their location asking for help.

My father occasionally told the story of how some idiot fired a gun at an American tank column, and the response was that every single house in a long street was destroyed by those tanks firing shells into every ground floor.

It is important to remind warcrimes of both sides. My wife's great-grandmother remembered how the Soviets came to liberate her village in Moravia. They ran their tanks through the vineyards, looted the village, culturally enriched a few women at gunpoint, shot anyone who resisted, and left.

The author Kurt Vonnegut was a POW in Dresden at the time of the bombing. His story best illustrates the absurdity of wat. When his Allies and fellow countrymen bombed the city the Germans took hi to an air raid shelter. Later his allies the Russians approached and started shelling the remnants of the city. The Germans then moved him westward. As he pointed out his countrymen and his allies tried to kill him, it was his enemies who saved his life.

Inter arma enim silent leges is a Latin phrase that literally means "For among arms, the laws are silent" but is more popularly rendered as "In times of war, the law falls silent."

I'm not sure how Operation Catapult can be seen as a surprise attack. Once the French refused to scuttle the ships, they knew what was going to happen.