The Bataan Death March By Glenn Frazier

The term ‘Bushido’ has over the years developed from the traditional translation of ‘the Way of the Warrior’ towards the more modern notion of a “national spirit of Japan, especially the military spirit.” This paper will analyse the impacts that various religious traditions such as Shintoism, Buddhism and Confucianism have had on shaping the classical ideals of the bushido code and the influences that the bushido code played on the actions of the kamikaze fighter pilots during World War II.

The camps that the Japanese-Americans were taken to had the worse conditions imaginable. “More than 120,000 Americans of Japanese Ancestry were incarcerated in 10 camps scattered throughout the Western United States during World War II” (Children of the Camps Project 1). Detainees spent many years in these camps. They were locked behind barbed wire fences, and armed guards patrolled the camps. The conditions were comparable to the Jewish camps in Eastern Europe. Entire families lived in quarters that were poorly constructed and horribly cramped. These areas were also unbearably cramped and unclean. There was also no hot water for dishes or showers in the living quarters. In addition, lice was a huge problem in the internment camps. These camps and the laws that our government passed against the Japanese community were atrocious. The United States experienced a terrible tragedy when Pearl Harbor was attacked. However, the American government had no right to make these innocent Americans prisoners of war. During the 1940s and 1950s the Japanese

On the surface one may connect Bushido to Japanese tactics and strategy in World War II, but this relationship is only on the surface. Suicide charges and kamikaze pilots may look like and very well be ritual suicide, but the meaning is far too different. In Bushido killing oneself is the ultimate clearing of honor and debt. However the Japanese military coopted this premise and heavily altered the idea that shaming your master was reason enough to enact seppuku into essentially not winning being reason enough to do so. Continuing, the other tenants about honor, respect, and learning were countered by the poor treatment of prisoners, the numerous atrocities committed upon those in occupied lands, and blatant racial attacks on everyone that

Imagine putting yourself in a scenario where extreme racial discrimination was in action and you were being taken into an internment camp, whether you were pleaded guilty or not. This was reality for the majority of Japanese American during the time of world war two. In the memoir Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston describes the injustice committed against the 110,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry who were interred by America during World War 2.

Thesis: Even though the Japanese Americans were able to adapt to their new environment, the

Japanese soldiers are widely remembered as being cruel and indifferent to the fate of Allied prisoners of war. Cruelty could take different forms, from extreme violence and torture to minor acts of physical punishment, humiliation and neglect. Some prisoners were made to hold a heavy stone above their heads for many hours. Others might be forced into small cells with little food or water.

The Japanese soldiers had no sense of remorse or sorrow for the prisoners instead they pushed them to their breaking point. Many prisoners collapsed which proved fatal because if you fell behind you became a practice dummy for the Japanese to sharpen their bayonet skills and techniques of killing on you. On one occasion, a prisoner was falling behind in the rear so tanks that followed lined themselves up to run over the victim and squish him into the pavement to make it look as if he were from a cartoon. Since the Japanese could

The death march at the Japanese Bataan Camp, of April 1942, Japanese officers enslaved about "75,000 men, 12,000 of which were American soldiers" (Bergamini 1168). "The soldiers were forced to march sixty miles with

In Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai (1954), Kurosawa illustrates the code of bushido by portraying both examples and violations of the code through the behavior of the villagers and the samurai. Bushido is a code of conduct, which the Japanese culture has followed for years. This code of conduct is a set of moral standards, which prizes qualities like loyalty, duty, and generosity (Fijimura1). The word samurai is defined as “one who serves.” To become a samurai and live by this bushido code, you must be born into this noble line of service. However, some exceptions were made for those who showed potential to make a level headed warrior. For example, in

During world war two, countries on both sides committed war crimes that shocked both the people involved, and the globe. From 1937 through to 1945, the Japanese justified their treatment of the Australian prisoners of war at the Burma railway with three things. The Japanese believed that their bushido code allowed them to treat the Australian this way, their ethics was one of complete brutality and hardship, and the Japanese soldiers were being fed false propaganda that showed a dehumanized view of the Australians. These three statements demonstrate that the Japanese atrocities committed at Burma, were, in the eyes of the Japanese, fair and just.

Samurai followed a code called Bushido the way of the warrior which taught followers to embrace the possibilities of death at any moment. Bushido as you know is the way of the warrior influenced the Samurai's behaviour and role in society by allowing the Samurai to be tempered by wisdom and serenity. Bushido developed by the 16th and 20th centuries. In 1899 Bushido was the code of moral principles which then Samurai were required observe, it's a code unwritten, it was a growth of centuries and decades of military career. In order to become a real Samurai this code had to be mastered. A lot of the Samurai had thought was based on the Zen Buddhism.

The word samurai means “to serve” samurai were fearless, professional warriors who committed themselves to one lord (king) whole heartedly with honor being the main focus, the samurai class reigned in japan from 1185 to 1867. Highly skilled in swordsmanship, archery and horseback riding, also they followed a strict code called bushido. The code of bushido literally means “way of the warrior” and it’s a combination of frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honor unto death. The code of bushido has a set of values and they are courage, benevolence, respect, sincerity, honor and loyalty. The code of bushido also covered other aspects like proper grooming, how to take care of one’s house hold and ways to raise children.

The Bushido Code was essentially laws that the Samurai had to follow to stay loyal, honorable, and faithful while still being strong and determined military fighters. The Samurai took the Bushido Code very seriously and, “Japan's tradition of bushido, literally translated to path of the warrior, has been part of Japan's cultural evolution for more than seven hundred years. This martial philosophy was the intellectual property of the military class of Japan, the samurai, and has come to represent one of the most iconic symbols for that island nation”( Benesh-Liu, Patrick R.). The Samurai needed to follow the Bushido Code to stay loyal to their rulers and stay a Samurai. Influences from China were used by Japan to connect the Bushido code to the arts and culture of Japanese life, so much that some people followed the Bushido code like a religion.

Bushido Bushido affected the lives of Samurai all across Japan, in many different ways. The word Bushido is Japanese for “Way of the Warrior”, which is the honor code for the Samurai class of Japan. The name Bushido was not used until the 16th century, although the idea of the code was developed during the Kamakura period (1192-1333). Its exact content changed over time as the samurai class came under influence of Zen Buddhist and Confucian thought, but it is one unchanging idea was martial spirit, which included athletic and military skills as well as fearlessness toward the enemy in combat. Simple living, kindness, and honesty were also highly accommodated.

In the articles, Yukie Sasa made plans to retrace the Bataan Death March by foot over the course of four days, starting at the base of Mariveles. Upon starting her walk, Sasa acknowledges that the experience of POWs on the march would not be the same as hers. On October 13th, the walk began. The author describes her first days being rainy at night and hot in the afternoon. In her writings, it is evident that the underlying subject of retracing the march is to determine if it, “was a systematic atrocity by the Japanese military?” Yukie Sasa recorded her journey in a journal format, listing dates, distance covered, observations, weather, etc. The article included information from the War Crimes Office that helped Sasa to accurately illustrate