Saturday, October 23, 2021

During WW2 many exiled and fleeing Russians served in Japanese forces, oftentimes hoping to return to Russia and overthrow the USSR.

 


4 comments:

  1. https://www.rbth.com/history/332269-russian-samurai-fought-for-japan

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for that link, fascinating story.

      Another little-known piece of history is that at the end of WWII, Russia used 600,000 Japanese POW's as slave laborers for a decade before repatriating them. They primarily worked on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

      I met one of them in Japan. He was in his 80's and when he began to tell his story, his grandkids said, Come on Gramps, we've heard all this before.

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    2. It was an interesting topic but I wish I had checked to see what rbth.com was all about before I went there. I make a point of avoiding Russian government owned websites so now I'm doing a reset on this Chromebook. Not your fault - and I have to admit there is a lot of interesting content there - I just can't use Russian or Chinese websites for anything, it's not worth it.

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  2. The article is somewhat at odds with what I've read of how the Japanese acted towards them. Many women were forced into the "Comfort women" role, the Kempetai actively worked to addict people to opium, the list goes on. A more tragic group would be hard to find all in all.

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