Asymmetrical Information

I don't understand why this photo was staged this way.

Indeed.

This is the 'metric' that separates us from our fathers...

Perhaps we are too nice?

I don't understand why this photo was staged this way.

Indeed.

This is the 'metric' that separates us from our fathers...

Perhaps we are too nice?

Interesting.

I received the "objectionable comment"- screen/notice when my first reply went through...

My only change was 'emphasizing' the "too".

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/picturing_the_century/portfolios/port_jacobs.html#

"Japanese prisoners of war are bathed, clipped, "deloused," and issued GI clothing as soon as they are taken aboard the USS New Jersey"

I imagine it would certainly be justified if they tied him to the deck and turned a fire hose on him. On the closed environment of a ship, that last thing you'd want is someone spreading bugs, etc.

Especially if you were doing the humanitarian thing of saving them rather than using them for target practice like some of our enemies did.

As far as why there are so many people in the staged photo, I imagine war makes you view humanity a bit different. 50 years later I bet a lot of those people would feel ashamed, and certainly wouldn't jump at the opportunity to pose like that again.

But that's easy for us civilians to pass judgement when we're not getting killed every day, seeing our friends guts spray in our faces or whatever horrible imagery you can conjure up. The very nature of fighting a war like that over the course of several years has to numb your senses and you'll begin to see the "enemy" as an abstraction and a little less than human. Fortunately for us, our cultural norms and history have us view this kind of tame (Relative speaking, I'd rather be made to parade around with no closes on than be fed to the sharks) treatment as "barbaric".

Digging a little deeper, I found this page about the photographer:
http://www.archives.gov/press/press-kits/picturing-the-century.html

"Mr. Jacobs, like the other photographers in the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit, followed Mr. Steichen's advice to concentrate on the human side of war. He photographed aircraft workers in California, capturing the then-novel sight of female factory workers. On another assignment, he photographed life aboard the battleship U.S.S. New Jersey, shooting the crew off as well as on duty. His images capture the earnestness of young aviation cadets, the humiliation of a Japanese prisoner of war, and melancholy scenes of Navy pilots on leave with their dates."

What's interesting about that bio, is it seems to praise him for "capturing the human side" of the war and showing the "humiliation of a Japanese prisoner". If I'm not mistaken, the photgrapher clearly INSTIGATED this scene of the prisoner's humiliation. Get the crew ready, permission from the captain, setting up a tripod...ya, he's a real hero showing the plight of a prisoner. Looks to me like the bio should read, "exploiting the humiliation of a Japanese prisoner".

But I digress.

In those days, Japanese were universally reported to beat, starve, torture and murder Americans who had been captured.

This picture shows that Americans, unlike the dishonorable "Japs", cared for prisoners humanely and honorably. The US deloused prisoners, in fact they deloused all of Japan and all of Europe, introducing public and private sanitation to the savages of Europe and Asia.

No humiliation occurred because no women were present. Public nudity on warships in wartime was normal because privacy did not exist.

This picture shows the superiority of American civilization over that of Japan and Europe; an attitude that was expressed in MacArther's reorganization of Japanese society.

A study of the records of the Pacific Theater during WWII reveals that very few Japanese prisoners were taken. Their culture valued blind obedience and fighting to the death over surrender. The vast majority of the prisoners we did take (which, like I said, were extremely few in number) turned out to be Koreans that had been forcibly conscripted.

I don't think the photo was staged in any way. The most likely explanation is that the photographer simply took a shot of what was going on right in front of him. Every crewman on that warship must have been intensely curious as to the people who had gone to war with the US, and if duty allowed they came on deck to put a living face on an implacable enemy.

James

James is expressing what I was thinking. What makes some of you think this was staged? Nobody is looking at the camera. Hell, there is even a camera pointing the other way, missing the whole crew. Does that look staged?

Nobody is in dress uniform, or even freshly pressed. This looks very candid to me.

The odds of getting a POW on a battleship were pretty low - think about it - and most of the crew had probably never seen a real, live, vilified, hated Japanese soldier. And probably never would again. I think the crew just wanted to see him, and knew he was being taken topside, so those not on watch went up.

If you are just guessing that it was staged, I think you are guessing wrong.

A now ex-Marine stationed near a northen border of our ally was surprised when a Vietnamese boy came up to him after seeing landing craft at the shore who said, hopefully, 'Marines staying?' He had to answer this 'No.' The boy hugged his leg. The Marine was surprised because his unit might give suppressing fire on speeding down a road if they came to a village. The Marines weren't interested however in blackmail, assassination, personal intimidation and control; so they were an improvement on the VC. In war, the metric changes in a way that is sometimes hard for even a soldier to see.

Humiliation depends on context. I doubt this POW found his situation any different than when he was with his unit, other than the sailors with the bat. As well, any enlisted man on the ship would not find it startling that they end up bathing in front of ship's company.

Enlisted men in WWII came off the farm and found themselves property of the United States. Living in common spaces of 25-50 men. Showering in open rooms. Modesty was not in the top 1000 important traits for a sailor.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that same deck was often filled with American sailors, naked, taking advantage of "hollywood" showers from a passing rain squalls. I'm sure those who were there can tell you bathing was a luxury not often enjoyed.

I suspect what you're supposed to be seeing, is that the prisoner is skin-and-bones. Whether that was meant for propaganda purposes I can't say, but I suspect that's what someone wanted to document: that the Japanese soldiers (or at least this one) were getting hard up.

I agree with JKB; warships then and now aren't exactly places with lots of privacy, particularly when it came to showering and such. Probably 90% of those sailers in the picture had showered on that same deck during rainstorms - my granddad did the same thing in the pacific.

This sort of "interpretation" stuff is where having few people in "intellectual" disciplines with military experience is a real problem.

Humiliation? He ain't dead...

James Rummel wrote Their culture valued blind obedience and fighting to the death over surrender.

To second with a historical perspective - In Medieval European wars, if you surrendered, your captor would ransom you back to your liege. Therefore, it was part of the European heritage that 15 percent casualties was sufficient to render a unit inoperative.

In Medieval Japan, if you surrendered, your captor would kill you and your liege would kill your family. Therefore, it was part of the Japanese heritage to fight to the last man.

Cultures have effects. They are different. And the past is a very foreign place.

"introducing public and private sanitation to the savages of Europe and Asia". Can we have the sarcasm a bit subtler next time, please?

Given the look of the prisoner's body, he's probably glad to be in American captivity because now he'll get his first decent meal in months.

How could that photo not be staged? People lined up everywhere. And the fact that no one is looking at the camera would be even stronger evidence. If the photog was just snapping away without giving instruction, you'd be certain someone would be staring into the camera. It's pretty clear he gave precise instructions to everyone in the foreground to keep their eyes on the prisoner.

It's **possible** this photographer got a once in 10 lifetimes lining up of events, where everyone just happened to be neatly arranged on the deck, but certainly no likely.

It's more likely, the crew excited by the novelty of the japanese war prisoner was asked to turn out of a photo-op and they all obliged!

Toooooortuuuuuure! Waaaaaar criiiiiiime!

[/Andrew Sullivan]

Checked in with my father-in-law, Pacific naval vet (Seabees), who stopped over for a cup of coffee.

Naval fleet personnel rarely saw Japenses prisoners, so this was probably a novelty.

Once the island hopping campaign began, many Japanese trrops had very little food and medical care, and were expected to die rather than be captured.

The GIs and sailors were told that if they were captured in battle, wounded or not, they would likely be bayoneted or worse, and apparently events confirmed this.

I think the comments about shipboard Navy personnel not seeing many Japanese in person are accurate. The Army and Marines, though, saw mostly dead ones or live ones that were actively trying to kill them.

For a horrifying look at the desensitization that "reasearch" mentions above, see E.B. Sledge's book "With the Old Breed at Pelilau and Okinawa". He describes his experiences as a Marine in the Pacific, and it makes you wonder how anyone could stand it.

Paul Fussell had an essay about this sort of thing, reprinted in his collection "Three Cheers for the Atom Bomb". He shows and comments on a picture from Life magazine during the war, showing a nice girl reading a letter from her soldier boyfriend, whose enclosed present - a Japanese skull - is on the desk in front of her. A different time, indeed.

I guess your readers have given you your answer, Jane: The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must. I congratulate you on being more civilized than your readers.

He describes his experiences as a Marine in the Pacific, and it makes you wonder how anyone could stand it.

Some couldn't and stay themselves. A cousin of my dad was a combat engineer in the Pacific and came back significantly "slow". He left a high school valedictorian with multiple scholarship offers, came back and worked as a truck dispatcher for the rest of his career. My dad said it was like 50 points were chopped of his IQ.

Alan - This was posted by Mindles, not Jane.

It's **possible** this photographer got a once in 10 lifetimes lining up of events, where everyone just happened to be neatly arranged on the deck

Viewer bias.

They are at standing-room capacity on the deck and all are in uniform (of course), giving the effect of a posed orderliness that IMO isn't really there. Add to that the novelty of capturing a Japanese POW, and you have all the elements for a perfect shot.

And if you don't believe that this many people could be assembled on short notice by word-of-mouth, for pure curiosity's sake, in a confined structure, then you have never lived in a college dormitory.

Also keep in mind they DID have a basic form of point-and-click camera technology available by the 1940s.

He is thin but he is not skin and bones. Most people of earlier generations, unless they were well to do were much thinner than moderns expect. I remember my granfather in the 1960s looked at least as thin as this Jap but could work many younger men into the ground.

Professional photographers take many, many pictures, then cut out the ones they want. This is probably only one of dozens he probably took of this incident and may be the only one with no one looking at him.

Most people of earlier generations, unless they were well to do were much thinner than moderns expect. I remember my granfather in the 1960s looked at least as thin as this Jap but could work many younger men into the ground.

Both my grand-dads were in the Navy in WWII. One was Pacific and the other, Atlantic. Both were as thin as a rail. They were/are both embaressed and sickened by the gluttony that is an example of how we "live to eat" in this day and age.

With respect to percentage of income, food was still very expensive in the 40s (or at least, we would consider it expensive.) True, you could make your mortgage payment on one week's pay (something no one is expected to do today) but the food bill for one month might consume as much as a week's pay as well. Today (thanks to Cost-co, Wal-Mart, and Sam's Club), you can stock the fridge, the cubbard, and the pantry for the family of 4 for a month, on two days pay.

Agricultual technologies in the 40's had not expanded anywhere near to the level that we see in food production today. It is completely different. So there was much less food to go around (and portions at restaurants were much smaller then.) In the 40's, you ordered a Coke with your meal, you got 6 (maybe) 8 ounces. Today, you 32 ounces (and free refills.)

And people were smaller in the 40s as well. Go figure?

Nowadays, even our homeless are obese. They can live an existance of Supersized, fattening foods, on a mere $10-15 of panhandled money per day.

Obesity is a problem, a serious problem in this country. I'm not even sure the Republic of Rome had as decident a dietary lifestyle as we have today. You can go to SuperSalad and for $5.99, absolutely gorge yourself on anything you want, and the restaurant will still turn a profit on your check. That is how cheap food is.

If this was staged, it was staged poorly. Notice the largest single figure in the picture: the gentleman on the left edge who appears to be walking toward the camera, captured in mid-step. His presense is distracting and compositionally suspect. However, if the photographer has wanted that figure in the frame, the photographer still did for shoddy work. In another half -step the walker would have obscured another major composisitonal flaw: the other photographer, clearly and dis-concertingly visible.

This picture looks far more like a snapshot of "show your ***s" gawkers at Mardi Gras than a careful composition.

I guess your readers have given you your answer, Jane: The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must. I congratulate you on being more civilized than your readers.

Posted by Alan Vanneman at June 12, 2006 11:48 AM

Speak for yourself, Alan. Weakness is not a virtue...luckily, you can hide behind those of us who ARE strong.

People may have been thinner back in the 1940's than they are today (though a few of the sailors seem to have been enjoying Navy chow quite a bit), but that Japanese POW is very thin, even accounting for the smaller size of Japanese people of that generation. His ribcage is visible, his waist is positively tiny, and his left thigh is about the size of some of the American sailors' necks. I'd say he was severely malnourished before being taken prisoner.
Come to think of it, he could well be alive today, what with Japan's famously long life expectancy. If he hadn't been taken prisoner he probably would've been dead within a few months.

Speak for yourself, Alan. Weakness is not a virtue...luckily, you can hide behind those of us who ARE strong.

Well said, bristlecone. Took the words right out of my mouth and arranged them better than I ever could.

James

This and related items are going to be made into a book? Have they no consideration for the gentle trees ripped asunder?

Has no one called on Pres. Bush to offer an apology to this Japanese gentlemen, his family, and the Emperor and people of Japan for the humilation this poor soldier suffered? Do we not owe reparations?

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/picturing_the_century/port_jacobs/port_jacobs_img72.html

That’s a link to the photo from the national archives. The ACTUAL caption reads-

"Japanese prisoners of war are bathed, clipped, "deloused," and issued GI clothing as soon as they are taken aboard the USS New Jersey"
By Lt. Comdr. Charles Fenno Jacobs, December 1944
National Archives and Records Administration, General Records of the Department of the Navy, 1798-1947
(80-G-469956) [VENDOR # 110]

Try to look into things before you post false information.

Good grief!

Why on Earth assume the photo was staged?

These are men and officers on a huge battleship fighting in the blue water Pacific not Marines or Army infantrymen fighting the enemy in close action on some island.

The American sailors are watching the prisoner because he is a rarity something most of them have never before seen ... an actual live Japanese.

They gathered to look at him for the same reason we would gather to look at a Martian.

What is wrong with you people?

It's easy to see that very few folk here have ever served in the military. This is clearly not a staged photo. The spectators are a small group of mainly off-duty sailors watching an "event" happening on their ship. The USS New Jersey carried a crew of from 2500-2900 sailors. Count the crew in the photos if you must to realize that this was not a staged event. If you assume that half of the crew was still at their duty stations, so that half was available to participate in a staged event, you must ask the question of why so few are actually in the photo?

And if you've ever seen a dog and pony show put on by a civilian company, I've gotta tell you it's NOTHING to the sorts of dog and pony shows the military puts on. If this were a dog and pony show for a photograph, you'd know it!

So get a grip on your life.

Recently read "the Think Red Line." One of my uncles was on Guadalcanal in an Army unit that was surprised to find out how many people can die in a "mopping up" operation.

The book might help explain some of the this (the author was a vet).

The movie isn't bad either, but read the book first.

Actually, Jon, you can still make out the caption in the picture, and it says exactly what is typed out below it. Clearly this photo has appeared in multiple contexts.

I don't have a dog in the hunt of whether it is staged or not, and I certainly lack a military background. It appeared staged to me, but there is certainly something to the curiousity/privacy discussion above.

I think the photo would be perceived as humiliating to many - most certainly to the Japanese. In the context of that war, however, I wouldn't have spent too much time worrying about it. The baseball bat is a bit troubling, although it is likely a coincidence. Also, is the crowd roped off? (behind the other camera).

It's the strong feelings that the photo apparently elicits that make this interesting. I take it some of you find it troubling to examine them. I don't mean to offend.

Oh - and I'm not Jane, but you knew that.

Both my grand-dads were in the Navy in WWII. One was Pacific and the other, Atlantic. Both were as thin as a rail. They were/are both embaressed and sickened by the gluttony that is an example of how we "live to eat" in this day and age.

The fact that the sailors in the photo have basically the same physique as normal Americans today, despite being at war and forced to eat military food, suggests that there wasn't as big a difference between now and then as you seem to think.

Heck, look at photographs of everyday life from the early 20th century. People look basically the same as they do now.

"The baseball bat is a bit troubling, although it is likely a coincidence. Also, is the crowd roped off? (behind the other camera)."

I'd say the baseball bat's a coincidence. If the sailor with the bat is in charge of guarding the prisoner, he'd be standing closer to him; as things are, what appear to be officers are closer to the prisoner than the bat-wielder is. Not very effective guarding. On the other hand, the sailor with the bat looks like the biggest one of the bunch, just the sort of guy who'd be entrusted with keeping the prisoner in line.

My guess is that the supposed rope is actually a photographic artifact. On its right end it appears to be cut off short of the first sailor
standing in front of it, who happens to be the meathead with the baseball bat. And I can *sort* of see it continued across the shirt of the sailor (an officer?) on the extreme left, who'd be standing well in front of it if it were a rope line.

Drag me starving out of the drink and give me a bucket and some soap I won't care a damn if you want to watch me bathe. I wouldn't love it but I wouldn't feel "humiliated" either. I would feel "clean".

German and Japanese prisoners were abused, and some murdered outright, during WW2. These are facts. Whether the same is being done now is up for debate, but it's irrelevant in deciding the morality of war. The events should be recognized and those responsible disciplined.

The only thing is to remember that in this way, war is not different today. Don't tell us about WW2 as "the noble war." We did nasty, terrible, shockingly inhumane things that we should not have done. Still, we were the good guys, and I am glad for the sake of everyone that we won. Those who committed those inhumane actions should be prosecuted - few were.

Brian - of course their were Americans who did shocking things to Germans and Japanese. I'm sure you could find American soldiers who were cruel to dogs also.
That does not change the fact that the allied armies were generally much more humane than the German and Japanese armies. Do you really feel the need to play down this point by showing your even-handedness?
I wouldn't be surprised if there were some really bad guys on the allied side that we have not yet heard about. But I would be very surprised if it rose to anything like what the nazis did in cold blood to millions of captured Europeans, or what the Japanese did to the Chinese and others.

This kind of thinking brings to mind the words of Gilbert and Sullivan over a hundred years ago in their comic opera "The Mikado":

"There's the idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone,
All centuries but this and every country but his own..."

Some things never change....

Sorry to be so harsh, but this kind of "ah, but we had bad guys too" argument is intellectually lazy and way too prevalent

On a closer reading, perhaps I jumped in a little too quickly there.
Apologies if I picked up on only one part of Brian's point

The man is thin, but muscled. Most likely this was a Japanese aviator pulled out of the ocean. He was young and very disciplined and in great shape. I'll bet that guy could run 5 miles before most people here could run 2 at the best times in their lives. Heck, I looked thinner than that when I was a second lieutenant of Marines.

It was standard practice back then to hose down prisoners and delouse them on the deck this way. The guy is lucky to get a bucket instead of a hose.

I've read of Americans getting rescued out of the ocean by fellow Americans and hosed down this same way. I really don't see what anyone is upset about. Clearly a lot of people have no idea what life is like without piped in water and air conditioning.

"...German and Japanese prisoners were abused, and some murdered outright, during WW2....."

A couple of my mentors explained to me why so few Waffen SS prisoners were taken, they were shot on sight, hands up or not.

But much of the German army fled west, knowing the Americans were much more humane than the Russians.

In some ares the Germans were surrendering so fast they were not even taken into custody, the GIs on the front line simply pointed to the rear and let them walk until they found MPs.

"I think the photo would be perceived as humiliating to many - most certainly to the Japanese"

If this was especially humiliating to the Japanese, it would only be because it was in front of non-Japanese captors. From what little I know of the Japanese culture (mainly from the time I lived in Hong Kong), the Japanese have lived in close quarters for centuries and aren't particularly hung up about this type of personal privacy.

This man had probably been to communal bath houses many times. And I've seen a few 'reality TV'/contest type Japanese shows that involved contestants sitting on toilets and doing a lot of grunting (I believe that it was genuine, although the subtitles weren't always clear). They were willing to do things in public that I've never seen on TV in the US.

So, I have a hard time imagining that public bathing is unusually humiliating for the Japanese, although being captured by inferior white devils must have been considered pretty bad, with or without clothes.

I also suspect the prisoner was a pilot or part of an aircrew. For a prisoner to show up on a battleship without already being processed on a smaller ship would be unusual.

The sailor with the club is probably part of the master at arms force. Note also the muzzle of the M1 Garand rifle above the head of the man at the left.

What appears to be a rope in front of the crowd looks to actually be a scratch on the photo, as it extends across the shirt of the man at the left.

The crew of a battleship would have few chances to see a Japanese prisoner, so I suspect the photographer to good advantage of unstaged gathering of the crew as word went around the ship that a prisoner had been picked up.

As an aside, my dad was on air force crash boats in the Korean war and at one point was down to 139 lbs. and he's 6'1".

That may be a Navy movie cameraman kneeling in the center opf the photo. The navy had movie cameras everywhere (as confirmed by my Seabee father in law). Some of the early war footage is in color because commercial cameras were purchased, and they came came color film.

Japanese logistics were poor, even before the U.S. submarine campaign to destroy their merchant marine. In essence they sent out troops to starve, with little ability to resupply them.

Having read quite a bit about WWII, I can say that this was in no way an attempt to humiliate the prisoner. The crew is on deck because this was probably the only real, live Japanese they'd ever seen. Life on a ship during the war was alternately monotonous and terrifying, so any change in the routine was likely to draw a crowd. Also, since the 16" guns are covered, the ship was probably in a secure zone, so finding this guy was a real surprise.

The comfort of their men wasn't very important to the Japanese high command, so Japanese soldiers and sailors bathed from buckets in the open anyway. If the prisoner was humiliated at all, it was because he was captured. To him that was the worst thing that could possibly happen. If he was conscious when he was captured, that was an even greater dishonor, and he probably believed neither he nor any of his family would get into heaven as a result.

I wouldn't read too much into the baseball bat. Most likely some sailors were playing on deck when the prisoner was captured and it doesn't have anything to do with guarding him. Also, I think there's a guard detail off to the left (you can see the barrel of a rifle sticking up).

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