Crimes committed by the United States during WW2

Crimes committed by the United States during WW2

When thinking about war crimes in World War II, the Holocaust, the Nazi Party, and the Nuremberg trials come to mind.

War crimes perpetrated by the Allies are something that most are not aware of. While it can be argued that the war crimes committed by the United States were not as heinous as those of Germany, they were still devastating.

Mass r@pe in Asia and Europe

One of the tragic tolls of war that is often glossed over is rape. This is an odious crime, and historians agree that American soldiers raped tens of thousands of women. These rapes occurred both during the war and in its immediate aftermath.

Precise estimates are impossible to obtain, but the book Taken By Force estimates approximately 11,000 women were raped in Germany between 1945 and 1946.

While fraternization with German women was forbidden, one American commander stated that copulation without conversation was not fraternization.

Germany was not the only country in which these atrocities occurred. The allied country of France also suffered from this war crime. Hundreds of French women reported being raped by American soldiers during the country’s liberation from German occupation.

U.S. 28th Infantry Division on the Champs Élysées in the “Victory Day” parade on 29 August 1944.

The attitude of American troops was no different in the Pacific. An estimate states that 10,000 women were raped on Okinawa alone. The rapes did not stop after the Japanese surrender, as 1,336 incidents were reported in the first ten days after the surrender in Kanagawa.

A young ethnic Chinese woman from one of the Imperial Japanese Army’s “comfort battalions” is interviewed by an Allied officer.North Korean nurses captured by South Korean and US soldiers. Captured North Korean women were sometimes raped by US soldiers.

Mutilation in the Pacific

After Pearl Harbor, the United States started military campaigns in the Pacific. The primary enemy was Japan and many soldiers on both sides perished. The war crimes committed by US soldiers during this campaign are clearly documented.

The worst was the mutilation of Japanese corpses to take trophies such as their skulls. The practice was widespread among the troops, and reached a point where the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet ordered directives against it in 1942 and 1944.

News of the Bataan Death March sparked outrage in the US, as shown by this propaganda poster

 U.S. government propaganda poster from WWII featuring a Japanese soldier depicted as a rat

In Trophies of War, history professor James Weingartner states that mutilation was not uncommon. The Nevada Daily Mail ran a story in 1944 about Francis Walter presenting President Roosevelt with a letter opener made from a Japanese soldier’s arm.

Charles Lindbergh was once asked if he was carrying bones on his way home from the Pacific. The customs agent told him that the practice was so common that this had become a routine question.