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From: "Ted HARRIS" <>
Subject: Re: [AUS-MIL] Hospital Ships
Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 13:31:00 +1000
References: <002d01c67692$593cafd0$6401a8c0@anthony>


I find it ironic that Australia and Australians still have difficulty in
coming to grips with the fact that Asian people do not see life through the
same prism as Anglo Saxons in particular or Europeans in general.

In many ways they are different. Note the word DIFFERENT. Not better, not
worse....different.

Go live amongst them, as I have done. All will be revealed.

Their religion/s are different and mostly embrace fast reincarnation after
death. (So death is not as important to them).
They have a different attitude to family and the responsibilities that come
with a family. (Retreat is a stain on the character of the entire family for
ever through eternity to them, a military necessity sometimes, to us)
They have a different attitude to wealth. (Throughout Asia the most
incredible poverty lives side by side with the most incredible wealth).

Why then do we find it difficult to understand that their approach to war
is different.
Dying for the Emperor was their way. Killing the enemy in the name of our
King was our way.
A wounded soldier was a nuisance was their way. A wounded man required
special treatment was our way.
Being a POW was a matter of shame to them. Being a POW was a matter of bad
luck to us.
Killing an enemy POW was 'normal' to them. Killing an enemy POW was against
all our rules and nature/s.

Sinking hospital ships, beheading prisoners, slaughtering civilians, using
POWs as bayonet dummies, indeed even starting the war in the Pacific with a
sneak raid while protesting total abhorrence for war at the political level
are all things that are on the record as proven fact. None of those things
wore the Australian Rising Sun badge.

Yes they are different. We better get used to it.

Did we sink hospital ships? No.

How am I sure? Because if we had the revisionists and the do gooders and the
anti-Western (read Australian) guilt makers in our society would have been
shoving it down our throats for years as "further proof" that we are
responsible for all the bad things in the world.


Cheers,
Ted Harris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony Staunton" <>
To: <>
Sent: Saturday, May 13, 2006 11:37 PM
Subject: RE: [AUS-MIL] Hospital Ships


> Jan
>
> The claim that allies had attacked Japanese hospital ships was first aired
> 38 hours after the Centaur was sunk. As the Naval official historian
states
> it could have been a coincidence but it suggests an attempt to forestall
an
> Australian announcements and condemnation of the attack on the Centaur.
See
> http://www.awm.gov.au/cms_images/histories/25/chapters/09.pdf pages
257-261.
>
> Anthony
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jan Thomas [mailto:]
> Sent: Saturday, 13 May 2006 10:21 PM
> To:
> Subject: [AUS-MIL] Hospital Ships
>
> Dear Anthony
>
> Thanks for your reply.
>
> Periodically throughout my life I have heard stories that the Centaur was
> sunk in retaliation for Allied attacks on a Japanese hospital ship or
ships.
>
> The most recent yesterday at a Centaur Memorial Service.
>
> I am secretary and founder of the 2/3 AHS Centaur Association established
in
>
> 1999 for survivors, descendants, relatives and friends, or indeed anyone
> with any sort of interest in the Centaur.
>
> Rumours surrounding the Centaur are rife and still surfacing after 63
years.
>
> They are very hurtful to those whose lives have been affected by her loss,
> and I am trying to verify or scotch as many as I can.
>
> If this allegation is just another rumour, I need to be able to state
> factually that the Allies did not attack Japanese hospital ships. But I
> need concrete evidence - which of course is very hard to find in the
> negative. Perhaps the way for me to go is to follow your line that Japan
> didn't have hospital ships, or ships that were internationally recognized
as
>
> such.
>
> Thanks again
>
>
>
> ==== AUS-MILITARY Mailing List ====
> Milton Ulladulla Boer War & WW1
> http://www.shoalhaven.net.au/~cathyd/war/
>

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