Quote:IMHO, what made the Japanese such formidable opponents was their fanatic devotion to duty.
I read a book one time that was a collection of diaries ( the Japanese were inveterate diarists) of Japanese soldiers who died in the war and whose diaries were found and examined by American intelligence officers. Many of the final entries, particularly by 1944 when it must have really started looking hopeless dealt with suicide. There were an astonishing number of diarists who wrote something like, "the Americans are getting close....it is time to die."
They were so terrorized by their own officers that they were killing themselves without bothering to fight first. The use of artillery and explosive charges scared them that they might be too stunned to kill themselves so they killed themselves (usually with grenades) right off the bat.
Strange shit.
