STORY GIST 247

 Japanese soldier burned to death by a US flamethrower during the Philippines Campaign, 1944-1945After Midway it was basically over. Once the Japenese lost some of their carriers they had no way of replacing them quickly and were essentially at the mercy of the Allied forces. Japan's high command knew they could not win the war through conventional means, they lacked the production and material availability. So they went with a startagey that they believed they could pull off, making each battle such a meat grinder that Allied Governments would seek a conditional peace with Japan The stomach turning part is their resolute refusal to surrender. It meant thousands and thousands of Japenese had to be slowly dug out of Foxholes and killed at every stop. Thats not to mention the many civilians who also took their own lives or amassed suicidal charges at Allied forces with sticks. Remember reading about a machine gunner on the Allied side who had to mow down a few dozen civilians as they...

  On March 25, 1931, nine unemployed young black men, the Scottsboro Boys were falsely accused of raping two white women on board a train near Scottsboro, Alabama in 1931. Convicted and facing execution, the case sparked international demonstrations and succeeded in both highlighting the racism of the American legal system and in overturning the conviction.        The Soviet Union and Communist Part of USA played an important part fighting for the boys freedom and making their story known everywhere.  There were "Free Scottsboro Boys" protests all over the world. "The Scottsboro Boys", as they became known, were defended by many in the North and attacked by many in the South.  The case is now widely considered a miscarriage of justice, highlighted by the use of all-white juries.      William L. Patterson who went to Russia many times in those days was one of the attorneys representing this case. Oliver Golden, George Tynes and other...

 Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese which literally means "comforting, consoling woman". During World War II, Japanese troops forced hundreds of thousands of women from Australia, Burma, China, Netherlands, Philippines, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, and other countries into sexual enslavement for Japanese troops; however, the majority of the women were from Korea.  Many women died or committed suicide due to brutal mistreatment and sustained physical and emotional distress. After the war, Japan's acknowledgment of the comfort women's plight was minimal, lacking a full apology and appropriate restitution, which damaged Japan's reputation in Asia for decades. Only in the 1990s did the Japanese government begin to officially apologize and offer compensation. Estimates vary...

 Hannah Senesh – an SOE war hero. 23 year old Hannah Szenes (Angicised spelling Senesh) was born in Budapest, Hungary on the 17th of July 1921, into a middle-class and well-educated Jewish family. She was a good student and wanted to become a poet and writer. In 1938, the Nazi persecution of Jews was underway and Hungary sided with Germany.  Rumours were rife that Germany would invade Palestine.  Hannah volunteered to serve in the Jewish underground army and wanted to help Jews escape from Europe.  She became a Zionist and moved to British Mandate Palestine in 1939.  Here she joined a Jewish commando group that was set up to assist British operations in Europe.  In March 1944, Hannah was parachuted by the British Special Operation Executive into Yugoslavia near the Hungarian border with 36 other resistance fighters. Their mission was to save Jews and Allied airmen but before she had a chance to achieve anything, she was captured at the border by Hungarian p...

Mary Turner, a twenty year-old black woman from Georgia, just watched in horror as her husband been killed in a lynching rampage.  Mary made the mistake of publicly objecting to the angry crowd of whites responsible for her husband's murder. Her voice alone enraged the local men and they came after her.    Mary fled for her life, and for the life of her unborn child.    Mary Turner was roughly eight months pregnant at the time of her husbands murder. For many African Americans growing up in the South in the 19th and 20th centuries, the threat of lynching was commonplace. The "popular" image of an angry white mob stringing a black man up to a tree is only half the story. Lynching...an act of terror meant to spread fear among blacks...served the broad social purpose of maintaining white supremacy in the economic, social and political spheres.    Most victims of lynching were political activists, labor organizers or black men and women who violated white ...

Woman, 8 men executed in the Islamic Republic of (Iran) Israel News - Dudi Cohen  Dec 24, 2008, - 12:12 GMT  Iranian media report nine convicted murderers hung in Tehran prison. Tenth felon survives at last moment due to family's absence  Eight men and one woman were executed by hanging early Wednesday at a prison in the Iranian capital of Tehran, Iranian news agency Fars reported. According to the report, the nine were convicted murderers, who were sentenced to death in accordance with a clause in Islamic law allowing eye-for-eye retribution.  The nine people condemned to death were taken Tuesday to a special unit at Tehran's infamous Ewin Prison and were hung in the jail yard at the crack of dawn.  At least 243 people have been executed in Iran in the past year, according to the French news agency, while the Amnesty organization reports 317 people have been executed in the country since the beginning of 2007.  Human rights organization reported Tuesday th...

The Human Problem: The High Cost of War Paid by Women “Kill! Kill! In the German race there is nothing but evil. Stamp out the fascist beast once and for all in its lair! Use force and break the racial pride of these German women. Take them as your lawful booty. Kill! As you storm forward. Kill! You gallant soldiers of the Red army.” Ilya Ehrenburg Ilya Ehrenburg’s vicious propaganda machine had widely disseminated false reports of Nazi rape in Russia to ensure that the Red Army stormed into Germany with no pity. It worked. They committed the largest mass rape in history, with the girls and women of East Prussia bearing the first brunt of their brutality. Here, most females were gang raped and then murdered. “Tot den Deutschen Okkupaten!” (Death to the German Occupants) the victorious Soviet soldier cried, and regardless of age, German women and girls were taken without mercy. Thousands of women shuddered as the words “Frau komm!” grunted from the invading army, for it not only meant t...