*** Nazi UBoaters and Japanese Army had a thing about if you kill prisoners you don’t have to feed and house them and if you just leave them they will likely be back to fight you tomorrow. ***
My Uncle was a Pearl Harbor Survivor. He later fought in the Philippines. He said the same thing, but with a lot more colorful use of words about those who wished to become POW’s. One phrase that stuck with me, “We mowed the Bastards down.”
According to the ‘Bushido(?)’ code anyone that would throw down his arms and surrender didn’t deserve the right to breathe the same air as ‘heroes’.
One of the reasons the officers would commit Hari Kari was they considered it a disgrace and a slap in the Emperor’s face were they to surrender or be taken alive.
If you have that feeling in regards to yourself, it doesn’t leave much hope for those fighting you...
Just keep thinking about the Nazi they let go in Saving Private Ryan. Also the kid in Lone Survivor. In Lone Survivor, couldn’t they just have tied him to a tree or something?
It’s not discussed very much, but during the Normandy campaign a signifigant portion of Germans who surrendered failed to make it to the rear echelon for processing as POWS. This was due to a similar policy from the Germans. There was a lot of Waffen SS in the Normandy campaign and they were absolutely brutal. Regular German landsers were more likely to be taken prisoner alive. SS troops rarely made it to the rear.
CC