least toward “Aryan” POWs. For POWs who happened to be Russians, Poles, Czechs, and other Slavs, there wan’t much difference.

From this perspective, I can see why an American military family would view the Japanese as worse.

But when it came to atrocities against civilians and crimes against humanity, the Germans clearly worse, IMO. The biggest factor was that the Germans committed premeditated, organized genocide, on a huge scale, while the Japanese did not. They targeted civilians for no military or strategic reason, but just out of pure racism, bigotry, and hatred. They industrialized the mass murder and accelerated it as their position deteriorated. They diverted resources toward that effort and away from the military effort. They performed medical experiments on humans. They harvested their teeth and hair and made lampshades from their skin. It was a special kind of evil, almost cartoonish.

As for living in Asia, I don’t think it’s possible to live in China and end up with a pro-Japanese bias. There’s no such thing as pro-Asian bias there — the Chinese hate the Japanese.

It’s interesting, though, that some here are probing for pro-Japanese bias. I’m looking forward to the posts questioning posters as to their potential pro-German bias, maybe based on their ancestry, mission experience, cultural affinity, travel and vacations there, or family connections. My guess is that there’s probably way more pro-German bias clouding views on this board than pro-Japanese bias — wouldn’t you agree?