Big E said:
Now, about Tom Hanks. There was a lot of racism in WWII. Look at the war propaganda posters and stuff in magazines where the Japanese were portrayed with full on stereotypes and were labeled as barbarians, their military was cruel though. Going to war with them wasn't really fueled by racism but America used racism in propaganda. Same thing with the Germans in both WW's. I don't agree with Hank's comments entirely but racism did have a role in WWII.
There was plenty of propoganda about the Japanese being nasty, and portraying them as buck-toothed characters with glasses made of the bottoms of Coke bottles. And the Germans ("Huns") were also portrayed nasty. There probably hasn't been a country at war in history that hasn't portrayed the enemy as demonic in some way. It helps solidify the populace around the effort of war.
The Japanese had their prejudices as well. In fact, they believed we were a weak an indolent race, and would not perservere in the war. They believed this strongly enough, in fact, that it was part of their calculation in going to war; they figured the attack on Pearl Harbor would take out our Pacific fleet and we would never be effective against them.
They were quite wrong. Admiral Yamomoto, who led the Pearl Harbor attack, had studied at Yale and Harvard and knew America better than most, had warned against this attitude, but unfortunatly few if any listened to him.
As far as the military, they were as human as anyone but there never was a policy of antiJapanes or anti German racism. They realized the fact we were up against some evil, determined forces and believed we'd have to fight "total war" to win, but that isn't racism.
Hanks isn't entirely wrong, but he is rather a knaif.
