moosenose

"Officially sanctioned"? Define that term. Then read up on the Island-hopping campaign, and why so few Japanese prisoners were taken. For example: there was a US submarine that sank a Japanese troopship carrying some 7,000 Japanese troops. After the ship had been sank, the captain surfaced the vessel, brought people on deck with small arms, and proceeded to machinegun as many of the helpless soldiers bobbing in the water as was possible. On land, there were far more Japanese captured "unofficially" than were captured "officially". In other words, they were often killed while surrendering or after surrendering. Those shot while surrendering were excused because some Japanese did indeed use a white flag to mount attacks on US troops, and those killed after surrendering were just ignored. For example, I don't know if you've ever seen real "bring-back" pictures from the war, but I have seen a LOT of them. All original, and not generally published anywhere. The most atrocious tend to be pictures taken from the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers as trophies. It's not at ALL uncommon to find them floating around gunshows, and most show things like using live Chinese people for bayonet or sword practice. Pictures of them killing Allied soldiers are far more rare, but do show up periodically. I've also seen some US atrocity pictures. One series I saw back in 1998 contained pictures of a Japanese POW who had been tied to a tree. He was wearing only a loincloth. The US GIs were pictured taunting him and "roughing him up". The final sequence showed one of them throwing a captured japanese ceramic grenade into his lap and the aftermath. The guy who showed me the pictures was the guy who threw the grenade, and he told me he had been given the honor of killing the POW because it was his birthday. I didn't buy them.