The Ient Family: Family History

Cruelty

Questions for Chick

Were they equally brutal to their own...?

It’s funny you should say that, Yes. In our day, in the Forces, if you did something wrong you’re on a charge, and ultimately there was the court martial. That how we dealt with our chaps. If a Japanese soldier did something wrong, the sergeant or whatever, slapped across the face, or hit them with a bayonet or whatever. So justice was very swift. They had very few rights at all, that army. They were always subservient to the next man up the line. They were cruel to their own people. Cruel in our eyes. It’s only, what, 250 years ago they were still chasing each other with bows and arrows. You see, Japan was like what England was in 1066; you had the barons and the serfs and no sort of middle class. You had the barons and serfs and this is why basically Japan never invented anything. You know, when we were kids, oh, made in Japan? Rubbish. They only used to last five minutes and drop to bits. But you see the top brass, the hierarchy, they wouldn’t dirty their hands, and the blokes down below didn’t have the mental acumen.

To give you some idea, in the camp we used to do guard duty, night picket – you had to walk round with a Japanese guard because the buildings we were in were all made of wood and there was a fire in the middle, so we had to be careful about fire. Well, at every opportunity we used to extol the virtues of being British, and of course this Japanese guard, he used to always say Japan is a lovely place, you know, we’ve got the geisha girls and the cherry blossom. I would say, 'Go to England and get £20 in the forces.', 'Churchill will be pleased to see us when we get back.' We extoled the virtues of England. This went on and on, back and forth. Then he would say, Japan is very strong, got a good army, and we would say when we go back, everybody will be very pleased to see us, our wives and sweethearts and all the rest of it. Well, that stumped him. You won’t believe this, but he looked up at the moon, he said, 'Well what you said may be right,' he says, 'but you haven’t got one of those in England, have you? [Laughs.] That killed that conversation! I gave in!

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