Today's lecture

I had a very interesting lecture this evening on racial stereotyping and the Pacific War; some appallingly racist Allied propaganda peddled about the Japanese (I realise that the Japanese were responsible for horrendous war crimes, but that's a separate point) portrayed as monkeys, rats, insects plotting the destruction of Australia and asserting Anglo-Saxon racial superiority; disgraceful images that reflected the fears of the "Yellow Peril" of the first half of the C20. I've included one of the more extreme examples here.

There's also a Bugs Bunny cartoon from, I think, 1944 which was pulled from being shown at the time called "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" which is fascinating and reflects the stereotyping of the period; it's recently been 'rediscovered' and put on to YouTube only a couple of months ago. It became not uncommon for US soldiers to send the skulls of Japanese soldiers to their wives back home, and to parade skulls on their tanks and vehicles.  All very ironic given the ideology the Allies were combating in Europe. It reminded me of the Mitchell & Webb send up of the Nazis and their insignia. There were some interesting leaflets the Japanese were pushing out to Aussie troops as well; cartoon pictures of American GIs running off with their women, and one funny one of Uncle Sam heading off with Australia tucked under one arm whilst the Aussie troops are pointing their guns north.

I should add that a significant factor in the Japanese taking of Hong Kong was the reduced number of Canadian and Australian troops deployed at night; the commanders of the two forces believed that the Japanese couldn't see very well in the dark.