Better late than never

JAPAN'S ambassador to the Philippines today apologized to the nation for the destruction of Manila towards the closing stages of the World War II.

Ryuichiro Yamazaki spoke at a wreath-laying ceremony to mark the 61st anniversary of the Battle for Manila that left over 100,000 Filipinos dead and destroyed the city once known as the Pearl of the Orient.

Few in the US even know of this atrocity...Many were killed in the shellling/crossfire, but many more were deliberatly massacred by the departing Japanese soldiers...one of the rarely mentioned atrocities of World War II...

Another story unknown in the West is the terrible story of those Japanese soldiers...who were killed by local people in revenge, and who fled to the jungles and starved...

Several of Endo's less famous writings, and Ichikawa's movie Fires on the Plain tell this story; Endo's books use the theme to stressthat God can forgive even the unforgivable...Ichikawa stresses the evil of war from a pacifistic point of view...