Why Captured Japanese Soldiers Started Working for Americans Who Took Them
70K views · Aug 12, 2026 · People & Blogs
Comments · 105
@tomkratman4415 · 2 weeks ago (edited) · pinned
FWIW, Sakai's family was found and the photograph returned to them. Also, Sakai went back and fathered six children. He had a cafe with a French motif in Tokyo. His real name was not Taizo Sakai but Taizo Sakamoto, or Sakamoto Taizo.
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@glennsteele8848 · 2 weeks ago
Trying to save his fellow countrymen.
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@Mark16v15 · 2 weeks ago
Proof of this documentary is that when the emperor surrendered, in his recorded speech he never used the word surrender. He just said things like the Japanese had to endure the unendurable, and stop the war before the US blew up the whole planet with their new weapon.
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@cmw9876 · 2 weeks ago
A very different perspective. Thank you for this. 👍
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@WW2PacificArchives · 9 days ago
The most powerful twist is that Japan’s rule meant to make surrender impossible didn’t create unbreakable soldiers—it created prisoners who, once captured, had been erased from their own country and were desperate for a reason to keep serving. *The Americans didn’t defeat that wall with bullets; they gave these men something their own army had taken away: a way to survive without believing they had betrayed their honor.*
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@jeffersonwright6249 · 2 weeks ago
Brilliant video, thank you
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@johnsord-xp3ij · 12 days ago
Absolutely the best one yet because it included so much of the cultural aspect of both sides. That part we never hear much about but is so important when we meet up with other cultures. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into these films. I intend to watch everyone of them , at least twice. P.S. dad served as a thunderbolt pilot in WW2 and i am a Vietnam Vet .
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@RichardJorgensen-k7b · 2 days ago
My uncle Christian was a Marine and told us kids that after the Canal his unit never took prisoners just for their tricks.
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@DraculaSWBF2 · 1 day ago
The Japanese knew how they treated their own prisoners and when they realized that wasn't going to happen to them, they were happy to consider surrender because the only alternative was death.
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@hochap · 2 weeks ago
I went on a tour with a group of Japanese Americans years ago and my roomate was a man name Inouye, who served as a translator for the US Army in the Pacific. He served as a my translator while we were there. This story is fascinating . I wish he was still alive so I could ash him about it. I am married to a Japanese American woman.
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@wfrentzel7503 · 2 weeks ago
Really well done. Thanks
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@louiesalinas1140 · 2 weeks ago
Thank you for the insight. Got my brain working.
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