Rookie Conservative MP Steven Fletcher has apologized for an incident last weekend where he referred to Japanese soldiers from the Second World War as “Japs” and “bastards.”
Fletcher made the remarks last weekend at a veteran’s convention in Winnipeg.
His specific statement was: “The Japs were bastards.”
In his statement of apology on Saturday, Fletcher referred to his family’s personal experiences during the war, saying they had given him “a very emotional perspective” on that historical period.
His grandfather was a prisoner of war held by the Japanese, captured during the fall of Singapore.
“I allowed those emotions to colour my remarks,” he said. “I should have chosen more appropriate language, and will do so in the future. I apologize for any offence I may have caused, and retract my choice of words without reservation.”
But he also said this: “I stand by the fact that the Japanese were ruthless. If people want to challenge me on that, I look forward to it.”
Fletcher told The Canadian Press: “They used my grandfather’s friend for bayonet practice. They put my grandfather on a raft when he was ill to die. They shot people indiscriminately.
“In the context of the time, in World War II, they treated people in ways that were barbaric and disgusting, and it should never be forgotten, and it should never be allowed to happen again.”
During the 1940s, “Japs” was commonly used to describe Japanese people, but it is now considered to be an ethnic slur.
Fletcher’s role at the conference was to bring greetings from the federal government.
Hayden Kent, president of the Army, Navy and Air Force Veterans Unit 283, said the MP’s remarks caught the veterans off guard.
“I understand his feelings about what his grandfather went through, but that wasn’t the time or the place,” he said.
“If we’d had a person of Japanese descent on the convention floor, how would that person have felt? We have to forgive.”
Bev Oda, a Conservative MP and the first Japanese-Canadian elected to Parliament, was mildly critical of her colleague.
“We have a job certainly as members of Parliament to work against racism but we can do that without using the terminology of the day,” he said.
The Liberals said Fletcher’s outburst is yet more evidence that the Conservatives are an angry party led by people with narrow views.
But the NDP said Fletcher’s apology should end the matter.
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“Reluctantly, the American prisoners did as they were told, all 150 of them, crawling single file into the dark, poorly ventilated pits. Everyone but Stidham, whose stretcher was conveniently placed beside one of the trench entrances. If the planes came, his buddies would gather his limp form and tuck him into the shelter with everyone else.
They waited and waited but heard not a single American plane, let alone a hundred. They huddled in the stifling dankness of their collective body heat, sweat coursing down their bare chests. The air-raid bell continued to peal. A Navy signalman named C.C. Smith refused to go into his pit. Suddenly the Buzzard set upon him. He raised his saber high so that it gleamed in the midday sun, and with all his strength he brought it blade side down. Smith’s head was cleaved in two, the sword finally stopping midway down the neck.
Then, peeking out the ends of the trenches, the men saw several soldiers bursting into the compound. They were carrying five-gallon buckets filled with a liquid. The buckets sloshed messily as the soldiers walked. With a quick jerk of the hands, they flung the contents into the openings of the trenches. By the smell of it on their skin, the Americans instantly recognized what it was — high-octane aviation fuel from the airstrip. Before they could apprehend the full significance of it, other soldiers tossed in lighted bamboo torches. Within seconds the trenches exploded in flames, The men squirmed over each other and clawed at the dirt as they tried desperately to shirnk from the intense heat. They choked back the smoke and the fumes, their nostrils assailed by the smell of singed hair and roasting flesh. They were trapped like termites in their own sealed nest.
Only a few managed to free themselves. Dr.Carl Mango, from Pennsylvania, sprang from his hole, his clothes smoldering. His arms were outstretched as he peaded — “Show some reason, please God show reason” — but a machine gunner mowed him down.
Another prisoner crawled from his trench, wrested a rifle from the hands of a soldier, and shot him before receiving a mortal stab in the back. A number of men dashed toward the fence and tried to press through it but were quickly riddled with lead, leaving a row of corpses hung from the barbed stands like dried cuttlefish. A few men managed to slip through the razor ribbon and leap from the high cliff, but more soldiers were waiting on the beach to finish them off. Recognizing the futility of escape but wanting to wreak a parting vengeance, one burning prisoner emerged from his trench, wrapped his arms tightly around the first soldier he saw, and didn’t let go — a death embrace that succeeded in setting the surprised executioner on fire.
All the while, Lieutenant Sato scurried from trench to trench with saber drawn, loudly exhorting his men and occasionally punctuating his commands with a high, nervous laugh. At his order, another wave of troops approached the air-raid shelters, throwing grenades into the flaming entrances and raking them with gunfire. Some of the troops poked their rifle barrels through the entrances of the trenches and fired point-blank at the huddled forms within. James Stidham, the paralytic who had been watching all of this from his stretcher, quietly moaned in terror. A soldier stepped over to him and with a perfunctory glance fired two slugs into his face.”
From Ghost Soldiers– an account of the atrocity at Palawan, Dec.14, 1944. |
