Plures efficimur, quotiens metimur a vobis: semen est sanguis Christianorum.
Tertullian.
The Japanese destroyer Akikaze Maru took 39 mostly German Catholic missionaries, from the island of Kairiru. Eighteen of those were nuns, six were priests, and one was a Bishop. Included was a Chinese woman and her two children.
The ship then proceeded to Manus Island and picked up an additional 20 individuals, again mostly German, most of whom were Protestant in that case. Outside of the Germans picked up there, there was one Hungarian missionary and some Chinese civilians, six of whom were women.
The commander of the ship, Lt. Commander Tsurukichi Sabe took steps to care for the prisoners and assumed they'd be offloaded at New Britain, but at Kavieng, where he next put in, he received orders to murder all of them, which took place on March 18th.
On the 18th, the ship's crew killed them over a three-hour period, dumping their bodies in the sea. Most were shot, but some children were simply thrown in the sea.
The ship would be sunk by a submarine when it intercepted torpedoes fired at the Jun'yō, an aircraft carrier, on November 3, 1944, going down with all hands including, of course, all those still living who had participated in the murder.
Why did this happen? All we can really say is that it wasn't atypical for the Japanese. The Germans and other Europeans were just that, Europeans. The Chinese were Japanese enemies. Killing them all was a pretty Japanese approach to things.
In spite of cooperating with Germany in the export of Jewish residents of Yugoslavia, the Bulgarian parliament balked on plans to do the same in Bulgaria and refused to allow Bulgarian Jews to be taken out of the country to their deaths, thus saving them. It might be noted that the actions taken by the Bulgarian Army in Macedonia and Thrace were not parliamentary directives, so here too, in spit of being an Axis ally, the parliament was not like so many German allies and willing to follow the Germans into murder.
Irish Prime Minister Eamon de Valera delivered his The Ireland We Dreamed Of speech on the radio, in which he stated:
The ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit – a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age.
The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should live.
With the tidings that make such an Ireland possible, St. Patrick came to our ancestors fifteen hundred years ago promising happiness here no less than happiness hereafter. It was the pursuit of such an Ireland that later made our country worthy to be called the island of saints and scholars. It was the idea of such an Ireland – happy, vigorous, spiritual – that fired the imagination of our poets; that made successive generations of patriotic men give their lives to win religious and political liberty; and that will urge men in our own and future generations to die, if need be, so that these liberties may be preserved.
One hundred years ago, the Young Irelanders, by holding up the vision of such an Ireland before the people, inspired and moved them spiritually as our people had hardly been moved since the Golden Age of Irish civilisation.
Fifty years later, the founders of the Gaelic League similarly inspired and moved the people of their day.
So, later, did the leaders of the Irish Volunteers.
We of this time, if we have the will and active enthusiasm, have the opportunity to inspire and move our generation in like manner. We can do so by keeping this thought of a noble future for our country constantly before our eyes, ever seeking in action to bring that future into being, and ever remembering that it is for our nation as a whole that future must be sought.
The Washington Bears won the World Professional Basketball tournament, prevailing over the Oshkosh All Stars. The Bears were an all black team.
No comments:
Post a Comment