Any society which can indulge such actions, whether or not as alleged acts of retribution, has lost its moral compass. Much Japanese behaviour reflected the bitterness of former victors about finding their own military fortunes in eclipse, becoming the bombed instead of the bombers. More than sixty years later, there still seems no acceptable excuse. The Japanese, having started the war, waged it with such savagery towards the innocent and impotent that it is easy to understand the rage which filled Allied hearts in 1945, when all was revealed.
