Soldiers told that Japs were half blind and stupid

[Skeptic]

The Japanese had been characterized as somewhat comical little yellow people with thick glasses and buckteeth. Their intelligence, cleverness and tenacity were greatly underestimated.

I've heard statements like the above quote many times. But were these statements really made during (or before the war) or is it some sort of collective UL that sprang up in the subsequent years.

[Aimee Evilpixie]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

I've heard statements like the above quote many times. But were these statements really made during (or before the war) or is it some sort of collective UL that sprang up in the subsequent years.

Well, I know that they were fairly commonly depicted that way in propaganda, for sure. I found a few examples here.

[Mycroft]

They were definately portrayed that way in films made during the war

[DocB]

One example would be "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips", the most racist in a series of wartime cartoons which disappeared right after World War II. This cartoon already has the classic WWII depiciton of the Japanese as gullible, grotesque sub - humans.

[Dobers]

I remember watching a documentary about WWII in high school. Can't remember the name of the video, but a veteran in it admitted that he and his war buddies at the time truly believed that the Japanese couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of themselves because of the shape of their eyes. Of course they quickly learned the truth.

So yeah, I can totally see where the legend is coming from.

[Delta-V]

COL Greg Boyington, in his autobiography, recalls that, during a briefing before shipping out to China with Chennault's American Volunteer Group, they were told that the Japanese pilots all had poor eyesight and wore glasses. They'd come to that conclusion after analyzing several crashed Japanese aircraft and found broken optical glass in the cockpit (I presume they ruled out being from the instrument panel). Someone at the time pointed out that US pilots wore glass flight goggles, and probably so did the Japanese.