In the First World War the Japanese fought on the same side as the British and captured German soldiers who were fighting in Asia.

The question arises: "How could the Japanese behave with such kindness towards their prisoners in World War I and then, less than thirty years later, act with such cruelty?"

In the opening decades of the twentieth century Japan appeared enthusiastically to adopt western values, 'from dancing to democracy'.

Ideally we hoped to receive co-operation from other countries to solve the problem but, back then, the world was under the control of the west and a peaceful solution seemed impossible.

Britain – Hong Kong, Burma, Malaya; Holland – Dutch East Indies; U.S – Philippines; France – French Indochina.

In Japan, in face of growing economic depression and a sense of the West's double standards, the call was to expand even further and conquer more territory within Asia.

Many ordinary Japanese, as well as politicians and businesspeople, now supported the drive toward a bigger empire on the Asian mainland, and the minority who openly opposed military expansion risked assassination.

Yoshio Tsuchiya, (Japanese Secret Military Police):" The Chinese were inferior – didn't belong to the human race.

What is certain is that no evidence has surfaced that he ever attempted to hold his soldiers to account for their vicious conduct in China" Rees's film concludes.

Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, overall Commander in Chief of the British in the Far East is quoted, and Gene La Rocque (USS Macdonough (DD-351) :" Our concept of the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbor was that they were a weak, not very sophisticated people..so foreign to us ..just of small stature, not a very friendly but also not a very intelligent group of people – obviously, of course, we were wrong."

[yet] he says, "one of the most extraordinary things which making the series has done is this – I think I understand now why some of them did it, down to a meeting with a kamikaze pilot, he actually volunteered to become a pilot – he explained the dreadful social pressure that he and his family were living under – if he didn't go to volunteer he knew his family would be ostracised, shunned, – from his point of view it was a sensible, sane thing to do."

When U.S. Marines tried to re-take Japanese-held islands like Tarawa in 1943, the ferocious way in which the Japanese were prepared to fight to the death did not make the Americans respect them more.

(The film soundtrack plays an excerpt from We're gonna have to slap, the dirty little jap, recorded New York, 18 February 1942).

Rees's documentary shows a photo published in the war in Life – the girlfriend of an American sailor next to a souvenir from him – the skull of a Japanese signed by her boyfriend's comrades.

With the capture of islands like Tinian and Saipan, heavy bombers were now in easier range of targets on the home islands of Japan and the Allies now launched the biggest aerial bombardment the world had ever seen – more than 160000 tonnes of bombs were dropped on Japan in an effort to make the Japanese accept unconditional surrender.

Hirohito and his military leaders believed that, in order to negotiate a more advantageous peace, Japan needed to win one big victory – and the Kamikaze would provide the means.

Kenichiro Oonuki: " All the fighter pilots, about 150 of us at the training base, were called in – a senior officer told us they were recruiting people for a special mission.

They would be ostracised from the community...so nobody wanted to volunteer but everybody did.." The biggest kamikaze assault of the war was on the British and American fleets during the battle for Okinawa in the spring of 1945.

As on Saipan, the civilians were told by the Japanese army that the Americans would rape and murder them and encouraged them to adopt kamikaze tactics.

Shigeaki Kingjou, a student in 1945, looking back in the year 2000: "I think we were dreadfully manipulated – as I got older, my soul started to suffer.

Now the Imperial Japanese Army ordered a heroic stand to be made on Okinawa, less than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from Tokyo.

But more than 80000 Japanese troops were dug into the fabric of the island interior, some in concrete pill boxes underneath the trees.