Wartime "Type-casting"

We read on page 116 third paragraph some of the reasons why Americans didn't like the Japanese. " Americans detested the Japanese the most, for only they had had the effrontery to attack the United States directly, sinking ships, killing sailors, and embarrassing American pretense to alertness and combat adequacy. They must be animals to behave thus, and cruel ones at that." " A rumor popular during the war told of a mother receiving a letter from her soldier son in a Japanese POW camp. He tells her that he is well and surviving OK and not to worry, and he adds that she might like to soak off the stamp on the envelope to give to a friend who's a collector. When she does so, she finds written under the stamp, 'THEY HAVE CUT OUT MY TONGUE. ' "(pg 119 2nd par.) We also read how a United States marine name Sledge "once encountered a group of dead marines whose bodies had been defiled, one man's penis having been sliced off and inserted in his mouth, another man's head and hands having been chopped off." (pg 119 last sentence) Here are some examples of why Americans would think of Japanese as animals. The government would want this this type of information also to be published by the media, because it would be showing what type of animals and savages they are fighting.