This is our second piece by second-year UoP history student Elliott Thomas, who has come a long way since I taught him in his first year at Portsmouth. As you might guess from his choice of topics, Elliott has his sights set on a career in the foreign office! On 4 May 1978, at the refugee camp of Cassinga, in Southern Angola, Namibian refugees ran out to greet the planes they thought were sending supplies gathered by Sam Nujoma (the president of the Southwest Africa People’s Organisation, SWAPO).[1] Instead of supplies however, they were greeted by an astronomical amount of explosive ordinance, delivered by the South African Airforce, a total […]
Tag Archives | atrocities
Researching the role of the Western powers in concealing Japanese War Crimes
Recent UoP history graduate Benjamin Taylor wrote his third-year dissertation on Japanese war crimes, discovering that the US and other Western states played a far larger role in the cover-up than has been previously acknowledged. Below he writes about the trial and error process of writing his dissertation, and how the guidance of his supervisor, Dr Rudolph Ng, has been vital. My chosen topic for my dissertation was an investigation of the cover-up that has surrounded Japanese war crimes. Specifically, my dissertation sought to answer two questions: has there been a cover-up surrounding Japanese war crimes? And two, if so, which country was most instrumental in creating and perpetuating this […]