Japanese Cannibalism of US Soldiers during World War II!

2,553 Views | 14 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by CanyonAg77
eric76
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AG
I accidentally stumbled across this video on youtube about Japan's Chichijima Island:



The Japanese captured eight of the American airmen, killed them, and in some cases, they ate them! President H. W. Bush narrowly avoided being captured with the other eight.

Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichijima_incident

According to the Wikipedia link:
Quote:

In the best-selling book Flyboys: A True Story of Courage, American author James Bradley details several instances of cannibalism of World War II Allied prisoners by their Japanese captors Bradley claims that this included not only ritual cannibalization of the livers of freshly killed prisoners, but also the cannibalization-for-sustenance of living prisoners over the course of several days, amputating limbs only as needed to keep the meat fresh.

So apparently, that wasn't the only time the Japanese practiced cannibalism on captured Americans during World War II. Where else is this known to have happened?
Jabin
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I have read third hand references that the Japanese may have practice cannibalism in China, such as in the Rape of Nanking.
Belton Ag
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AG
There also are stories of them doing this on New Guinea towards the end of the war when the IJA was completely cut off and began to starve. Natives of New Guinea were supposedly called "black pig" and Allied soldiers were called "white pig." There were even allegations that some IJA soldiers were executed to be used as food for officers. Most of the stories are probably apocryphal and I don't think we'll ever know.
eric76
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AG
I'm puzzled why I had never heard about this before.

In some cases, they even cut muscles out of living men and let them die on their own.

For example, regarding Papua New Guinea, from https://allthatsinteresting.com/japanese-cannibalism-ww2

Quote:

According to the testimony of a surviving Pakistani corporal who was captured in Singapore and housed as a prisoner of war in Papua New Guinea Japanese soldiers on the island killed and ate about one prisoner per day over the course of 100 days.

And one Indian prisoner of war said that "the Japanese started selecting prisoners and every day one prisoner was taken out and killed and eaten by the soldiers. I personally saw this happen and about 100 prisoners were eaten at this place by the Japanese."

"The remainder of us were taken to another spot 50 miles away where 10 prisoners died of sickness. At this place, the Japanese again started selecting prisoners to eat. Those selected were taken to a hut where their flesh was cut from their bodies while they were alive and they were thrown into a ditch where they later died.
FTACo88-FDT24dad
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AG
I used to work with a man whose father fought at Okinawa. He was also later a member of the 1950 US Olympic basketball team (gold medal). Last name Glasgow. To his dying day in the 1990s, Mr Glasgow refused to ride in a Japanese car. He would walk across West Texas in August before taking a ride from someone in a "Jap" car.

There's a reason why many of the men who fought against the Japanese in the Pacific felt the same way.
45-70Ag
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AG
My great grandfathers brother was at Peleliu (I know I've probably misspelled that) and Okinawa.

My cousin and his wife adopted a young Japanese child before he died and he could not bring himself to be in the same room as that child the first two years after the adoption.

He finally over came that and cared for her as if she was his own granddaughter but other than that, he maintained a lifelong hatred of all things japanese.
TRD-Ferguson
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AG
My dad was USMC in WWII and Korea. Began at Guadalcanal and moved on to "Other garden spots of the South Pacific" as he called them. He didn't speak about his combat experiences.

He and my mom went to Pearl Harbor after they retired. He was incensed that Japanese tourist were allowed on the Arizona Memorial.

We bought a Honda Accord in '85 and I thought he would disown me. Dad was from Mississippi so I asked him if his great grandfather, who had fought in the Civil War, felt the same way when he bought his Chevy. He had to chuckle at that!
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PanzerAggie06
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AG
I was stationed in Japan at Camp Zama from 12 to 14. And loved every second of it. Japan and it's people are truly fantastic.

And this made if difficult to come to terms with this type of event along with the many other atrocities they committed. Nothing in their demeanor indicates that they would ever engage in such acts but the historical record is pretty clear that they engaged in some truly heinous events . It left me wondering if the Japanese today, with their kindness and obsession with being polite, are merely masking the intensity they showed in the 30s and 40s. Or, did they at the end of WWII truly change their mindset?
Jabin
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Good question.

I have read somewhere that, during World War II and before, there was a vast cultural gap between civilian and military Japanese. I have no idea if that is true or not, or if it's simply an after-the-fact attempt to exonerate the Japanese nation by blaming all of the atrocities on their "out-of-control military".
PanzerAggie06
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AG
Jabin said:

Good question.

I have read somewhere that, during World War II and before, there was a vast cultural gap between civilian and military Japanese. I have no idea if that is true or not, or if it's simply an after-the-fact attempt to exonerate the Japanese nation by blaming all of the atrocities on their "out-of-control military".


I dealt with the JGSDF (army) a great deal and they seemed extremely professional although their equipment looked to be a generation or two behind our own. It was interesting that in speaking with one of their infantry Captains who had been in the military for eight years he stated that he had actually fired a weapon a single time.
Jabin
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Reminds me that I used to work with an Air Force three star who was commander of the DLA. He told me that the only time he had fired a weapon while in the service was when he was given his Beretta pistol upon making flag rank and fired it at the Beretta pistol range.
Rabid Cougar
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AG
My grandfather fought them in Burma. Never said the word "Jap" without GD in front of it.
Sea Speed
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AG
I work regularly with the JMSDF and they are the most polite and thoughtful people out there, and i regularly receive gifts and hand written letters from the commanding officers i work with as tokens of appreciation. I too have spent time several places in Japan and it is definitely hard to imagine the people i have met doing the things i know japan did in those days.

$240 Worth of Pudding
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AG
Said it before and I'll say it again....
If there was ever a group that deserved to get nuked, it was the Japanese in WWII.
"I like beavers. Healthy beavers are important" -- Olin Buchanan 6/11/2021
AgBQ-00
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AG
In his Supernova series Dan Carlin says the Japanese of that time are like every other warring nation but even more so. Meaning they had a habit of taking strong practices of other nations and taking them to the absolute extremes. It was their culture to peg the settings to max. I think the culture you see today from them is not even a shadow of what it once was
CanyonAg77
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AG
How much of Japanese culture of today, relates to having a huge percent of the healthy males in an entire generation lost to warfare, followed by fire bombing and nuking of civilians?

Not saying they didn't deserve it, but it makes me think of French losses in WWI.
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