Posted on 08/19/2002 11:23:47 PM PDT by BlessingInDisguise
JAPANESE soldiers butchered Australian soldiers for food on the Kokoda Track, veterans have claimed.
Sixty years after they fought on the infamous track, Australian veterans say cannibalism was common among enemy troops after their supply lines were cut. In a Sky TV documentary to be aired today, one digger describes finding the body of an Australian sergeant with his heart and liver missing, and strips of flesh cut from the arms, legs and buttocks.
Disobeying orders not to engage the enemy, he says that the patrol pursued the Japanese and found four of them cooking the human flesh.
The veterans admit that they were incensed by the knowledge that the Japanese had resorted to be eating Australian dead, and in the heat of battle they showed no mercy to their enemies.
In another incident, Australian troops entered a Japanese hospital from where shots had been fired, and although most of the occupants were bandaged and either sick or wounded, all were shot dead.
Former RSL state president Bruce Ruxton confirmed the allegations of cannibalism, but said many people would not want to believe the Japanese had eaten the flesh of Australian soldiers.
"There was cannibalism. That's a fact of life," Mr Ruxton said.
"There were men out of my battalion who were found with their buttocks cut off. My battalion was there, I wasn't."
Mr Ruxton, who was a rifleman in Borneo with the 2/25 Infantry Battalion during World War II and then served with the occupation forces in Japan, said the Japanese committed some terrible sins during World War II.
"People just don't understand. They (the Japanese) weren't animals. That is too good a name for them. They were monsters. Nothing shocks me about them."
The revelations come only days after Prime Minister John Howard and Papua New Guinea leader Sir Michael Somare unveiled a memorial dedicated to the Kokoda Track Diggers and their PNG allies.
The memorial, unveiled on Wednesday, is high in PNG's mountainous jungle at Isurava, where 1000 Diggers made a stand against 4000 Japanese.
But Australian War Memorial historian Dr Peter Stanley said yesterday that he believed cannibalism of soldiers had to be seen in perspective.
"It's been known since 1942. It was documented in an inquiry which was reported late in the war, I think in 1944," Dr Stanley said. "It's been documented in every book on Kokoda since 1942.
"Two thousand Australians died in the Papuan campaign. In 1942, if people had come back saying Japanese are eating the dead, 2000 Australian families would have been devastated.
"No Australian was killed in order to be eaten. The Japanese ate Australians who were already dead. That's what William Webb (the jurist who investigated Japanese atrocities) found."
Dr Stanley said it was important to keep reports of cannibalism on Kokoda in proportion, given that such a large number of families lost loved ones.
"It's important not to allow them to imagine their relatives were eaten," he said.
The ANZAC Legacy -- the Kokoda Track, presented by John Gatfield and produced by Lisa Whitby, screens at 12.30pm and 11.30pm today on Sky News Australia.
Racism towards blacks and those of generally darker skin does exist on a nationally significant scale. The us v. them issue is different and often confused, or rather conflated with racism.
And I too cannot believe the moderators haven't jumped on this thread.
Don't forget the rugby team from South America (Uruguay? Bolivia?) that crashed in the Andes in the early '70s.
And, of course, the Donner Party.
Cannibalism also occurred in Leningrad/St Petersburg, besieged for many many months, and in the death camps as well. Probably in a number of other places too. The will to keep on living is a very strong thing indeed, and war has a way of destroying one's humanity pretty quickly.
Regards,
Snidely
But then they would have "lost face".
So, instead, they ATE someone else's face.
The best part is that the survivor is eventually caught and tries to escape again, but some idiot, knowning
what happened to the last bunch of buddies, goes with cannibal. I don't recall the actual outcome of that last foray.
Go figure. Sort of like continuing to vote democrat, I guess.
Although these companies maintain an amusing charade of "American Control" over American operations, they operate under many corporate veils with all meaningful orders coming straight from Japan. They are at the moment, packing their American operations with hundreds of deadbeat execs and techs from Japan so they won't have to fire them.
Financially, they are giving the American tax system a real hosing, typically charging themselves top dollar for Japanese equipment that is already, in Honda's case, over 10 years old. On the "American Content" rules they bend the game a bit too, in a typical case, to order a cam shaft from Japan for $200, when the same part could be mass-produced here in America for $30. Big parts that cannot be airfreighted economically are far more cheaply made here than they ever could be in Japan.
This is a mixed review, in that they run a clean, orderly workplace with good wages and benefits for full-time employees.
However, they like to run upwards of 30% low-paid, uninsured temps, hired through agencies like Addecco, of which the car companies own 30%, to complete the staff at the factories. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to complete the transition from Temp to "Associate," with a full pay-packet and benefits.
The Japanese are also very down on American minority groups. Their MO is to build factories in areas of high-unemployment where the labor pool is going to be white.
A parting shot for my pals who still labor,(albeit indirectly) for the Emperor. Do not Kow-tow and San to the Japanese. They are tough, in your face, take-no-prisoner dirty fighters who only respect a tough guy who can dish it out as well as take it. Always take Pearl Harbor Day and VJ Day off and let them know why.
Those of you hanging around waiting for some sort of WWII apology from the Japanese had better not hold your breath. The average (!) Japanese of today KNOWS NOTHING about WWII. It is not covered in their schools, it is not discussed. It is not taught.What Rape of Nanking, what Bayonet Drill with Live Prisoners, What Bataan Death march?
The executives you meet in the US have all been through select TQM boot camps that mercilessly weed out the weak. They are trained to reveal nothing. Check out the Honda-Mitsubishi-Toyota TQM website.
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