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.
Actually, I drive a Honda.
Lemme guess, they all look the same - right?
Obviously, you are not a member of the human race.
And to day, they are prosperous, happy, produce great cars and electronics and are the nicest folks you ever saw. Who says nukes don't work?
In my readings of history, starvation is the rule, cannibalism is the exception, and you've got Vladimir Illyichopolis and Joseph Vissarionovichopolis confused.
Over 50 years, I suggest you get a life. There is plenty to be mad enough in the modern world, that you can safely forget about your granddaddys problems.
St. Petersburg was Leningrad during WW II.
I hope the US is ready to fight the same kind of war against our new enemies - they are at least as cruel as the Japanese were, and just as convinced of their own inherent superiority.
Hahaha, damn that got me laughing, good one. Actually, it's close to true aside from the "nice" part. Japanese people are polite, extremely so, however, they are the most racist, sexist, and cunning race I have ever met (and I spent 2.5 months there, wandering Tokyo, Sendai, and Osaka). I would not call them nice. At least not the males.
Leningrad, not Stalingrad. Stalingrad was about 1000 miles southeast, and was captured by the Germans (partially), not besieged.
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