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.
I'd apologize to God but I would be eating roast as long as I had ammo and ingenuity. Tastes almost as good as wild pig, according to some South American indians.
As a soldier, if you still have ammo you should be fighting- your surrender endangers other American soldiers and may even cost you the war. Would you let your family be killed because you preferred to surrender? Surrender is a last resort, and I mean LAST. If you're willing to give up your life or kill enemies to stay free, you sure shouldn't get picky or weak-kneed over bad cuisine. The man's soul is already gone and he won't be needing the container anyway.
And you would surrender to them ?
Banzai.
Were the four hundred thousand that survived heros or demons? I can't make that judgement. The survival instinct of humans is the basic instinct. That is the last thing that goes before death.
I worked with a number of japs about 12 years ago on a vehicle launch at Ford Motor. The managers were abusive, arrogant and aloof, just like the japanese offices of WWII. They loved it when the young American engineers would call them san and bow to them. I wasn't saning and bowing for a minute. The one jap manager that deigned to speak to me did so in a loud and abusive manner. I responded in kind and advised him that I hadn't forgotten about Pearl Harbor. He worked hard to try to be my friend after that, which wasn't going to happen.
Last year wife and I went to Oahu on vacation. In the evening we'd stroll Waikiki Blvd. and encounter a number of japs. The men made no effort to make way on the sidewalk and I finally had enough of my wife being bumped. It was a lot of fun throwing the shoulder into them to clear the way for my wife. They are still arrogant. Had they won WWII, I'm sure our country wouldn't have been rebuilt. Screw them!
And you can get the same treatment for your wife in any mainland city at the hands or shoulders of your countrymen.
My point still stands - militarism in Japan died with Hirohito, no matter how hard a bunch of blowhards at the Yakusuni shrine try to revive it.
I mean, I liked Ravenous and all, but I prefer other genres.
I prefer my Lexus SC 430.
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