| arealdeadone | 28 Oct 2020 5:42 p.m. PST |
I have been reading about how common cannibalism was in the Imperial Japanese Army. Apparently it was practiced even in units that were well provisioned with food – the officers promoted cannibalism as a form of moral booster and group bonding exercise. It wasn't just a New Guinea thing – one of the articles discusses cannibalism in China in 1942! link
link
One wonders if cannibalism might have actually been a tacit IJA cultural practice (like hazing in other militaries) or maybe even direct policy.
In many ways the Japanese Army was perhaps the most horrific thing in the war. With every member of the military continually brutalised from the start of their service and a culture based on obedience, it is unsurprising that they treated the non-Japanese as cruelly as they did.
Little wonder that allied troops preferred to simply shoot captured Japanese soldiers. |
| McWong73 | 28 Oct 2020 9:27 p.m. PST |
That article is 28 years old, I'd be looking to see if that research led anywhere/passed peer review before treating it as more than a collection of annecdotal evidence, i.e don't treat this as proof of cannibalism being a formal IJA policy. But yeah, they were effing horrid SOBs. |
| Wargamer Blue | 28 Oct 2020 9:35 p.m. PST |
They weren't allowed to eat their own. That was punishable by death. It was a terrible theatre of war. A terrible time in history. Let's hope it never happens again. |
| arealdeadone | 28 Oct 2020 10:56 p.m. PST |
don't treat this as proof of cannibalism being a formal IJA policy. I don't think it was official policy but maybe it was organisational culture or the organisational culture made it more possible (along with rape, torture etc etc). And organisational culture can be completely different to policy. Culture is difficult to control cause it's engrained. |
| Brownand | 29 Oct 2020 2:36 a.m. PST |
I wonder why someone would put this on TMP |
 Editor in Chief Bill   | 29 Oct 2020 4:45 a.m. PST |
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 Yellow Admiral  | 29 Oct 2020 11:47 a.m. PST |
I wonder why someone would put this on TMP It's clearly an evil attempt to induce lead poisoning. - Ix |
| Zephyr1 | 29 Oct 2020 9:25 p.m. PST |
According to some of the books I read, many island-hopped garrisons resorted to it, the Korean laborers being the first to go… |
 Legion 4  | 30 Oct 2020 9:08 a.m. PST |
 Brings a whole new meaning to "having you over for dinner!" …
I have heard to this story about IJAs going "Donner Party", before. Even eating the locals on some of those islands. The concept is horrible. And sadly I don't doubt it occurred if only in small numbers. Little wonder that allied troops preferred to simply shoot captured Japanese soldiers. Agreed … |
| 79thPA | 30 Oct 2020 11:50 a.m. PST |
Hazing is against the national policy of every fraternity, but it still happens. There appears to be enough mention of non-survival cannibalism for it to be in the realm of possibility, even if it wasn't on a wide spread basis. And you thought your employer had bad team building exercises. |
| Sundance | 30 Oct 2020 2:58 p.m. PST |
Not a unique incident. In Flyboys by James Bradley, a similar thing happened on Chi Chi Jima. It was the idea of eating the flesh of the enemy (POWs) to absorb their spirit and become tougher and more able to defeat them. OTOH, it might have been the same officers involved in both incidents. |
| Mobius | 30 Oct 2020 8:26 p.m. PST |
In the US Navy it was skuttlebutt that the Japanese ate some of the Wake Island prisoners. At least that is what my dad believed. |
| Legion 4 | 31 Oct 2020 10:11 a.m. PST |
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| EJNashIII | 30 Nov 2020 9:19 a.m. PST |
I just read the book, Rape of Nanking. On the grand scheme of things, sadly, cannibalism rates pretty low on the horrible deads list. I was quite depressed about hunamity after that light reading. |
| Legion 4 | 30 Nov 2020 9:25 a.m. PST |
It was very horrible, similar to what happened when the USSR made it to Berlin. Sadly it still goes on today but in a much smaller scale with ISIS leading the way … |
