Chichi Jima Incident

[Spaghetti_Monster]

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/06/george-hw-bushs-comrades-eaten-japanese-pow-guards/amp/

A horrifying yet interesting story. Anyone read the book yet?

[West Coast]

Can’t open the link for some reason, but read the book Flyboys that extensively covered what happened there. It was a present from my mother who thought it might be pleasant, light reading based on the innocuous title, nothing further from the truth.

[ImageGear]

Link fixed: POW Guards eat comrades (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/06/george-hw-bushs-comrades-eaten-japanese-pow-guards/)

[Gnadenburg]

Quite common of the Japanese military. On the Sandakan death marches, the cannibalism involved removing flesh from POWs whilst alive, bandaging them up to keep the "meat" fresh for a few days.

If the war went on another six months, US submarine attrition of Japanese coastal shipping would have seen them feeding on their own.

[Tankertrashnav]

Not just the Japanese. I knew an old chap who told me that his father was a POW of the Germans during WW1. Towards the end of the war Germany was very short of food and POWs were basically starving. This chap's father told him that if one of their number died it would be thought ok to say take off a leg to cook and eat before the body was taken away.

No different from organ donation to save life, if you think about it.

[bandoe]

Seem to remember reading about this and it having a ceremonial element - not based on need.

I came by a copy of "The Knights of Bushido: A Short History of Japanese War Crimes" by Lord Russell of Liverpool a good few years ago - gives many many more details of similar crimes.

[Fonsini]

I seem to recall reading that the Japanese military were the only major power in WWII that did not have organised field kitchens, troops were expected to cook their own meals and "live off the land".

It hardly condones cannibalism, but it makes it slightly more understandable.