In 2015, in the forest of the island of New Guinea, a hunter stumbled upon an unidentified object in a tree while chasing its prey. He was startled when he walked in to take a closer look, because the tree hung a Sensen white bone, which looked more like a human skeleton according to its body size. After reporting to the local government, the results revealed that the skeleton belonged to a pilot who had been "hanging" from a tree for seven decades after parachuting during World War II.
It turned out that this forest was one of the main battlefields in the New Guinea War during World War II, when Japan and Australia fought. From June 1943 to July 1944, the U.S.-Australian Allies engaged in an offensive campaign against the Japanese on the island of New Guinea. In this war, the "frog jumping tactic" applied by General MacArthur attracted the attention of the world, and it was also one of the keys to the victory of the US-Australian allies in this battle. The Allies successfully captured Saipan, Okinawa, etc., and opened a door to the Japanese mainland from the sea.
02
Japan's losses in the New Guinea War were considerable, with 200,000 Japanese troops participating in this battle, but only more than 10,000 survived in the end, with a mortality rate of 95%, making it the most tragic war in Japanese history. The Japanese on the island of New Guinea underwent three-level bombardment and compression by the enemy's land, sea and air, and the survivors could only shrink in the bomb shelter. However, they did not adapt to the climate of the island, and many people contracted malaria. Another big problem was food, and later the Japanese army even issued an order: "Forbidden to eat the corpses of teammates", which shows how much food was scarce in the Japanese army at that time.
However, the losses on the Part of the Allies should not be underestimated. At that time, in order to reduce the range of activities of the surviving Japanese army, the United States and Australia sent a large number of air forces to search and strike. At that time, the strength of the Japanese Air Force was not weak, and many air force fighters died in the process of bombardment. Some of the lucky Japanese had time to skydive before the plane crashed, and although there was jungle rather than land below, there was always a chance of survival.
Apparently, the skeleton, which was only discovered 70 years later, was a man with insufficient "lucky value", who, although he successfully parachuted before the plane crash, unfortunately hung on a tree. Because of the dense woods and the small number of U.S. and Australian troops, the pilot hanging from the tree was never saved by his allies, or perhaps he was never found. More likely, he was stabbed in the chest by a sharp branch as he fell, and died shortly after.
03
Even less fortunate is the location where he fell, behind a mountain in New Guinea, which is inaccessible and hardly visited for many years. Therefore, he not only transformed into Sensen white bone, but also used as a nutrient by the surrounding plants, which can be described as a model of "turning into spring mud and protecting flowers". Now the surrounding plants have wrapped his remains so densely that they are covered with moss, and it is almost impossible to see the human form. If it were not for the hunter chasing the prey and mistakenly entering this deep mountain, perhaps no one would have found his bones at all, and he would have been forever integrated with this nature.
Eventually his bones were transported back to his hometown for burial, but his specific identity is no longer recognizable. That is to say, there is no knowing who he is, whether he has relatives in the world. Although his bones have now returned to his homeland, no one has worshipped him once as his descendants. It's not so much a comforting thing to say, but rather that the corpse once again makes people realize the cruelty of war. Human nature, or life, will be swallowed up in it.
It is our good fortune to be born in peacetime, we do not have to face artillery fire, we do not have to live in fear all the time, we do not need to worry about whether our loved ones will be in the distance, blown to the ground by shells, or lost in a corner that no one knows. We also need to always remember that this peace was not achieved in vain, and that at the time when the owner of this corpse was killed on the island of New Guinea, more soldiers and civilians in our country were killed by the Japanese invasion and under the fire.
epilogue
We often say that by remembering history, our generation will strengthen itself. However, how to remember history and how to be truly self-reliant requires our serious consideration. The splendid civilization left by the ancient history of our country, the humiliation in modern history, and the re-emergence in modern history, how this period of history has been taken, what kind of nutrients we should draw from it, so as to take the road ahead more steadily, is the real "reading for the rise of China" is the real "reading for the rise of China" is the end.