The Pachijima Incident, also known as the Ogasawara Incident, was a Japanese cannibalism incident that occurred at the end of World War II. From February 23 to March 25, 1945, the Japanese Army and Navy stationed in The Mother Islands of Ogasawara killed eight PRISONERS of U.S. Navy pilots held in the fortress and dismembered and cooked the flesh of five of them. The purpose of cannibalism is not to alleviate famine, but only to vent anger in the name of "boosting morale". After Japan surrendered, U.S. Marines entered Parent Island, and the truth about the Japanese cannibalism was revealed. Officers involved in the cannibalism were punished as war criminals by the United States Military Tribunal, five of whom were sentenced to death. Because a large number of details of the incident were made public during the collection of evidence and trials, the Chichijima incident became one of the most appalling cases of many cannibalism crimes committed by the Japanese army in World War II.
[The U.S. military is collecting the remains of a slain pilot, 1946]
Located about 980 kilometers (610 miles) southeast of Tokyo, Chichijima is the main island of the Ogasawara Islands and the largest of them, except for Iwo Jima. Due to its dangerous geographical location and undulating terrain, as early as 1921, the Japanese Army began to build military facilities such as batteries on Chichijima. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, Japan accelerated the militarization of The Parent Island and built it into a fortress that guarded the absolute defense circle. In addition to the Army, the Navy also joined the construction project, setting up a large number of coastal guns, anti-aircraft guns, bunkers, and equipped with airfields and radio communication stations on Chichijima. On the 23.45-square-kilometer (9.05-square-mile) island, six Army companies and one Naval Air Force were stationed, totaling more than 13,550 men. The perfection of its fortifications and the density of its troops are comparable to that of Iwo Jima
With the defeat of the Japanese in the Mariana Islands and Palau, the Ogasawara Islands became increasingly a target for U.S. forces. Because Chichijima was on the route of U.S. air raids from the Mariana Islands to the Japanese mainland, the Japanese forces in the Central Pacific Islands relayed U.S. military actions to the Tokyo base camp through the chichijima radio relay station, and the anti-aircraft fire installed on Chichijima also posed a serious threat to the U.S. bombing agencies. To this end, U.S. Navy carrier-based aircraft often moved from aircraft carriers to attack Japanese positions on the island and cargo ships at sea. During the engagement, some U.S. warplanes were shot down by heavy anti-aircraft fire on The Father Island, and there has been no news since. Most of the pilots were considered dead by the U.S. military, but in fact, a few of them fell on Andkechi Island and the waters around it, becoming Japanese prisoners.
Unlike the situation in Southeast Asian Japanese-occupied islands such as New Guinea, where food and grass are cut off and starved, the transportation line between Chichijima and the Japanese mainland has been in a smooth state, because Chichijima is not on the tactical path of the US military to jump islands. So, until Japan surrendered, the island's defenders were able to get a steady supply of vegetables, meat, and even sake. However, Major General Yoshio Tachibana, commander of the Ogasawara Islands garrison, was still not satisfied with this, and always hoped to have some special "appetizers", so he had the idea of killing prisoners for meat. In February 1945, the U.S. army began to attack Iwo Jima, and the guards of Pachijima, 275 kilometers (171 miles) away, were in danger, and the imminent threat prompted the Japanese generals to finally make up their minds to settle all prisoners of war before the U.S. military could act on Chichijima and the disaster was imminent.
Report of the 1946 U.S. Military Investigation into the Chichijima Incident
On the orders of Major General Tachibana, the Japanese first executed the lower non-commissioned officers among the captives in order to incite hatred for the American soldiers. On 23 February 1945, two TBM Avenger bomber pilots captured five days earlier, 19-year-old Lieutenants Marvie W. Mershon and Grady Alvan York, Jr., were executed at a cemetery in Chichijima. The next day, the Japanese dug up Marzanne's liver, cut off one of his thighs, cut out lean meat that was 1 foot long (30 centimeters), 4 inches wide (10 centimeters), and weighed about 6 pounds (2.7 kilograms), wrapped it up, and sent it to Tachibana's headquarters to make a sumptuous suki pot with fish, vegetables, and noodles. All the officers present ate very happily, and when they were drunk, Tachibana even asked for "another bowl."
This is just the beginning of a series of cannibalistic events. After the feast, The commander of the 308th Company of the Army, who had killed people and eaten meat in the Chinese battlefield, told the Navy's Shizuo Yoshii About the incident, and the latter sang this and decided to deal with the prisoners held by the Navy as well. This time, after prior planning, the military doctor was designated to go to the execution site to dissect the body and remove the liver. On the afternoon of Feb. 28, James "Jim" W. Dye, Jr., a 19-year-old U.S. military radioman from New Jersey, was taken to Yoshii's headquarters and subsequently beheaded. The body was cut open by a military doctor, the liver was removed, and after cooking, it was divided and eaten by Yoshii Daisa and Yoshii Daisa and others. Other parts of the meat were also cut off by the Japanese soldiers and boiled into broth.
On March 14, 1945, the U.S. Military declared the Battle of Iwo Jima victorious. In retaliation, the Chichijima defenders accelerated the execution of American prisoners of war. On March 17, Daizo Yoshii sent people to take 24-year-old U.S. Navy Lieutenant Warren Earl Vaughn from Yoshitaka Horie, who was guarding American prisoners of war, and Nobuaki Iwatake, a Japanese-American, and beheaded him in front of 150 admirals. After the execution, Yoshii Daisaku immediately asked the military doctor Matsushita Kenhisa to dismember Vaughn's body, and the liver was used for dinner that day, and the rest was cut and boiled into soup again.
On March 25, Floyd Hall, a 24-year-old U.S. military pilot, was also executed. In fact, as early as March 9, 16 days ago, his fate was decided by the Japanese. On the same day, The Field Shaozo issued an order:
(1) The brigade wants to eat the flesh of the American pilot, Lieutenant Hall
2. The crown lieutenant shall be responsible for the rationing of this meat
3. The military doctorSakabe shall participate in the execution and remove the liver and gallbladder
March 9, 2020 9:00 p.m. Captain, Army Shosa's Field End Yong〉
On the day of the execution, Lieutenant Hall was taken to a crater outside the guardhouse, where health guards on Parent Island were ordered to be present. Three soldiers were ordered to be executed, but they were all refused on the grounds of "defamation". Eventually, under his persecution, a captain surnamed Nakamura cut off Hall's head with a saber. Rear Admiral Mori Kunisaki then ordered the soldiers to train the soldiers with bayonets to assassinate the remains. Then, all the hygienists stepped forward, and the Teragi military doctor in charge of the dissection cut open Hall's chest and abdomen, and showed the hygienists the position of the heart, lungs, stomach, and intestines while dissecting. At the same time, he cut Hall's liver out and wrapped it in cellophane. Then he began to cut Hall's left leg, cutting to the tendon and changing scissors. In the end, about 8 pounds (3.6 kg) of thigh meat were obtained and sent to the command post of the field shosa. That night, the field and other Army officers hosted a banquet for Major General Mori, and cut Hall's liver into pieces with bamboo skewers, added vegetables and soy sauce, and made a Japanese skewer. During the banquet, the officers of the army and navy exchanged cups and exchanged cups and feasted. As for the officers who refused to eat, they were scorned by the field and expelled from the banquet.
According to historian Toshiyuki Tanaka after the war, the death rate of Allied prisoners of war held in Chichijima was as high as 75%, far higher than the Japanese average of 27.1%. Only a handful of pilots survived a crash near Chichijima, including the future 41st President of the United States, George W. Bush. H· W. Bush. On September 2, 1944, Bush, who was still a lieutenant at the time, flew a TBM Avenger bomber from the aircraft carrier San Jacinto on a bombing mission to the radio communications station on The Luminous Hill in Pachijima. During the operation, his landplane was shot down by anti-aircraft guns, and he was the only one of the three crew members who successfully parachuted and fell into the sea. When he opened the inflatable life raft, he saw that the Japanese had sent several small boats to prepare to capture him. He immediately remembered the photograph of The Australian prisoner of war Leonard Sewleet beheaded by the Japanese, and he desperately rowed in the direction of the father island. It wasn't until three hours later, exhausted, that he was rescued by the U.S. submarine Minke Whale, which was cruising nearby, that he finally escaped.
[The elder Bush of his youth participated in World War II]
Investigation and trial
On September 3, 1945, Tachibana signed a surrender instrument in the Ogasawara Islands
The Parent Island defenders were anxious about the coming American attack, but the attack did not take place, because according to the island hopping tactic, Chichijima was not within the American landing target. On August 15, 1945, Japan announced its unconditional surrender, and the Pachijima defenders laid down their weapons and surrendered to the Americans. On September 3, Vice Admiral Yoshio Tachibana and Rear Admiral Mori Kunisaki signed instruments of surrender on behalf of the Japanese Army and Navy. After the surrender, U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Presley Rixey asked the Japanese general about the whereabouts of the American pilot who had been shipwrecked on Chichijima. On the one hand, the Japanese lied that they were killed in the air raids of the US army, and on the other hand, they stepped up the work of destroying the corpses. Although the Japanese generals unified their tone, their non-commissioned officers were vague about the issue of prisoners of war, arousing the suspicion of Colonel Rishi. Through extensive visits and searches, the U.S. military gradually grasped the criminal facts of the Japanese army killing and eating American pilots. On January 1, 1946, with the assistance of Horrie Yoshitaka Army Shōsa, the relevant officers involved in the cannibalism incident were all arrested by the U.S. military, and a "Commission of Inquiry" for collecting evidence and a "War Criminals Committee" for trial were established in Guam to further prosecute the work.
[On September 3, 1945, Tachibana Yoshio signed a surrender instrument in the Ogasawara Islands]
On August 5, 1946, the Trial of War Criminals from Guam, presided over by the U.S. Navy, began, and a total of 25 Japanese soldiers were indicted as defendants. Without taking into account such barbaric acts by belligerents of modern warfare, there is no provision in the Geneva Conventions on how to punish cannibalism, nor is there a precedent in international law for cannibalism as a war crime. As a result, the court could only prosecute on charges of "killing" and "destroying the body and obstructing its burial with dignity." The defendants successively defended themselves on the grounds that "there is a difference in morality between East and West" and "there is insufficient food in Parent Island", but they were all dismissed one by one. The court also produced evidence from the Marines' arrest of the defendants, proving that Tachibana was obese at the time, that the Cave where the Japanese were staying still had a large amount of food and sake, and that the lack of food could not justify it. Eventually, the Guam court convicted all the defendants. Five main criminals, including Lieutenant General Tachibana, Daisaku Yoshii, and Shosa Dokasa, were sentenced to death by hanging. Lieutenant General Tachibana was stripped naked at the sentencing, leaving only a pair of pants as a sign of humiliation. Five men, including Major General Mori, were sentenced to life imprisonment (Mori was later tried separately for war crimes committed in the Dutch East Indies and hanged by the Dutch). As for the 15 soldiers responsible for beheading and dismemberment, all of them were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 5 to 20 years as war criminals by the US military.
【Shameless Monument Follow-up】
In 1969, under the operation of the Shirakami Clan Association, the Ehime Prefectural Gokoku Shrine erected a "Monument to the Twenty-Two Martyrs of martyrdom" for Tachibana Yoshio and 21 other Ehime Prefectural soldiers who were executed by the Allied courts as Class B and Class C war criminals, with the following inscription:
The War Trials After the Great East Asian War is an insulting chapter in world history. For the remnants of the victims, it is a hatred that can never be eliminated.
Twenty-two martyrs from Ehime Prefecture, out of great grace and vengeance, calmly and righteously for the sake of the motherland's glory, became the victims of peace. It has now been transformed into a spirit on the throne of God.
Today, the defeated motherland has achieved development that has impressed the world, and all the asian nationalities have successively realized their long-cherished aspirations for independence.
The 21st century is the century of Japan, and we hope that the heroic spirits in heaven will always guard our motherland. 》
Therefore, people all over the world are protesting the actions of the Japanese prime minister and other officials, not knowing that repentance is difficult to expect repentance.
Emperor Hirohito died in Tokyo on January 7, 1989. On February 24, George W. Bush H· W. Bush attended the Emperor's funeral as President of the United States. After the funeral, the president, who was almost eaten by the Japanese army, said to the bystanders: "Now, I can consider forgiving the Crimes committed by the Japanese." ”
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