In war and love everything is permitted, says a saying. But there are actions that exceed the limits of even cruelty. An action that goes beyond the limits of the most morbid imagination took place at the end of 1944 on the island of Chichi Jima in the Bonin Archipelago.
This small island is located 1,000 km south of Tokyo. The head of the Japanese garrison of the islands of the archipelago was Lieutenant General Goshio Tachibana. In September 1944 the American submarine USS Finback spotted an American pilot struggling with the waves. Immediately he emerged and saved him. That pilot was the future president of the USA, George Bush.
He was one of about 100 American airmen shot down over the Bonin Islands.
Bush was one of three airmen to survive a raid by planes that attacked Chichi Jima. The other eight American airmen were not so lucky. By order of Tachibana, the American airmen were beheaded.
The next day the Japanese officers planned a celebration. On the occasion, the Japanese, to prove their fighting spirit, decided to eat the liver of one of the executed Americans. The dead man was exhumed and the military doctor Teraki opened his chest and removed the liver. The Japanese ate while drinking sake not only the liver but also a piece of flesh, according to the testimony of a Japanese soldier.
The deceased was aviator Floyd Hall whose flesh was cooked with soy sauce and vegetables. Testimonies say the Japanese ate three more American airmen. The other four were murdered by being beaten to death.
For the Japanese, cannibalism was not uncommon during World War II. Men of unsupplied detached garrisons in some cases ate prisoners. According to Japanese history, cannibalism was sometimes carried out by order of the officers to feed the men!
In some cases the Japanese "raised" the captives as domestic animals and to "keep them fresh" they mutilated them, cutting off the limb that they would cook that day, cutting and eating the captive little by little... In 1947 the co-perpetrators of the macabre meal were tried as war criminals. Five were convicted. And Tachibana was hanged.
