The Chichijima incident (also known as the Ogasawara incident) occurred in late 1944. Japanese soldiers killed eight American airmen on

Chichi Jima , native_name_link = , image_caption = Map of Chichijima, Anijima and Otoutojima , image_size = , pushpin_map = Japan complete , pushpin_label = Chichijima , pushpin_label_position = , pushpin_map_alt = , ...

, in the

Bonin Islands The Bonin Islands, also known as the , are an archipelago of over 30 subtropical and tropical islands, some directly south of Tokyo, Japan and northwest of Guam. The name "Bonin Islands" comes from the Japanese word ''bunin'' (an archaic readi ...

, and cannibalized four of the airmen.

Incident

Nine airmen escaped from their planes after being shot down during bombing raids on

, a tiny island south of Tokyo, in September 1944. Eight of the airmen, Lloyd Woellhof, Grady York, James “Jimmy” Dye, Glenn Frazier Jr., Marvell “Marve” Mershon, Floyd Hall, Warren Earl Vaughn, and Warren Hindenlang were captured and eventually executed. The ninth, and only one to evade capture, was future U.S. President

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

, also a 20-year-old pilot. After the war, it was discovered that the captured airmen had been beaten and tortured before being executed. The airmen were beheaded on the orders of Lt Gen.

Yoshio Tachibana was a lieutenant general in the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. He was commander of the Japanese garrison in Chichijima, Ogasawara Islands, and was later tried and executed for the Chichijima incident, a war crime involving torture, ...

. Japanese officers then ate parts of the bodies of four of the men.

Trials

Tachibana, alongside 11 other Japanese personnel, were tried in August 1946 in relation to the execution of U.S. Navy airmen, and the

cannibalism Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, b ...

of at least one of them, during August 1944. Because military and international law did not specifically deal with cannibalism, they were tried for murder and "prevention of honorable burial". This case was investigated in 1947 in a war crimes trial, and of the 30 Japanese soldiers prosecuted, four officers (General

Tachibana The term has at least two different meanings, and has been used in several contexts. People * – a clan of ''kuge'' (court nobles) prominent in the Nara and Heian periods (710–1185) * – a clan of ''daimyō'' (feudal lords) prominent in the Mu ...

, Maj Matoba and Captain Yoshii) were found guilty and hanged. All enlisted men and Probationary Medical Officer Tadashi Teraki were released within 8 years. Vice Admiral Mori Kunizo, who commanded Chichi-Jima air base at the time of the incident, was of the belief that consumption of human liver had medical benefits. He was initially sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the incident. However, after his subordinates were convicted of slaughtering prisoners during their time on the Southern Front, he was sentenced to death and subsequently hanged in a separate trial organized by the Netherlands for war crimes committed in the Dutch East Indies.

Book

In the best-selling book '' Flyboys: A True Story of Courage'', American author

James Bradley James Bradley (1692–1762) was an English astronomer and priest who served as the third Astronomer Royal from 1742. He is best known for two fundamental discoveries in astronomy, the aberration of light (1725–1728), and the nutation of the ...

details several instances of cannibalism of World War II Allied prisoners by their Japanese captors. Bradley claims that this included not only ritual cannibalization of the livers of freshly killed prisoners, but also the cannibalization-for-sustenance of living prisoners over the course of several days, amputating limbs only as needed to keep the meat fresh.

References

External links

listing by name of seven of eight US POWS killed at Chi Chi Jima
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chichijima incident Incidents of cannibalism Imperial Japanese Army Imperial Japanese Navy Japanese war crimes 1944 in Japan George H. W. Bush Mass murder in 1948 Massacres in 1948 World War II prisoner of war massacres

Incident

Trials

Book

See also

References

External links