? Lady Miss Kier | Main | Japan as victim ?
August 05, 2005
Happy to be aboard
In September 1944, then 20-year old Lt. George Bush was shot down off Chichi Jima, an island 700 miles south of Tokyo. As he was rescued by the USS Finback, he said he was "Happy to be aboard." The man who was to become President of the United States was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross having evaded capture by the Japanese.
Eight other airmen who escaped their doomed aircraft but landed closer to the island did not.
They were tortured, beaten and murdered. Half of them were eaten.
A radio operator, Marve Mershon, was marched to a freshly dug grave, blindfolded, and made to kneel for beheading by sword, testified a Japanese soldier, named as Iwakawa, at the war crimes trial. "When the flyer was struck, he did not cry out, but made a slight groan."
The next day a Japanese officer, Major Sueo Matoba, decided to include American flesh in a sake-fuelled feast he laid on for officers including the commander-in-chief on the island, Gen Yoshio Tachibana. Both men were later tried and executed for war crimes.
A Japanese medical orderly who helped the surgeon prepare the ingredients said: "Dr Teraki cut open the chest and took out the liver. I removed a piece of flesh from the flyer's thigh, weighing about six pounds and measuring four inches wide, about a foot long."
The next day a Japanese officer, Major Sueo Matoba, decided to include American flesh in a sake-fuelled feast he laid on for officers including the commander-in-chief on the island, Gen Yoshio Tachibana. Both men were later tried and executed for war crimes.
A Japanese medical orderly who helped the surgeon prepare the ingredients said: "Dr Teraki cut open the chest and took out the liver. I removed a piece of flesh from the flyer's thigh, weighing about six pounds and measuring four inches wide, about a foot long."
Posted by Ghost of a flea at August 5, 2005 07:31 AM
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