Dark Stories of Japanese Cannibalism in World War II
Dark Stories of Japanese Cannibalism in World War II
Many horror stories occurred during World War Two. In Europe the Axis forces led by the Nazis committed many crimes against humanity. Their counterpart in the Pacific Theatre — Imperial Japan was no different. Under Emperor Hirohito’s control, some experts believed that the Japanese were much worse than Hitler’s Nazis.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2015, Toshio Tono, a Japanese medical doctor, could no longer bear the nightmare he witnessed that made him ashamed of wearing the coveted medical white coat. Tono’s dream was to become a gynecologist. Still, when he was in his first year as a student at Kyushu Imperial University’s medical school in southern Japan, Tono became an unwilling witness to atrocities.
He reckoned that when the U.S. B-29 crashed on the island of Kyushu, the remaining surviving American airmen were captured and brought to their school — blindfolded and injured.
“One day two blindfolded prisoners were brought to the school in a truck and taken to the pathology lab… Two soldiers stood guard outside the room. I did wonder if something unpleasant was going to happen to them, but I had no idea it was going to be that awful.” — Toshio Tono
These Allied soldiers became specimens for a series of horrific experiments. Some organs were removed from their body, while others were injected with seawater to see if it worked as a substitute for sterile saline solution.
In another experiment, doctors drilled through the skull of a live prisoner. Apparently, to determine if removing some part of the brain could treat epilepsy.
“The experiments had absolutely no medical merit… They were being used to inflict as cruel a death as possible on the prisoners… I was in a state of panic, but I couldn’t say anything to the other doctors. We kept being reminded of the misery US bombing raids had caused in Japan. But looking back it was a terrible thing to have happened.” — Toshio Tono
However, Tono’s stories about medical experimentation against the Allied soldiers were not the worst of it all. As he claimed, Japanese officers mandated…
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