by JONATHAN ZIMMERMAN
Most Americans regard World War II as a “just war” because the United States helped stem the vicious tide of global fascism. But during that war, American soldiers dismembered Japanese corpses and collected their body parts as souvenirs.
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But skulls were difficult to carry and — especially — to prepare: Soldiers first had to remove the flesh from the severed head, either by boiling the head or by leaving it out for ants to eat. So they preferred to collect ears, which were tidy and small.
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Although some Americans did object to these atrocities at the time, it would be much later before WW II veterans expressed regret for them. In a 1981 memoir, American biologist E.B. Sledge recalled watching American soldiers cut off a hand from a dead Japanese, urinate into the mouth of another corpse and shoot an old woman who was “just an old gook,” as one of Sledge’s comrades told him. “The fierce struggle for survival eroded the veneer of civilization and made savages of us all,” Sledge wrote.
Los Angeles Times for more
(Thanks to Asghar Vasanwala)