|
Books > History > History of specific subjects > Military history
In October 1946, Colonel Presley Rixey arrived by destroyer at
Chichi Jima to repatriate 22,000 Japanese who had been bypassed
during the war in the Pacific. While waiting for a Marine battalion
to arrive, the colonel met daily with a Japanese commission
assigned to assist him. When asked what had happened to American
prisoners on the island, the Japanese hatched a story to hide the
atrocities that they had committed. In truth, the downed flyers had
been captured, executed, and eaten by certain senior Japanese
officers. This is the story of the investigation, the cover-up, and
the last hours of those Americans who disappeared into war's
wilderness and whose remains were distributed to the cooking
galleys of Chichi Jima. Rixey's suspicion of a cover-up was later
substantiated by a group of Americans returning from Japan who had
lived on Chichi Jima for generations. It would take five months of
gathering testimony to uncover all the details. Thirty war
criminals were eventually tried at Guam in 1947, five of whom met
their fate on the gallows.
|
|