Inside The Most Horrific Japanese War Crimes Of World War 2

By Kaleena Fraga | Edited By Jaclyn Anglis

Published April 12, 2023

Updated March 12, 2024

Cannibalism: One Of The Most Gruesome Japanese War Crimes

Japanese Cannibalism During World War II

Wikimedia CommonsTwo Australian soldiers pose with human remains recovered from a Japanese encampment.

One of the grimmest Japanese war crimes was cannibalism. A shockingly large number of cases of Japanese cannibalism were documented during World War II, though it took a long time for them to come to light.

Japanese historian Toshiyuki Tanaka — whose work was initially deemed ″too sensitive” to publish in Japan — found more than 100 cases of Japanese Imperial Army soldiers cannibalizing enemy troops and civilians.

Though the Japanese soldiers were sometimes cut off from supply lines and starved, Tanaka found that they often had plenty of food. Rather, they cannibalized prisoners to celebrate a victory or to bond with their unit.

“I think it was to get a feeling for victory, and to give the soldiers nerves of steel,” Tanaka told the Independent in 1992. He added that it helped units bond “because the whole troop broke the taboo (of cannibalism) together.”

Tanaka wasn’t the only one to report on this grisly Japanese war crime. American and Australian soldiers also described encountering evidence of cannibalism when battling Japanese troops during World War II.

“The Japanese had cannibalised our wounded and dead soldiers… We found them with meat stripped off their legs and half-cooked meat in the Japanese dishes,” Australian Corporal Bill Hedges later said of the gruesome sight. “We found dumps with rice and a lot of tinned food. So they weren’t starving and having to eat flesh because they were hungry.”

One of the most infamous examples of Japanese cannibalism involving American soldiers came in September 1944, when a group of U.S. pilots were shot down during the bombing of Chichijima Island. Almost all of them were captured, tortured, and executed, after which the Japanese troops cannibalized their flesh in the so-called Chichijima Incident.

Only one of the downed pilots managed to evade capture and death that day — 20-year-old future U.S. President George H.W. Bush.

author

A senior staff writer for All That's Interesting since 2021 and co-host of the History Uncovered Podcast, Kaleena Fraga graduated with a dual degree in American History and French Language and Literature from Oberlin College. She previously ran the presidential history blog History First, and has had work published in The Washington Post, Gastro Obscura, and elsewhere. She has published more than 1,200 pieces on topics including history and archaeology. She is based in Brooklyn, New York.

editor

Based in Brooklyn, New York, Jaclyn Anglis is the senior managing editor at All That's Interesting, where she has worked since 2019. She holds a Master's degree in journalism from the City University of New York and a dual Bachelor's degree in English writing and history from DePauw University. In a career that spans 11 years, she has also worked with the New York Daily News, Bustle, and Bauer Xcel Media. Her interests include American history, true crime, modern history, and science.

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Fraga, Kaleena. "Inside The Horrifying History Of Japanese War Crimes During World War II." AllThatsInteresting.com, April 12, 2023, https://allthatsinteresting.com/japanese-war-crimes. Accessed August 13, 2025.