Dragon of the Mangroves

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On February 19, 1945, when World War II was about to end, saltwater crocodiles killed nearly a thousand Japanese infantrymen trying to break through the siege of the Allies in a mangrove around Ramree Island, Burma (Myanmar). And by the next morning, no more than twenty men had survived.

This story is known to some extent in former Allied countries, but it’s hardly circulated among the Japanese because we have no record verifying this in Japan. It was proven that no less than four hundred fifty soldiers made a safe return from the island to the continent, according to official war reports and many personal memo-randums. This means almost half the garrison was alive after the battle, which simply makes the casualties by crocodiles doubtful. But I do not believe the whole story is a downright falsity. During the World War II, Japanese occupation area was called the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, and it was largely overlapped with the habitat of saltwater crocodiles. There were many reports of crocodile attacks, not only in the Burma Campaign but also in other southern fronts.

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