'Dragon of the Mangroves: Inspired by True Events of WWII' | Somaliwave
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'Dragon of the Mangroves: Inspired by True Events of WWII'

Maslax

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This event happened in Ramree Island, off the coast of Burma, now Myanmar, in 1945.

1,000 Japanese soldiers were out-flanked and cut off from their larger battalions. They had two options, one was to surrender to the enemy, the other was to fight their way to their objective of rejoining their fellow troops. Only 20 out of the 1,000 survived, many killed and eaten by saltwater crocodiles.

'A Cacophony of Hell', as told by someone present at the scene.

Imagine you’re part of a military force outflanked by the enemy on a tropical island. You have to rendezvous with another group of soldiers on the other side of the island — but the only way to do so is to traverse a thick swamp filled with deadly crocodiles.

If you don’t attempt the crossing, you must face the enemy troops closing in on you. If you do attempt it, you face the crocodiles. Do you risk your life in the swamp or put your life in the hands of the enemy?

This very situation happened to Japanese troops occupying Ramree Island in the Bay of Bengal during World War II in early 1945. Those who survived the battle reportedly didn’t fare well when they chose the doomed escape route across the crocodile-infested waters.


That night [of Feb. 19, 1945] was the most horrible that any member of the M.L. [motor launch] crews ever experienced. The crocodiles, alerted by the din of warfare and smell of blood, gathered among the mangroves, lying with their eyes above the water, watchfully alert for their next meal. With the ebb of the tide, the crocodiles moved in on the dead, wounded, and uninjured men who had become mired in the mud…

The scattered rifle shots in the pitch black swamp punctured by the screams of the wounded men crushed in the jaws of huge reptiles, and the blurred worrying sound of spinning crocodiles made a cacophony of hell that has rarely been duplicated on Earth. At dawn the vultures arrived to clean up what the crocodiles had left.

Yesteryear Japanese were truly warriors, from Samurai era to Shogun era to Kamikaze days of WW2...respect!
 
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