The Mysterious Battle of Ramree Island: Japanese soldiers vs. Crocodiles
A war between the Imperial Japanese Army and thousands of saltwater crocodiles
The Saltwater crocodiles are the most magnificent reptiles in the world. An average saltwater crocodile can easily reach 23 feet.
A human can never match the size, power, speed, and power they attain!
What will one do when you have to face death on both ends of a road? Does it then really matter which way you had chosen?
— If you go to one end, you will face the enemy’s army ready to attack you.
— If you choose the other end, you will face hundreds of crocodiles!
Will you risk your life in mud or give it to the hands of the enemy?
This was the situation the Imperial Japanese Army soldiers were facing while occupying the Ramree Island World War II in 1945. The Japanese army had captured the island during the invasion of Burma in 1942.
During World War II, the British Army decided to recapture Ramree island 70 miles from the south of Akyab (Now Sittwe). The British forces wanted to build an airbase in Ramree Island to launch more attacks against Japanese forces in Burma and Malaysia.
Thousands of British troops surrounded the island resulting in a weird and exhausting battle that was fought for more than six weeks.
The Britishers weren’t alone. The Indian Infantry Brigade army supported them in defeating Japanese soldiers.
The Japanese force got split into two groups, and one group of about 1,000 Japanese soldiers got isolated. They had no way to reach the safety of the larger army and were trapped.
British commanders sent a word that the isolated army should surrender to them.
But the soldiers never learned to surrender or accept defeat. Then they decided to make their way through a mangrove swamp and started their eight-mile journey.
That is when things worsened!
They had no clue of what they were going to face. The mangrove swamp was covered with thick mud, which made the journey slow-going.
The Allies knew what their enemy was going to face — a natural death trap full of crocodiles!
Soon after entering the mudhole, the Japanese soldiers started yielding diseases.
Dehydration and starvation were weakening them.
Spiders, poisonous snakes, and scorpions were hidden in the thick forest. When they got deeper into the swamp, crocodiles appeared.
How did the Crocodile Attack happen?
A biologist Bruce Stanley Wright, who had participated in the Battle of Ramree Island, gave this in writing —
The night of Feb. 19, 1945, was the most horrible that any member of the crew ever experienced. The crocodiles, warned by the din of warfare and the smell of human blood, gathered crocodiles around them. They laid there with their eyes above the water, watchfully carefully for them. With the withdrawal of the water tide, the crocodiles moved in on the dead and wounded men who had become sank in the mud.
The widespread rifle shots in the pitch black swamp pierced by the outcries of the wounded men smashed in the jaws of giant reptiles.
At dawn, the vultures arrived to clean up what the crocodiles had left.”
Out of 1,000 soldiers, only 480 managed to survive. More than likely, most Japanese victims were men too sick or wounded to continue or those stuck in the mud.
Many of the Japanese soldiers died of other causes like disease and starvation.
When this Japanese army came out of the swamp, the British army captured 20 men.
All the rest died in the ten miles of swamp, making what happened at Ramree island the worst recorded instance of crocodiles preying on humans.
Recently a movie is also made named Saltwater: The Battle of Ramree Island.
There are reports of those Japanese soldiers whom saltwater crocodiles ate in the mangrove swamp.
The Guinness Book of World Records has mentioned this as the worst crocodile disaster in the world.
Well, one thing is certain — Don’t mess with mother nature!
