War is a collective madness that challenges the human mind. But even this madness has its limits, outlined by the limits of the "moral health" of each particular warring soldier and the warring nation as a whole.
The Americans generally have a rather specific relationship with the bodies of their enemies. The pulling out of teeth, this phenomenon inevitable for any war, did not end there. Although, of course, they pulled out their teeth, where can we go without it.
On February 1, 1943, Life magazine published a photograph of Ralph Morse with a severed Japanese head, which the Marines secured under a tank gun.
The cases were numerous enough to alarm the military leadership and were often commented on in the military press. It can be said with confidence that the extraction of teeth was an ordinary thing and did not cause rejection either among the rank and file, or even among the officers. The attitude to other parts of the body varied among different divisions.
Already in October 1943, the US High Command was preoccupied with a large number of newspaper articles with photographs of this kind. For example, one of them told about an American soldier with a necklace of Japanese teeth, and another even showed photographs that clearly demonstrate the preparation of a skull, which includes boiling and cleaning bones from flesh.
Veterans interviewed during the research showed that at least extracting gold teeth from dead (and sometimes from living) enemies was a widespread practice.
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It all started with the Battle of Guadalcanal. That is, early enough. In fact, as soon as the first opportunity arose. And already in 1944, even the customs office in Hawaii asked the arriving Americans if they were transporting Japanese bones.
Undoubtedly, the economic component played a great role in collecting parts of the bodies of enemies. There was a constant demand for such souvenirs. They were sent home as a gift to family or friends. Sometimes relatives themselves asked for such gifts.
In 1942, Alan Lomax recorded a blues in which a black soldier promises his son a Japanese skull and tooth.
One of the senators presented President Roosevelt with a letter opener, the handle of which was made from a Japanese humerus. And the President publicly parted with this gift only after a scandal broke out over this cute story: a photo of the week from Life magazine, with the following caption: “When two years ago a tall, handsome lieutenant said goodbye to his 20-year-old bride, he promised her head is Japanese. Last week Natalie received a gift that was signed by her beloved and his 13 friends."
There was also an inscription: "This is a good Japanese - a dead Japanese, taken on the coast of New Guinea." Natalie writes a letter to her beloved with gratitude for the gift. The skull was ingeniously named by Natalie "Tojo", after General Hideki Tojo, Minister of the Army and Prime Minister of Japan at war
But the publication of such photographs continued, and the US Army, through its Bureau of Public Affairs, informed American media publishers that "the publication of such stories could provoke reprisals against American dead soldiers and prisoners of war."
By the way, the "tall and handsome" US Navy lieutenant, who sent his beloved Natalie Nickerson the skull of a Japanese soldier, was officially reprimanded. This was done reluctantly, under public pressure, and the punishment was not too harsh.
Since then, Americans returning from the Pacific region of hostilities have been required to include in their customs declaration information about the presence of any bones in them, which were immediately seized. Mountains accumulated at the customs.
Why this happened is understandable - after Pearl Harbor, the Americans were brainwashed in such a way that the Japanese were not perceived as a person, and among Americans of military age, "Hunting licenses for the Japanese" were distributed with the announcement: "Hunting season is open", "Ammunition and equipment - free”,“Join the US Marine Corps!”.
And for American citizens of Japanese descent, no exceptions were made, and the Los Angeles Times wrote shortly after the US entered the war: “A viper is always a viper, no matter where it hatched. This is why an American of Japanese descent born to Japanese parents grows up to be Japanese and not American.” And about 120 thousand Japanese (of whom 62% had American citizenship) were interned from the west coast of the United States in special camps.
Historians attribute this phenomenon of "trophy" to the campaign of dehumanizing the Japanese in the American media, to the methods of warfare by the Japanese in desperate circumstances, the brutality of the imperial Japanese troops, various racist hidden sentiments in American society, the desire for revenge, or any combination of these factors.
Teeth, ears and other parts of the body were sometimes changed, painted with different inscriptions, combined into various "products".
When the remains of Japanese soldiers from the Mariana Islands were repatriated in 1984, approximately 60% of the bodies were found to be without skulls. According to reports, it was the same in Iwo Jima.
In the United States, skulls and bone crafts from the Second World War continue to be found from time to time. Sometimes they are "handed over" by the descendants of veterans, sometimes by chance found them by representatives of the authorities (most often in peaceful life they were used as ashtrays).
Actually, to this day, the skulls of the Japanese (during the Second World War) and the Vietnamese (during the Vietnam War; then the Americans were doing exactly the same collecting) continue to be sold on the Internet and are bought from the heirs of American WW-II soldiers by private Japanese funds (this is not widely advertised, of course - since Japan is now one hundred percent satellite of America).
“There is one interesting episode in Full Metal Jacket. In fact, all the episodes there are interesting, but there is one special one when the Joker arrives at the location of the first platoon. At the location of the first platoon, the corpse of a Vietnamese soldier is seated in a chair. The fighters talk to him, congratulate him on his birthday and mock him in every way.
The episode, of course, can be interpreted as you like. Death is near, like. The living are inseparable from the dead. Today he, and tomorrow we. The existential lightness of being. Other nonsense. But it reminds me of something quite specific. The Americans generally have a rather specific relationship with the bodies of their enemies. The pulling out of gold teeth, this phenomenon inevitable for any war, did not end there. Although, of course, they pulled out their teeth, where can we go without it.
The Japanese was alive. He was seriously wounded in the back and could not move his arms, otherwise he would have resisted until his last breath. In his mouth a large gold tooth sparkled, which drew the winner. The Marine forged the base of the tooth with the end of his knife and hit the handle with his palm. As the Japanese jerked and jerked, the blade came off and went deep into the victim's mouth. The Marine swore and slit his mouth open with a sharp motion. He put his foot on his lower jaw and again tried to get the tooth. Blood poured into the dying man's mouth. He made a gurgling sound and thrashed wildly. I shouted, "Finish him at last." Another Marine ran up and stabbed the victim in the head, ending the agony. The vulture continued to retrieve its prey with a grunt of displeasure.
"With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa," Eugene Sledge.
And here is IRAQ 204:
Shocking photographs have surfaced on the Internet showing US soldiers burning the bodies of (allegedly) Iraqi rebels in Fallujah in 2004; their appearance prompted an investigation by the United States Marine Corps. Many of the horrific images simply cannot be published in the press for ethical reasons. In the scandalous images, a Marine soldier can be seen dousing the dead bodies of rebels, their flaming remains and charred bodies with gasoline.
In other grisly shots, an American soldier poses for the camera, squatting next to the skull, searching the pockets of a dead Iraqi soldier, smiling broadly, and aiming a rifle at the skeleton.
And here is the news of the recent war in Afghanistan
A group of American soldiers killed civilians in Afghanistan, dismembered their bodies, left bones and teeth as trophies, and used drugs and covered up their criminal activities by threatening others. This is evidenced by documents released by the military.
US Army records indicate that five soldiers committed multiple killings in January, February and May 2010. Another seven servicemen were charged with conspiracy to cover up the crimes of their colleagues.
All the suspected soldiers served in the 5th Army Brigade of the Stryker BMP, deployed in Afghanistan since 2009 and participating in heavy fighting in Kandahar province.
“I don’t know what to do after what happened, but I definitely should be silent”
From a Facebook post by specialist Adam Winfield
From documents released by the military, it follows that Senior Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, Corporal Jeremy Morlock, Private First Class Andrew Holmes, Specialist Michael Wagonon and Specialist Adam Winfield are accused of killing three civilian Afghans, whom they threw with grenades and then shot.
Other soldiers are accused of dismembering the bodies of Afghans and photographing the process or keeping pictures of the victims. They are also suspected of beating other people in order to interfere with their communication with investigators.
In particular, Sergeant Gibbs is accused of keeping the fingers, leg bones and teeth of Afghans. Specialist Michael Gaygon allegedly kept the skull, while specialist Corey Moore dismembered the bodies. Others, according to prosecution documents, kept photographs of the bodies. The investigation also accuses Senior Sergeant Robert Stevens of lying about the deaths of Afghans: he told investigators that those killed posed a threat to the Americans.
Well, how can you not remember a very recent case
A retired American military doctor who served in Vietnam for 47 years kept the hand of a Vietnamese soldier at home, which he himself amputated. After almost half a century, he returned what was left of her to the same person. For this, a US citizen even flew to Vietnam himself.
In 1966, Dr. Sam Axelrad brought the Vietnamese's hand home to Houston. It is difficult to say what made American doctors remove the skin and muscles from the amputated limb and connect the bones with wire. However, it is obvious that not every veteran has such a strange "trophy".
One way or another, on July 1, 2013, the doctor handed over the remains of the hand to the "rightful owner." Nguyen Quen Heung, now 73, said he lost a limb in October 1966. An elderly Vietnamese said that the Americans wounded him near the city of Ankh, where he now lives.
The bullet hit the arm, but the 27-year-old soldier managed to escape from the enemy. For some time he swam away from his pursuers, then hid in a warehouse where rice was stored. There he hid for three days, but he was noticed from a helicopter.
The wounded Vietnamese was taken to an American military hospital, where Dr. Axelrad took care of him. He decided to amputate his shot arm. “When the Americans grabbed me, I felt like a fish on a cutting board,” admitted Nguyen Quen Heung. "They could have killed me and saved me." After the operation, he recovered for eight months, and then for another six months he helped American doctors.
“He probably thought we were going to put him in a POW camp. Of course, he didn’t expect to look after him,”recalls Dr. Axelrad, who went into private practice after the war.
It would seem that the hand should have ended its existence in the hospital, but, apparently, the American doctors who were bored of the war decided to keep it. Axelrad's colleagues worked on the arm, removed the skin and muscles from it, and the crushed bones were connected with wire. After that, the doctors handed their craft to Axelrad so that he would keep it as a souvenir (perhaps this was his first and last experience in amputation - after the war he became a practicing urologist).
Oddly enough, Axelrad found the idea of his colleagues quite successful and kept his hand. Returning home from the war, he put her in a backpack, where she had been lying all these years. As the doctor admitted, he did not open the backpack, because he was not ready for the flood of memories that would have flooded him if he had climbed into the baggage of his past.
But in 2011, Axelrad could not restrain himself and still looked into the bag. Seeing the hand, he realized that it must be given to the owner. He planned a trip to Vietnam, not knowing anything about the fate of Nguyen Quen Heun and not even sure that his former patient was still alive. Arriving where the war was going on almost 50 years ago, the American doctor did not find the one-armed Vietnamese.
But Axelrad met a local journalist Chan Quin Hoa, who asked where he came from and why. The American told her the amazing story of the hand of Nguyen Kuen Heung, after which an employee of one of the local popular publications wrote an article about her.
Relatives of Nguyen Quen Heun saw this article and contacted journalists, who helped arrange a meeting with Axelrad.
Khan said he was very happy with this outcome: an amputated arm and a surgeon's certificate would help him get a pension as a war veteran.
“All my documents disappeared during the war, and the state denied me a disability pension. I hope that my hand will serve them as sufficient proof,”he said, adding that he wants to be buried along with his once lost limb.