I don't know if its already been discussed or not but I just finished Episode 5 I believe and Snafu takes a knife and digs out a Japs gold chomper.
shareYes. I don't know how widespread the practice was but it I think plenty of Marines and GI's took gold teeth because most books I've read about the PTO have mentioned incidents.
“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.” The Hitch
Not just teeth, but other extremities - Sledge mentions in WTOB one Marine taking an entire hand. There are also stories of people recovering Japanese skulls. One photo shows a Japanese skull on Peleliu used as a warning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Skull_and_danger_sign_on_Peleliu.jpg
FDR was apparently given a bone letter opener by a congressman, interestingly enough.
I'm only on Episode either 6 or 7. The episode where Gunny breaks down.
share@FourthIVY
I once saw a picture of a skull sitting on a woman's desk at her home in the United States. It turns out that she was sent a Japanese skull. It was pretty disturbing.
“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.” The Hitch
Might as well call her Ilse Koch...
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"WHOOPSIE DAISY!!!!" - Bill the Butcher
Yes, that photo and a couple of others (with details) can be seen on :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanese_war_dead
Very disturbing indeed.
I saw a documentary about kamikaze pilots, and one Navy vet recounted an incident where the carrier he served on was hit. One of the few parts left of the Japanese pilot was a femur, which was sawed into disks and carried as key rings.
shareWell, Snafu said gold was 30 bucks an ounce. a tooth is at least 2-3 ounces, pretty good money if you ask me. I'd do the same.
shareMan you got some big arse horseteeth if yours weigh 2-3 ounces each. I imagine it'd take several teeth just to make a gram of gold, but I suppose it all adds up. And yes it's documented that US soldiers did that. I have a documentary on Iwo where a soldier admits to doing it, among other things not nice. In this same doc I also saw the pic of the woman with the skull; she was sitting at her desk writing a letter to her sweetheart, smiling benignly at the "souvenir" he sent her home from the war. It's pretty chilling because she looks so sweet and innocent.
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I grieved I had no shirt until I met a woman who had no pants.
Gold in teeth is six carats and a whole molar weighs maybe two or three grams without the gold, but the gold would probably account for a gram or two in each tooth, so yeah, I agree that it would take a lot of teeth to make a decent amount of gold, but these guys had nothing better to do. Why not harvest teeth? If 20 or 30 teeth would make an ounce of gold, it's probably worth it to some morbid person. Personally, I don't think I could do it, although I wouldn't have been opposed to looting pistols, bayonnets, and flags.
On a slightly unrelated note, I was in a coin shop about 15 years ago and a guy brought in a jar full of teeth that looked like they were 50 years old or more. I didn't stick around to hear the full story. That was too crazy for me. He was trying to sell them for the gold content. I figured this guy was a grave robber.
About 60% of the bodies of Japanese soldiers recovered in the Mariana Islands and returned to Japan lacked skulls.
Eugene Sledge relates a few instances of fellow Marines extracting gold teeth from the Japanese, including one from an enemy soldier who was still alive.
"But the Japanese wasn't dead. He had been wounded severely in the back and couldn't move his arms; otherwise he would have resisted to his last breath. The Japanese's mouth glowed with huge gold-crowned teeth, and his captor wanted them. He put the point of his kabar on the base of a tooth and hit the handle with the palm of his hand. Because the Japanese was kicking his feet and thrashing about, the knife point glanced off the tooth and sank deeply into the victim's mouth. The Marine cursed him and with a slash cut his cheeks open to each ear. He put his foot on the sufferer's lower jaw and tried again. Blood poured out of the soldier's mouth. He made a gurgling noise and thrashed wildly. I shouted, “Put the man out of his misery.” All I got for an answer was a cussing out. Another Marine ran up, put a bullet in the enemy soldier's brain, and ended his agony. The scavenger grumbled and continued extracting his prizes undisturbed."
With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. p. 120
Trophy taking was ripe during the Vietnam war as well.
It`s far easier to start a war than to end one.
Yeah, stuff like that seemed to be not uncommon in the Pacific. James Jones wrote about it in his novel The Thin Red Line, and was also portrayed in Terrence Malick's 1998 adaptation of that book.
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In his book "Helmet For My Pillow" Leckie writes about how when the Marines went to Australia after Guadalcanal some Marines actually purchased dental extraction tools while there for easier removal of Japanese teeth when they returned to battle....
My grandpa took some from a dead Japanese soldier during the war.
Can you quack like a duck when you suck?