In World War II, the US Navy sank a convoy of three Japanese supply ships in June, 1944, off Anatahan, a small volcanic Marianas island about 75 miles north of Saipan. Thirty six sailors and soldiers managed to survive the sinkings and swim to Anatahan. There, they were taken in by the Japanese head of a coconut plantation and his wife. The US military successfully invaded the Marianas in 1944. They seized the main islands, and bypassed the smaller ones such as Anatahan. The Japanese on that island, without means of communications with their chain of command, were isolated from the outside world. After the war ended with Japan’s surrender in 1945, they refused to believe it, and held out – for years. Below are some fascinating facts about the Anatahan castaways.
Stranded and Starving on Anatahan – Until Salvation Fell From the Sky
Anatahan is a resource poor island, and things grew dire soon after the castaways arrived. The castaways barely managed to keep body and soul together, as they eked out a living and survived on coconuts, lizards, bats, insects, taro, wild sugar cane, and any edible that they could find. Things got a bit better in January, 1945, when an American B-29 bomber, returning from a raid on Japan, crashed on Anatahan. Salvation had literally fallen from the sky.
The castaways scavenged the wreck, and fashioned the bomber’s metal into crude but useful items such as knives, pots, and roofs for their huts. Parachutes were turned into clothing, and the oxygen tanks were used to store water. Springs from machine guns were fashioned into fishing hooks. Nylon cords were used as fishing lines, and some pistols were also recovered. Conditions remained difficult, but the B-29’s timely crash had saved the castaways. They had been facing slow starvation, until seemingly divine aid fell from the heavens.
The Complicated Dynamics of Dozens of Men Stranded on an Island With Only One Woman
The crashed B-29 saved the castaways, but other problems persisted. In addition to the daily struggle for survival, the island’s demographics resulted in added layers of difficulty that further complicated the castaways’ plight and gradually led to Lord of the Flies dynamics. Unsurprisingly, thirty men stranded for years on a small island that contained only one woman led to problematic interactions, as the men competed for her affections. The object of their attentions, Kazuko Higa, had arrived at the island with her husband in 1944. However, her husband disappeared in mysterious circumstances soon after the castaways washed ashore.
So she married a Kikuichiro Higa, in the hopes that he would offer protection against the other shipwrecks. However, one of the other castaways shot and killed her new husband, only to have his own throat slit soon thereafter by yet another aspiring beau. Over the years, Kazuko Higa developed into a full blown femme fatale. She transferred her affections between a series of beaus, each of whom ended up violently assailed and chased off – or murdered – by some of the other frustrated men.
Anatahan’s Lord of the Flies Dynamics
Matters were not helped when the men discovered how to ferment an intoxicating drink known as “tuba”, or coconut wine. As a result, they often spent days on end drinking themselves into a stupor, interspersed with bouts of alcohol-fueled rage and fighting. By 1951, there had been twelve murders on Anatahan, in addition to numerous fights, as the men violently vied for the affections of the island’s sole female. One of Kazuko Higa’s wooers had been stabbed with a knife on thirteen separate occasions by jealous rivals.
He returned to his amorous pursuit as soon as he recovered from each failed attempt on his life. Elsewhere in the Marianas, US authorities learned of the Japanese on Anatahan after natives from nearby islands informed the US Navy of their presence. However, the small island was off the beaten path, lacked military significance, and the Japanese marooned therein posed no threat. So the castaways were allowed to languish in isolation as the war passed them by and went on to its climactic conclusion elsewhere.
[This is the first of two articles about the Anatahan Island Japanese holdouts. For Part II, click here]
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Some Sources & Further Reading
Japan Times, May 3rd, 2014 – A Homage to the ‘Queen of Anatahan’
New Yorker, The, March 17th, 1962 – The Stragglers: Even If it Takes a Hundred Years
