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The Facts:

Surprisingly little is known about what really happened to the Japanese troops lost in the Ramree swamps between February 19th and 22nd, 1945. Natives of the island refute claims of a mass crocodile attack, yet Ramree does indeed boast a large number of saltwater crocodiles.

Learn more about saltwater crocodiles here!

British-Indian forces attacked the Japanese-held island on February 19th. Its geographical significance in the Bay of Bengal, and particularly its airstrip, made Ramree an important prize during the War in the Pacific. British marine launch crews, after a quiet landing, encountered fierce resistance inland. The Japanese finally retreated into a dense, sixteen-kilometre marshland. British-Indian regiments in the east cut off this escape. Many already wounded by bullets, the Japanese troops struggled through mangrove thickets, deep mud, disease, hunger, thirst, swarms of mosquitoes, and scorpions.

And then there were the crocodiles.

This infamous testimony by British marine (and naturalist) Bruce Wright tells:

“That night of the 19 February 1945 was the most horrible that any member of the M.L. [marine launch] crews ever experienced. The scattered rifle shots in the pitch black swamp punctured by the screams of 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...Of about 1,000 Japanese soldiers that entered the swamps of Ramree, only about 20 were found alive.”   

According to an official press release in The Times, London--1948, the majority of Japanese casualties were the result of intensive combat. Yet the report also mentions the appalling conditions in the swamp, and the fact that so few--around twenty prisoners--were taken.

In many Indo-Pacific regions, saltwater crocodiles are feared even more than sharks. They do, on occasion, attack people. Ramree Island is itself not far from the Burmese coast. It stands to reason that such a large number of crocodiles, when disturbed and confronted with a widespread smell of blood, would react with deadly force. And further, crocodiles like to feed at night. The Japanese troops spent three nights in the swamp. There is therefore much circumstantial evidence in support of Wright's account. Exactly how many men were killed by crocodiles, rather by than the myriad other perils, can never be known. But Wright's testimony has endured, in all its nightmarish glory.

Learn more about saltwater crocodiles here!

February 19th, 1945...

Over 1,000 Japanese soldiers retreated into the fetid mangrove swamps of Ramree Island. Days later, only twenty were found alive. History has come to know it as the massacre of Ramree, when sixteen kilometers of marshland delivered the battalion from their British enemy…straight into a nest of giant saltwater crocodiles.

Inspired by true events during WW2, Sunset on Ramree follows young musician-turned-soldier Shigeatsu Nakadai and his best friend, Kodi, as they head ever deeper into danger. Will friendship be enough to keep them alive in the deadliest place on Earth?

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A brief excerpt from Sunset on Ramree:

I try to conjure a memory of before the war—something, anything to distract me—but draw a blank every time. I purse my lips to whistle a familiar tune, but nothing comes out. I shut my eyes tight and roll them inward until they ache and release a heavy pulse. The screams and shots and calls for surrender are still there. Kodi and Sobiku are still there. I imagine the reed of a clarinet between my lips and the long, sustained breath given to making sweetly aching music. But nothing comes out. No tune, no melody, no woodwind to soothe the mangroves. Just the damp, cold harmonics of the night. I’m lost without music, and there is no music on Ramree.

Read a longer excerpt HERE!

SUNSET ON RAMREE

A Novelette

by

Robert Appleton

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