Desecration of human remains

[MrFaulkner]

i have had tibetan human bone items used in ritauls..war bones from viet nam..were are the natze skull ash trays tatoo lamp shads book covers..the horror the horror

[SteveR]

Walk a mile in their boots.

Well said Lad.
SteveR

[ObKrieger]

On a similar note, at another show I attended, I was shown this very interesting lot of WW2 USMC items, including insignia, dog tags, photos and.............two Japanese teeth with gold fillings. The dealer told me he wasn't comfortable selling the teeth, but they were part of the lot that all came from one Marine. Needless to say there was no question......I passed on the lot and have not regretted it since. I have no doubt that those teeth were removed from a corpse as a souvenir....or at least I hope the soldier was dead when they were removed! It's very unsettling to think that our grandfathers could have been capable of such nasty things, but war does terrible things to all types of otherwise decent people.

This is depicted in HBO's "The Pacific". I highly recommend the series. It is very different from Band of Brothers.

As far as the gold goes, I think the way they saw it is that the dead Japanese guy didn't need it anymore, so they wanted to put it to much better use. My personal opinion is that once you see so many dead bodies for so long, you develop that kind of mentality. It's very tragic.

Of course, I have never seen dead bodies on the scale that soldiers did in WWII so I can't really be one do judge, but I think that's the way I would react if I were thrown into that situation. I hope I never know how I will react.

[Lehotsky]

Unfortunately it doesn't stop there. During my scuba diving training, I heard stories of a great dive site called Truk Lagoon.
Truk Lagoon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Apparently its shallow enough for most recreational divers to reach and has been a looting site for live ammo and other naval relics. Unfortunately, the remains of the saliors that went down with those ships are still down there. People have been known to pay hundreds of dollars to dive masters in order to pass around some of the skulls and bones of those killed.

[ssg keay]

A few years ago I was told of a guy who tried to sell a rusty German helmet at a flee market. He wanted 500 Marks for the helmet. When my buddy asked him why he wanted so much for a rusty helmet, the guy turned the helmet over and part of the skull was still stuck in the helmet. My friend called the police and the helmet was confiscated. Problem is, there is always some animal that wants to make money on someone's remains. Danny

[jimmimellows]

i have had tibetan human bone items used in ritauls..war bones from viet nam..were are the natze skull ash trays tatoo lamp shads book covers..the horror the horror

Not being funny but that sentance is the worst english. Can you at least post something we can understand? Sounds like your condoning human remains as war trophies from what i can understand of the post. If not then sorry for getting the wrong end of the stick. If your saying its ok then your an idiot!

[jimmimellows]

To add to my previous reply, its amazing what some people will do for a quick profit. No doubt if the boot was on the other foot ( for example it was the dealers relative having their remains sold) then the said perpatrators would be outraged. Unfortunately with most criminals they arn't bothered what they do until someone does the same thing to them.........then its a different story. For example - chav scum mugs a grandma for her shopping and runs away laughing when he's broken her jaw. Someone mugs chav scums grandma and chav wants to hunt them down and hurt them. Its a sad world.

Im hoping the dealer was actually telling porkies. he's still a bit of an idiot if he was but its a better alternative to grave robbing.

[Kahuna]

I spent a few months in the Solomon Islands and did a tour conducted by an expat Australian of the battlefields and he explained the events that surrounded each site. I was talking to him later and he said it's quite common to find the remains of Japanese soldiers and that the locals will hand them over to the Japanese officials who come to thr islands and perform the traditional ceremony for the dead. While there I walked along and explored Bloody Ridge which still has it's barbed wire, food cans, ammo both live and spent, grenade pins. I also swam on a wreck of a Japanese plane which was in about 15 feet of water and found a lot of rubbish dumps left by the Americans. The locals have even gathered complete aircraft, artillery pieces, artillery shells and anything else together and charge a few dollars for you to look at. Never saw any remains but they are still being found. As for the Solomon's, I'll post photos when I find them.

[Glenn66]

Members of the dive shop I used to Dive Master for went to Truk Lagoon maybe 5 years ago. Apparantly the Japanese Govt some years back came and scoured the wrecks for as many human remains as they could find in order to give them an honourable burial.

However the local dive guides had thought ahead and hidden some skulls in secret spots around the wrecks in order to dig them out for photos when foreign divers visit. There's little honour in business it seems...