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Cannibalism in Truk
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By Nopuko Bossy Barker
In 1944 my mother was working at a Japanese military mess in Nepukos village on Moen Island, Truk Lagoon. A Japanese lady worked with my mother. Over time my mother and the Japanese lady, Nopuko, became very close - so close that I was named after her when I was born later that year.
After the US Navy attack in February, there had been almost no re-supply to Truk, and food was almost non-existent. On most of the islands in Truk Lagoon, the Japanese had been existing on sweet potatoes. Sweet potato patches were planted everywhere. But a blight of some sort had almost wiped out the sweet potato crops on Moen. So hunger was a major problem on that island.
One day at work, my mother's friend whispered to my mother that she had something important to tell her. She took my mother to a corner where no one could hear them. She then swore my mother to secrecy, telling her that if the Japanese soldiers knew that she had told my mother anything, they would kill her.
My mother promised to tell no one. Nopuko then told her that in Peniesene Village the Japanese soldiers had killed a Trukese man, named Nekiroch, who had worked at the hospital in Peniesene. After slaughtering him, they took his still-twitching body to a table in the kitchen of the Peniesene army mess and began cutting up his body. She told my mother that the Japanese were cooking his body and were going to take the resulting meal to the various soldiers' mess areas on Moen to see how the meat would be accepted by the soldiers. She said that if the soldiers liked the food, then the Japanese would begin to regularly slaughter and cook Trukese people.
When my mother got home after work, she told my father what Nopuko had told her. My father told her that before she told anyone else, they should wait and make certain that the story was true and not just a rumor. Later that evening, my oldest bother, Faustino, returned home. Faustino, who was about 14 years old then, worked for the Japanese in Peniesene. He told my mother and father that yes, it was true. The Japanese had, in fact, killed, butchered and cooked Nekiroch and that the news was all over the village.
From then until the arrival of the U.S. Navy and marines, we were afraid that the Japanese would begin killing and cooking Trukese in earnest. I guess that the soldiers didn't much care for the taste of human flesh.
In the early 1970's the U.S. paid war claims to Micronesians who had suffered as a result of the war. The family of Nekiroch received a substantial war claims payment because of the actions of the Japanese military. I have always wondered why the U.S. paid a war claim for this action by the Japanese. Why didn't the Japanese government pay the family for the actions of it's military?
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