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Short Stuff: Ramree Island Crocodile Massacre · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Ben's here two sitting in for Dave. It's a brain buster,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: which we like to call short stuff.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: That's right. This is when we tell the tale of
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: the Ramri Island crocodile massacre.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: It was bizarre, boy, what just happened? So, yeah, you
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: mentioned the Ramri Island crocodile massacret that happens to be
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the title of this episode. Let's talk about it.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Thank goodness. All right, here's the story. Nineteen forty five,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: World War two is happening. The Allies had pinned down
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: one thousand Japanese soldier and a mangrove swamp off of
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: what is now Minamar. Back then it was Burma. I
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: imagine they weren't like me and thought, oh jeez, I
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: love mangroves. This is amazing. They were scared and it's
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: all they should have been, because only twenty of those
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: one thousand soldiers made it out alive. And as the
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: story goes, roughly nine hundred of them were eaten by
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: saltwater crocodiles.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, and just an orgy of animal flesh eating horror.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which should be the first sign that. Hm, maybe
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: that's not quite right.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Well, you just kind of spoiled the whole thing for everybody.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Well, what else is there?
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: The idea that Crocodile's a nine hundred Japanese soldiers in
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a single night in a mangrove swamp on Ramree Island
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: off of me and mar Yeah, well that's the story
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: that was basically generally believed back when people were I
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: don't want to say dumber, because we're pretty dumb now,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: but maybe well a little more prone to listen to
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the Guinness Book of World Records.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and maybe a little less access to good information,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: even though you know the Internet give it and take
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: it away of course in that respect. But the origins
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: of the story are there was a Royal Canadian Lieutenant
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: command named Bruce Wright who little side note, he was
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: credited with being the guy who sort of invented the
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: idea of the frogman unit, when these scuba div ring
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: soldiers would scuba dive near something and spy or maybe
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: stick a bomb in the underside of a submarine or something.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know what they do. But he was taking
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: part in a joint British and Indian mission there at
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Ramary Island. He was a leader of the frogmen. He
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: was a reconnaissance guy. He was also a wildlife biologist
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: and author. And then later on in nineteen sixty two,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: wrote a book called Wildlife Sketches Colon Near and Far
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: in which he detailed partially detailed the story of this
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: crocodile massacre.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And so he was a respected naturalist or respected
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: biologist by this time. And if he hadn't a been,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: we probably wouldn't be talking about this story right now. Yeah, because,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: like he said at the outsid is so fantastic that
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: it just defies sensibility. But because there was a respected naturalist,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Bruce Wright writing about this, it was picked up by
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: another scientist, a conservationist named Roger carus Or Karris, who
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: wrote a book a couple of years later called Dangerous
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to Man. And even in his account of the Ramriy
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Island massacre he says, like, if this had come from
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: somebody else, I would not be recounting it here. But
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: not only is Bruce Wright like very respected and a
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: trustworthy fellow, he was on Ramory Island when this happened.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: So it happened.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But here's the deal, and I said he detailed it,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Right did in his book. It wasn't that detailed. It
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: was only a paragraph, so it wasn't super robust. I
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: think the more robust account came from Karris's book. But
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: here's the deal is that Right was at Ramriy, but
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: he did not witness this happen. He apparently, we found
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: out later, had picked up on this story second hand
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: from some of his We said that he was, you know,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: working with the British military, from some of those British
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: soldiers who are patrolling the island. So he picks up
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: that passage second hand. And in the book, if you
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: read his passage, he never even claims to have personally
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: witnessed it.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, can't touch this, that's right.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: So that's another problem. We should probably talk a little
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: bit about the sea crocodiles though, huh? Or should we
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: take a break?
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I think we should take a break and come back.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: All right, we'll do that, and then she's you're gonna
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: hear so much about sea crocodiles you'll be crazy with it.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, we're back. We're talking about the saltwater crocodile
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Crocodilus porosis poof also known as the esturine. Esturine right, esturine.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: M I just keep saying the same version over and
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: over again.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I know how to say estuary, but esturine. Maybe that
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: is it.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: It's got to be it. Crocodile. There's only one of
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: two crocodile species that will prey on humans. And one
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: reason they prey on humans is because we're basically like
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: a a piece of gum to the compared to their guys.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Sure an amuse bouche.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're big. They can get up to twenty three feet,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: they can weigh a ton. They are, like you said,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: they're pretty aggressive. Like you know, we've done stuff on
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: crocodiles and alligators even they're not super aggressive animals. But
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: these saltwater crocs are pretty territorial, and I think they've
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: done some stats. The most recent I found was twenty
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: fifteen seventy nine fatal saltwater crocodile attacks out of one
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: hundred and eighty in one year in Southeast Asia and
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: coastal India and Oceania.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: So yeah, which is where they live, so basically throughout
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: the world. That's how many people were.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Attacked, Yeah, exactly, But seventy nine fatalities in a year
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: is a lot for you know, talking about eating by crocodile,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: but when you talk about nine hundred men being eate,
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: like eaten overnight, that doesn't sound possible.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And there was a historian named Frank mclenn who
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: wrote a book on the Battle and the Pacific, specifically
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: on or the War in the Pacific is specifically the
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: battles in Burma, and he mentions this crocodile story and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: he says that it quote offends every single canaan of
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: historical verifability.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Every single cannon.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Verifiability. What is going on?
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know. You didn't say battle was specific there,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: so I was kind of proud of.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: You, the Battle of Pisketti. Yeah, So Frank mclenn's onto something.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: He's like, this doesn't even make sense, because seriously, by
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: this time, the story is that nine hundred Japanese soldiers
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: were eaten in a single horrific night in an island
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: off of Burma, in a mangrove swamp, and that the
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: British who were fighting them heard their horrific cries as
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: they perished. And finally, Frank mclan's like, this does not
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: make sense everybody, let's just stop and use our noodles
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: for a second.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the whole thing starts to kind of fall apart.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: First of all, that neither one of the official either
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Japanese or British military records mentioned this at all, so
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: that's a big one. Second of all, they didn't lose
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: nine hundred soldiers there at Ramrey. Apparently there were a
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: couple of investigations and about five hundred of the original
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: one thousand did get out alive. So I went on
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: to five hundred, that would still be too many, And
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: so apparently they did more investigating. They talked to Burmese
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: villagers who were alive during that time. Some of them
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: were actually conscripted by the military of Japan, and they said,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: you know, most of them actually died from disease and
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: dehydration and exposure, and if any were eaten, it may
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: have been like a dozen or so.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Which is still significant. I mean, like, if one hundred
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: and eighty for a year across the world and only
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: seventy nine are killed, a dozen in a couple of
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: weeks is pretty significant. The thing is, it's not like
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: this story is completely without merit. It's just it was
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: so ridiculously embellished that basically everybody's like, this isn't true,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: but there's still Apparently were sounds, terrible sounds coming from
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the Japanese soldiers that the British noticed. But there were
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: a couple of investigations into this. Herpetologist Stephen Platt investigated
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: in a national geographic show called Nazi World War Weird
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: also investigated, and I don't remember which one, but they
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: one of them looked into the British military records for
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: that battle, which again was weeks long, a single night
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: and on one particular night though February eighteenth, nineteen forty five,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: which would coincide with the original story about the crocodile massacre,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the Allies were alerted by cries of Japanese soldiers, but
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: they weren't being attacked by crocodiles. They were drowning by
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: the dozens as they were trying to swim from Ramrie
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Island to the Burmese mainland.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Equally as horrifying. But I also always thought, didn't we
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: even find out for research of drowning as a pretty
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: quiet affair.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, So there were some other things that could have
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: accounted for this one. The British started mowing them down
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: with machine guns as they tried to swim away. That
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: was ultimately what accounted for the massacre at Ramree Island.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: They were also being picked off by sharks and some
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: of them died as their boats were sinking. And if
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: your boat sinking, I'm sure that can probably get a
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: pretty good loud rise out of you.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think the next day at daybreak, there
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: were crocodiles feeding on bodies and they were just obviously
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: there was a lot of you know, crocodile food there
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, so there are a lot more
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: crocodiles in view, and so I think that it sort
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: of helped the story, or at least a legend build.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you take all that information, put it
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: into Bruce Wright, pick them up, shake them for a
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: little bit, turn them upside down, what pours out is
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the Ramrie Island crocodile massacres story.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So there you go, myth busted way to go.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Adam Short stuff out?
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Short stuff is that stuff you should know? Is a
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
• 10:59
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• 11:02
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