To say that the ramree island massacre has been profitised on youtube would be an understatement.

However, while this may be expected from ahistorical channels like Simple History, notoriously accurate channels such as Mark Felton Productions have missed key issues with the purported story of a mass crocodile feeding frenzy.

In the early months of 1945, during the pivotal campaign for the reconquest of Burma, British military strategists targeted Ramree Island, situated approximately seventy miles south of Akyab. This strategic initiative was necessitated by the island's seizure by Japanese forces in the early phases of the Burmese campaign in 1942. Ramree Island, extending over a distance of fifty miles, and characterized by its flat topography, was deemed essential for the establishment of airbases to bolster the overarching campaign on the Burmese mainland

The execution of this operation entailed an amphibious assault, which commenced on January twenty first, 1945. The vanguard of this invasion comprised components of the seventy first Indian Infantry Brigade, an amalgam of Indian and British infantry battalions. The landing operation warships, spearheaded by the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth. This naval offensive was further augmented by aerial support from aircraft stationed on HMS Amir and supplemented by bombers and fighters from the Royal Air Force.

This retreat necessitated a perilous journey through an expanse of coastal mangrove swamps, an environment characterized by dense jungle terrain, sodden with wet mud, and rife with venomous snakes, scorpions, spiders, and disease-laden mosquitoes. The arduous passage through this hostile landscape proved daunting, with only an estimated half of the Japanese contingent successfully emerging at its conclusion.

The swamps of Ramree Island were notably inhabited by saltwater crocodiles, colossal in size, commonly measuring seventeen to twenty feet in length and weighing between one thousand and two thousand pounds. These reptiles, distinguished by their aggressive nature and proficiency in ambush predation, posed a significant threat to the beleaguered Japanese troops, particularly to those hampered by wounds or illness.

Encircling the swamp, British forces, many stationed on boats, bore auditory witness to the ensuing events. Reported nocturnal occurrences marked by intermittent gunfire and human distress calls would be used as indicative evidence of predatory encounters with the crocodiles, renowned to be adept nocturnal hunters.

Under this presumtion, the tragic events at Ramree Island are thus documented as one of the most severe instances of crocodilian predation on humans in recorded history, and has found a place in the guinness book of world records.


However, the historical narrative surrounding crocodilian predation during the Ramree Island operation of 1945 has undergone rigorous historiographical scrutiny, leading to a reassessment of earlier accounts that emphasized a high incidence of crocodile attacks. Initial reports, including those by war correspondents and naturalists such as Bruce Wright, propagated a narrative replete with sensationalist descriptions of widespread crocodile predation.

Despite this, subsequent analytical endeavors by historians and herpetologists, notably Steven Platt, have raised significant doubts regarding both the ecological plausibility of a large crocodile population within the mangrove ecosystem and the authenticity of the accounts of mass predation.

Subsequently, in 2016, historian Sam Willis unearthed documentary evidence suggesting that the predominant causes of death among the Japanese soldiers were drowning and gunshot wounds, with crocodiles subsequently scavenging the deceased.

Most of all, there is a single zoological problem. If 'thousands of crocodiles' were involved in the massacre, as in the urban myth, how had these ravening monsters survived before and how were they to survive later? The ecosystem of a mangrove swamp, with an exiguous mammal life, simply would not have permitted the existence of so many saurians before the coming of the Japanese. Animals are not exempt from the laws of overpopulation and starvation.

CREDITS TO:
- - Mutante, Jumping crocodile adelaide river, 2012. [ Ссылка ]
- View of Thun Site River from Ramree Island [ Ссылка ]
- Chindits attached to the 26th Indian Infantry Division preparing a meal beside a temple on Ramree Island, Burma, January 1945 [ Ссылка ].jpg

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