[HN Gopher] When Crocodiles Attack: The Ramree Island Massacre
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When Crocodiles Attack: The Ramree Island Massacre
Author : lifeisstillgood
Score : 38 points
Date : 2025-03-07 16:03 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| rightbyte wrote:
| Seems like a made up story?
| itsanaccount wrote:
| And in England there are people who fight against those who are
| trying to restore the forest, because the island has clearly
| always been rolling hills of soft pasture.
|
| edit: for the inevitable "i dont get it"
| https://www.washington.edu/news/2017/11/15/what-counts-as-na...
| https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/younger-generation-...
|
| There's a reason Man vs Nature is a fundamental literary
| conflict even if we've long since pacified and destroyed the
| land around us.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| Really? That's... strange. How often is that sentiment? Is it
| because of some economic factor I'm not seeing?
| KineticLensman wrote:
| A lot of highlands in the UK support large grouse shooting
| estates and / or sheep farming. They are wildlife deserts
| unless you are the sort of wildlife that supports a vested-
| interests business.
| worthless-trash wrote:
| So, "maybe".
|
| I feel like i'm in a unique position to talk about this. My
| family has been involved in crocodiles in one way or another
| since the 1950's, from a close family being eaten, to working
| in their preservation and tourism.
|
| Crocodiles are definitely a high level predator. Mangrove
| swamps make an ideal breeding and hunting grounds for pubestant
| crocodiles.
|
| Each male crocodile will consider humans (and other animals) a
| challenge to its territory. When they have an opportunity to
| overpower a threat, they will do so and drown their prey and
| stashing the corpse under a log usually under water.
|
| These humans would likely be forced to sleep in the mangroves,
| the British had control of the non mangrove areas forcing them
| directly into the territory of the crocodiles, the humans in
| the dark and asleep would EASILY be taken and drowned.
|
| My uncle (deceased last year) tells me of the time when my
| family friend was taken by a local crocodile. She was knee deep
| in the water, splashing herself with the water on a hot new
| years night, the other party goers around heard a splash and
| not even a chance of a scream. Imagine this when you are 500
| strong, in a thick area of crocodiles with mangrove swamp
| blocking noise.
|
| I can't bring myself to watch narration on the story but (
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s4lrLtMjwA ) is supposed to be
| pretty accurate. Its possible that I'm doxing myself and a
| clever person maybe can figure out my family from this.
|
| This is one crocodile, with a territory size of about 200m.
| Imagine this across an mangrove area of the island, while you
| are hunted, tired and can't hear your team.
|
| The worse part is, the japanese soldiers probably were not
| aware of the existence and the the sheer number of crocodiles
| in Ramree, it is a recipe for disaster. If the crocodiles
| didn't kill them, the bites and infections from them likely
| would.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s4lrLtMjwA ) is supposed
| to be pretty accurate
|
| There is a good point in a comment there - at the time
| crocodiles were not expected:
|
| """
|
| @thebackwardpointinggodwit8080 1 year ago
|
| To all those people saying how could someone swim in waters
| with all those crocs around? Well the bit this account misses
| is that for many years crocs had been hunted to near
| extinction in that area and right across the north of
| Australia. Croc attack had become just a distant possibility
| in the most remote of locations. Then croc hunting was
| outlawed in the 70s and croc numbers recovered quickly and
| their distribution moved southwards to include places like
| the Daintree over the next decade or so. No-one really
| expected to see big crocs in the Daintree in the early 80s
| and what these people did was normal and considered not
| dangerous at the time. I was in Australia at the time and I
| remember when that attack happened - it didn't seem possible.
| I and most people thought it was much more likely that she
| simply drowned or disappeared - or maybe some foul-play had
| occurred and people were covering it up - but we were very
| skeptical that it was a croc. Now crocs are common right
| across the north of Australia and sadly attacks keep
| happening, but Beryl Wruck just had the misfortune to be the
| first person to find out the hard way that things had changed
| and what everyone considered safe no longer was.
|
| """
| klipt wrote:
| > Then croc hunting was outlawed in the 70s and croc
| numbers recovered quickly and their distribution moved
| southwards to include places like the Daintree over the
| next decade or so.
|
| So it was a policy choice to increase safety for crocodiles
| while decreasing safety for humans.
|
| Humans are entirely capable of eradicating crocodile
| attacks, we just choose not to.
| pookha wrote:
| Find it interesting when human governance systems develop
| clear psychopathic behaviors. Wild animals -- like salt-
| water crocodiles -- are their own version of a system and
| any system with nothing that kicks back against it will
| expand to fill the known universe as long as there's
| positive inputs. The idea that you'd allow a tier-one
| apex predator -- that can average 17 feet in length -- to
| explode and grow to these numbers and risk the lives of
| countless people and wildlife is a form of nihilism.
| You're saying we as humans are less important than a
| prehistoric reptile that lives off rotting flesh.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| > Humans are entirely capable of eradicating crocodile
| attacks, we just choose not to.
|
| Why would you do that. They have been here millions of
| years before us. Leave them alone?
| burnished wrote:
| Probably unwise to try and completely pacify the entire
| planet.
| klipt wrote:
| Possibly. It's interesting to consider that we've already
| pacified our major predators in other parts of the world.
|
| Think of how many stories warn children about the "big
| bad wolf" vs how many wolf deaths have you ever heard of?
|
| The stories might be a legacy of times past before we
| killed off most of the wolves near us.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > So, "maybe".
|
| Ye I guess it is plausible but dunno if there would be enough
| crocodiles.
|
| War stories like these are often just made up for propaganda
| or jingoist gossip purposes.
|
| Like, Wikipedia references a source saying the "crocodile
| massacre" didn't happen.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ramree_Island
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Confirmed, even though there was a _lot_ of research going
| nowhere... "
|
| According to Hickey (1998), "the Japanese were forced into one
| corner of the island where, among the crocodile-infested
| swamps, most of them died from poor internet reception. most of
| them died from drowning, disease or starvation. Only 20
| surrendered."
| whycome wrote:
| Reported in papers at home. Maybe this was one of the seeds that
| led to Godzilla.
| thrwwy001 wrote:
| Neither this fanciful story nor the crocodiles had anything to
| do with gozilla. Godzilla ( gojira in japanese ) is a result of
| joining two japanese words - gorira ( gorilla ) and kujira (
| whale ). The impetus for the creation of godzilla were the
| genocidal firebombings and nukings of japanese cities. Godzilla
| represented america ( a barbaric nuclear monster that destroyed
| japanese cities without morals or remorse ). It was created as
| anti-america and anti-occupation propaganda in post-war japan
| but has since been co-opted or "appriopriated" by hollywood and
| turned into a generic and farcical monster trope.
|
| We know what godzilla was about because the creators have told
| us so. Also, it's rather obvious given the context and the
| environment in which godzilla was created.
| whycome wrote:
| It was a thought and that's why I said "one of the seeds". I
| guess there's such a thing as a "cultural zeitgeist" and when
| artists are creating stories and narratives they incorporate
| metaphors from things around them. They may not have
| explicitly read the newspaper article and said "giant lizards
| are a good bad guy" but that representation may have been
| culturally apt at the moment due to this story.
|
| The creature design had to elicit fear and the actual
| representation on film may have been influenced by it. The
| stance may be more t-Rex than crocodile and I'm really not
| sure "whale" factored into the final appearance on film.
|
| No one is questioning the impetus and relation to the fire
| bombings and nukes.
|
| > We know what godzilla was about because the creators have
| told us so.
|
| That's the funny thing about culture and creation: a creator
| doesn't always know their sources or have definite aspects to
| point to. Creation is a bit fuzzy. ;) (the same applies for
| LLMs!)
| euroderf wrote:
| > Godzilla represented america ( a barbaric nuclear monster
| that destroyed japanese cities without morals or remorse ).
|
| As I've understood it (for decades), Godzilla represented
| nukes themselves.
| keepamovin wrote:
| My grandfather in his youth in Queensland worked for a while
| hunting crocodiles, to sell the pelts.
|
| A dog would be tied to a tree down by the river. The men would
| camp nearby. The dog would be heard barking, and men, armed with
| ropes, would pounce on the crocodile and circle its jaws with
| rope. Then tie it up and eventually shoot it so it could be
| skinned. The dog would most often survive. The crocs in those
| parts apparently loved dogs, and would come a way from the river
| to find them.
|
| The ropes on jaws worked, as Bite force strong down, not so much
| up.
|
| My grandfather would often remind me: you cannot outrun a croc on
| land.
|
| This story is from the 20s and 30s, last century. My
| grandfather's beautiful old house in Queensland, which his family
| sold sans sentiment, had a full crocodile pelt rug on the floor,
| among many other marvels.
|
| I treasure many memories in my youth in that house of those
| marvels.
| klipt wrote:
| > crocodile pelt rug
|
| That doesn't sound very comfortable to sit on or even step on,
| compared to a furry mammal pelt. Was it just decorative?
| keepamovin wrote:
| It was actually really comfortable. It's very smooth and
| shiny, and mostly flat. Shrug
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > you cannot outrun a croc on land
|
| SERPENTINE!!1!
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Absolute b*lls of steel. I would not even think of being within
| of 150 ft of an crocodiles. They are very fast and very deadly.
| Mainan_Tagonist wrote:
| This reminds me of a early chapter in Cryptonomicon by Neal
| Stephenson, where Shaftoe gets to meet Enoch (Red) Root.
| massinstall wrote:
| Yes! Makes me happy to see someone else notice this. :)
|
| I was thinking that this event might have been the inspiration
| for that part of the book?
| dwighttk wrote:
| "A dubious distinction for a horrible event, no matter the real
| numbers"
|
| Not sure what's dubious about it...
| happyopossum wrote:
| > Not sure what's dubious about it...
|
| A dubious distinction is one that is doubtful or possibly
| untrue. Given the lack of hard data, the aporcryphal nature of
| the stories, and the fog of war etc, dubious seems like a
| perfectly cromulent word to use here.
| quesera wrote:
| That's not correct.
|
| A "dubious distinction" is a distinction which is
| undesirable.
|
| _West Virginia has the dubious distinction of being the US
| state with the lowest average educational achievement._
| 00N8 wrote:
| IMO both usages are correct, although yours is probably
| more common. 'Dubious' here means something like
| questionable/uncertain & it can apply either way: The
| distinction can be 'questionable' in terms of whether it's
| something to be proud of, or in terms of whether it's even
| true in the first place.
| quesera wrote:
| The phrase "dubious distinction" only means one thing
| though.
|
| If you parse the words separately, the other meaning is
| _literally correct_ , but will not match the speaker's
| intent.
| callumprentice wrote:
| Crocodiles are scary. I remember reading a short story as a young
| man where a heart surgeon discovered crocs had over centuries,
| developed a chronic cardiac condition that left them
| comparatively sluggish and 'weak. He kept operating on them,
| fixing the problems until a few survived the surgery. As they
| recovered and grew bigger and stronger, they developed
| protuberances on their shoulders and a hard pointy plate at the
| end of their tail. You can see what's coming - they eventually
| turned into dragons.. They story was told in retrospective, from
| the safety of underground caves where what was left of humanity
| lived now..
|
| Always crossed my mind when I see one :)
| wincy wrote:
| I read that same story! The day of the dragon by Guy Endore
|
| https://www.scribd.com/document/437548811/Day-of-the-Dragon
| callumprentice wrote:
| Oh wow - thank you. I can't wait to re-read it.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I used to live in Uganda.
|
| We took a trip to (what, at the time was called) Murchison Falls.
| That's a big waterfall on the Nile River. We came at it from the
| north, so we were at the base of the falls.
|
| The pond at the bottom has sandbar islands all around, and they
| are _covered_ with monster Nile crocs, which are damn near as big
| as salties.
|
| Scary beasts, and _fast_.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| "The largest Nile crocodile ever recorded was 21 ft 2 in (6.45
| m) long and weighed 2,300-2,400 lb (1,043-1,089 kg)."
|
| "Gustave is a legendary Nile crocodile from Burundi, reputed to
| be one of the largest and most fearsome of his kind to-date, He
| has been stated to have killed about over 300+ people for over
| a few decades, he is known for his strength, adaptation, and
| intelligence, he has never been captured for all this time, and
| he still resides in either the Ruzizi River and Lake
| Tanganyika, in Burundi, Africa. "
| reddit_clone wrote:
| 300+ probably _known_. Who knows what is the real count?
|
| I know I will never be killed by a crocodile bite. I will die
| of fright before it reaches me.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| They're pretty good at sneaking up on you.
|
| They generally kill you by pulling you under, and drowning
| you.
|
| Then, they let you rot, and gobble up the chunks, as they
| fall off.
|
| The _really_ dangerous African river beasts, though, are
| hippos. Even the crocs leave them alone.
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| I've seen (unwisely) horrific videos of whole humans being
| digested inside dead crocodiles. The saltwater crocodile is a
| literal monster.
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