‘A long line of such incidents parades before my mind: the story of our Marines firing on unarmed Japanese survivors who swam ashore on the beach at Midway. The accounts of our machine-gunning prisoners on a Hollandia airstrip; of the Australians pushing captured Japanese soldiers out of transport planes which were taking them south over the New Guinea mountains (the Aussies reported them as committing hara-kiri or ‘resisting’‘).

Of the shinbones cut, for letter-openers and pen trays, from newly killed Japanese bodies on Noemfoor; of the young pilot who was ‘going to cream that Jap hospital one of these days.’

American soldiers poking through the mouths of Japanese corpses for gold-filled teeth (the infantry’s favourite occupation). Of Jap heads buried in anthills ‘to get them clean for souvenirs’).

Of bodies bulldozed to the roadside and dumped by the hundreds into shallow, unmarked graves; of pictures of Mussolini and his mistress hung by their feet in an Italian city, to the approval of thousands of Americans who claim to stand for high, civilised ideals.’  ~ The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh. p. 997. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, N.Y. 1970. From the book The All Lies Invasion II (Paperback / Ebook)

Vietnam 173th Airborne Brigade 23 November 1967

Vietnam September 22, 1966.