Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying cannibalism is a Japanese trait, but one of the complexities of the Second World War, as you'll see in Bridge Over The River Kwai, is that the British officer frequently quoted the Geneva Convention that Japan had signed but not ratified, and the laws of war, while the Japanese fought according to the samurai warrior code of death being preferable to surrender. As the British Officer said, "But we were ordered to surrender."

A photo I remember from New Guinea was of a Japanese soldier captured by the Australians, lying on a stretcher made from tree limbs and hessian, his shirt removed and his arm in a sling and leg bandaged up with an Australian soldier cradling his head to give him a drink of water from his canteen.

What amazed the Australians was that this Japanese soldier wasn't wounded, but he surrendered because he wanted to live.

As I said, I'm NOT anti-Japanese, but it was something I remembered the man telling me.