Hara-Kiri in Admiralties

3-27-1944

Hara-Kiri is the common term for what is also called sepeku, ritual suicide. The person takes a tanto, a short blade, and plunges it into their abdomen; then their second takes a regular long sword and takes their head off. Non-ritualitstic forms included things like Japanese holding grenades against their abdomen and then setting them off.

MacArthur's forces land on Los Negros. The newsreel actually refers to the grenade form of suicide and notes that a lot of the Japanese chose that method rather than surrender on the island.

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