Human Trophies: The War Crime America Wants You to Forget* Disturbing Historical Content @ADayInHistoryOfficial

Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago

Imagine warriors marching into battle wearing necklaces of human ears. Teeth being pulled out of fresh corpses as souvenirs. Men boiling the flesh off the severed heads of their enemies so they can keep the skulls as trophies. You’re probably imagining a clan of ancient barbarians fighting Rome, or an obscure tribe deep in the Amazon jungle. In fact, this was the behaviour of the United States of America in the Second World War.

Throughout the Pacific campaign against the Japanese, American troops developed a reputation for gruesome trophy hunting. Countless bodies were desecrated by American soldiers who took pieces of their fallen enemies home as war trophies. Every soldier knew it happened, and almost everyone back in America knew too, but the truth was quickly buried after the war ended. The fact that American troops dismembered corpses didn’t fit into the neat narrative of heroic America marching off to save the world from the evil Japanese Empire.

Today on A Day In History, we’ll show you the gruesome truth about American trophy-hunting in the Second World War. Why did they do it? How? Keep watching to find out.

#ww2 #humantrophies #historydocumentary

Sources:
James J. Weingartner, ‘Trophies of War: U.S. Troops and the Mutilation of Japanese War Dead, 1941-1945’, Pacific Historical Review, 61.1, (1992)

John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War, (1986)

Paul Fussell, Thank God For The Atom Bomb, And Other Essays, (1988)

Simon Harrison, ‘Skull Trophies of the Pacific War: Transgressive Objects of Remembrance’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 12.4, (2006)

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