Case file · Cryptid
Ramree Island crocodiles
During the Battle of Ramree Island, Burma, in February 1945, Japanese soldiers retreating through mangrove swamps were said to have been killed in their hundreds by saltwater crocodiles.
1945 CE · 19.10, 93.85 · status: disputed
The account
The story, based largely on naturalist Bruce Stanley Wright's account, entered the Guinness Book of Records as the worst crocodile attack in history.
The sceptical view
Historians and herpetologists have found little contemporary evidence for mass crocodile deaths; most of the Japanese losses were from fighting, drowning, disease and thirst.