Ramree is a Myanmar island with beautiful beaches in the Bay of Bengal in Rakhine State.
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background
Ramree Island as one of the many near-land islands in the Bay of Bengal deserves attention because of a little-known incident at the end of World War II:
Ramree currently had a Japanese garrison and a small military airfield with around 1200 occupation soldiers. On February 19, 1945 British and Indian colonial troops had hopelessly encircled the Japanese defenders of the island from the mainland and from the east, leaving only fight to the death, retreat through the mangrove swamps to the sea or Seppuku / Harakiri / ritual suicide remained as alternatives. Already tired of war, the remaining approximately 1000 Japanese decided on the orders of the commanding officer, Colonel Ojihoru, to break through the swamps and brackish water to the beach in small groups during the night. The distance of approx. 16 km turned out to be a horror trip. Those who did not go mad in the swarms of mosquitoes, were stung by poisonous scorpions or bitten by chain vipers, encountered starved saltwater crocodiles that populated the marshland by the hundreds. Indian soldiers who gave up the chase in the swamps reported that there were bloodied events that must have happened in the swamp on the pitch-black tropical night. All night long they had to wait helplessly in the face of the bloodcurdling screams of the Japanese and the loud clapping of the death rolls of the saltwater crocodiles. In the next few days the English captured only 20 dispersed survivors, the only Japanese to survive the crocodile massacre.
In British military history this is called the "Massacre of Ramree". From a zoological point of view, the dangerousness of the saltwater crocodile, which also occurs in more or less large populations in the coastal area of the subcontinent and the Indo-Pacific, is again underlined. At the same time, the Ramree massacre is the most comprehensive deadly crocodile attack on humans in history.
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getting there
Of Thandwe It’s first 45 kilometers on the road towards Mrauk U. The island is now reached via a new road over a series of islands and bridges.
Kyaukpyu also has an airport. Myanma Airways connects the place with Sittwe, Thandwe and Yangon.
