2. Promiscuous Marooned Guys Kept Stabbing Each Other for the Love and Affections of This Femme Fatale
By 1951, there had been twelve murders on Anatahan, in addition to numerous fights, as the men violently vied for the love and affections of the island’s only female. One of Kazuko Higa’s wooers was stabbed with a knife on thirteen separate occasions by jealous rivals, yet returned to his amorous pursuit as soon as he recovered from each failed attempt on his life. In the meantime, elsewhere in the Marianas, American authorities learned of the Japanese on Anatahan after natives from nearby islands informed the US Navy of their presence. However, the small island was off the beaten path, lacked military significance, and the Japanese marooned there posed no threat.
So the castaways were allowed to languish in isolation as the war passed them by and went on to its climactic conclusion elsewhere. After Japan surrendered, authorities remembered the castaways, so printed leaflets were airdropped on Anatahan to inform its denizens that the war was over and direct them to surrender. However, the recipients dismissed the leaflets as propaganda and refused to believe that their government had thrown in the towel. The island was even less important after the war than it had been while the conflict raged, and its inhabitants were just as isolated and harmless to the outside world. So American authorities did not think it was worth the trouble to send in US forces to root them out.
