16. Life on Anatahan Turns Into ‘Lord of the Flies’
Anatahan’s demographics further complicated the castaways’ plight, and produced Lord of the Flies dynamics. Unsurprisingly, 30 men stranded for years on a small island that contained only one woman led to trouble, as the men competed for her affections. The woman, Kazuko Higa, had arrived on Anatahan with her husband in 1944, but he disappeared in mysterious circumstances soon after the castaways washed ashore. So she married a Kikuichiro Higa as protection against his comrades. However, a castaway shot and killed her new husband, only to have his own throat slit soon thereafter by another aspiring beau.