The Secret Love Life of Marie Antoinette and More Historic Romance

1. The Sad Fate of “The Queen Bee of Anatahan”

For years, the Anahatan castaways were left to their own devices. From time to time, an airplane would drop leaflets over the island, to tell the marooned Japanese that the war was over and that they should surrender. However, the shipwrecked soldiers and sailors continued to disbelieve the leaflets’ veracity, and thus matters continued for years. Finally, in 1950 Kazuku Higa spotted a US vessel as it passed nearby, raced to the beach, flagged it down, and asked to be taken off the island. It was only then that the authorities learned that the Japanese on Anahatan did not believe that the war was over.

Their families were contacted, and they wrote letters to their kin to assure them that it was no enemy trick and that the war had, indeed, ended years earlier. The letters, along with an official message from the Japanese government, finally did the trick. They surrendered in 1951 and were shipped back to Japan, where their story became a sensation and resulted in numerous books, plays, and movies. The most well-known of the Anatahan castaways, Kazuku Higa, was nicknamed “The Queen Bee of Anahatan Island” by the Japanese press. She found temporary fame as a tropical temptress, sold her story to newspapers, and recounted it to packed theaters. However, after the public lost interest, she fell into prostitution and abject poverty, and eventually died at age of 51 while employed as a garbage collector.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Ashby, Abby, and Jones, Audrey – The Shrigley Abduction (2005)

Atkinson, Kate M. – Abduction: The Story of Ellen Turner (2002)

Barton, Hildor Arnold – Scandinavia in the Revolutionary Era: 1760 – 1815 (1986)

Beyond the Palette – The Barfing Bride

Daily Beast – Marie Antoinette’s Adultery Unmasked by Modern Science

Encyclopedia Britannica – Hans Axel von Fersen

Encyclopedia Britannica – Margaret of Valois, Queen Consort of Navarre

Fersen, Hans Axel – Diary and Correspondence of Count Axel Fersen, Grand Marshal of Sweden, Relating to the Court of France (1902)

Fraser, Antonia – Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001)

Goldstone, Nancy – In the Shadow of the Empress: The Defiant Lives of Maria Theresa, Mother of Marie Antoinette, and Her Daughters (2021)