5. A Japanese Lord of the Flies
In addition to the daily struggle for survival, Anatahan’s demographics resulted in added layers of difficulty, further complicating the castaways’ plight and gradually leading to a Lord of the Flies dynamics. There was only one woman on the island. Unsurprisingly, 30 men stranded for years on a small island that contained only one woman led to problematic interactions, as the men competed for her affections.
The object of their attentions, Kazuko Higa, had arrived on the island with her husband in 1944. Her husband disappeared in mysterious circumstances soon after the castaways washed ashore. So she married a Kikuichiro Higa as protection against the marooned shipwrecks. However, one of the castaways shot and killed her new husband, only to have his own throat slit soon thereafter by yet another aspiring beau.