When US troops found Japanese field hospitals, they discovered that doctors had killed the wounded. On May 30, only 28 of the roughly 1,400 Japanese in the area the day before were still alive.
"Some of them had grenades wrapped around their heads, so they could pull the pin and kill themselves, and at the same time, I get nervous talking about it," Allan Seroll, a member of the Army Signal Corps on Attu, told KTVA. "They wanted to kill as many Americans as they could."
"There were medics out there trying to help the wounded, the wounded were worthless to the fight, yet, the Japs ran up to them and killed them and the medics with their bayonets," he said. "Just ridiculous, and I'll never forgive them for that. It was unnecessary."
Surrender was considered dishonorable by the Japanese. Attu saw the first official case of "gyokusai," a Japanese euphemism for annihilation or mass suicide in the name of Emperor Hirohito.
Source: Associated Press, National Park Service