After Pearl Harbor, Americans took trophy skulls as they viewed the Japanese as inherently evil and less than human.

By Katie Serena | Checked By John Kuroski
All That's Interesting
Published November 13, 2017
Updated August 8, 2019


American Soldiers With Japanese Skulls

Clockwise from top left: U.S. soldier with the Japanese skull adopted as the “mascot” of Navy Motor Torpedo Boat 341 circa April 1944,
U.S. soldiers boiling a Japanese skull for preservation purposes circa 1944, a Japanese soldier’s severed head hangs from a tree in Burma
circa 1945, a skull adorns a sign at Peleliu in October 1944.
Ralph Crane, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images via Wikimedia