Did the United States have any general policy for burying/disposing of the dead Japanese during the WWII island hopping campaign? It seems that battles such as Guadalcanal that resulted is enormous Japanese deaths on a very small island would be potentially problematic.

What an interesting question! I haven't a clue, but it has always been my impression that armies are responsible for burying their own war dead. This, however, may be logistically impractical under certain circumstances.

Until someone provides more definitive answer, check out these links:

Memories from the Pacific which includes, among other pictures, "Natives burying Japanese dead."

This account recalls"

"A party of about 40 Japanese were discovered sleeping near the 80 milimeter mortar position. They were armed with land mines and dynamite apparently to use on the mortars that had been terrorizing their positions all night. The Japanese were wiped out. There were so many dead Japanese that bulldozers were brought in to bury the corpses in pits."

In my knowdlege of WW11 and watching almost all of the old Movietone news reels, there were no set policy except like Coldfue said, using bulldozers burying the mass amount because of necessity...

Coldfuse: those were some super pictures you posted....

According to that wonderful resource, the St. Louis Public Library, the Quartermaster of the US Army was responsible for burying enemy dead in the South Pacific. As pointed out above, bulldozers were used when possible. Due to the heat and humidity, it was necessary to forego the usual Geneva Convention rules about this, and the dead were buried in mass graves, with the number of dead noted on a marker. Sodium Arsenate was used on the corpses to help prevent the spread of disease.

Sorry this took so long, Vince.