Japanese Canibals

I collect memoirs of wartime experiences. Usually WWII and from both sides. Last night I read an account by a Japanese officer in what is now New Guinea. I am not easily shocked, I have read casual accounts of mass murder and pointless killing but this shocked me deeply. I knew from my Father in Law's stories that the Japanese were so hungry they were eating our dead, but this Japanese officer told of how he found some of his men cooking the leg muscles of one of their dying comrades while he was still alive and conscious. They were apologising to him while they were sawing at his leg with their bayonets. How uncivilized do you have to be before this becomes an option? Can you imagine this being something you would consider?