Exact data on attacks are limited outside Australia, where one or two fatal attacks are reported per year. From 1971 to 2013, the total number of fatalities reported in Australia due to saltwater crocodile attack was 106. The low level of attacks may be due to extensive efforts by wildlife officials in Australia to post crocodile warning signs at numerous at-risk billabongs, rivers, lakes and beaches. Less-publicised attacks have been reported in Borneo, Sumatra, Eastern India (Andaman Islands), and Burma. In Sarawak, Borneo, the average number of fatal attacks is reportedly 2.8 annually for the years from 2000 to 2003. In the Northern Territory in Australia, attempts have been made to relocate saltwater crocodiles who have displayed aggressive behaviour towards humans but these have proven ineffective as the problem crocodiles are apparently able to find their way back towards their original territories. In the Darwin area from 2007–2009, 67–78% of "problem crocodiles" were identified as males.Many attacks in areas outside Australia are believed to go unreported, with one study positing up to 20 to 30 attacks occur every year. This number may be conservative in light of several areas where humans and saltwater crocodiles co-exist in relatively undeveloped, low-economy and rural regions, where attacks are likely to go unreported. However, claims in the past that saltwater crocodiles are responsible for thousands of human fatalities annually are likely to have been exaggerations and were probably falsified to benefit leather companies, hunting organizations and other sources which may have benefited from maximizing the negative perception of crocodiles for financial gain. Although it does not pay to underestimate such a formidable predator, one that has no reason to not view humans as prey, many wild saltwater crocodiles are normally quite wary of humans and will go out of their way to submerge and swim away from them, even large adult males, if previously subject to harassment or persecution. Some attacks on humans appear to be territorial rather than predatory in nature, with crocodiles over two years in age often attacking anything that comes into their area (including boats). Humans can usually escape alive from such encounters, which comprise about half of all attacks. Non-fatal attacks usually involve crocodiles of 3 m (9 ft 10 in) or less in length. Fatal attacks, more likely to be predatory in motivation, commonly involve larger crocodiles with an average estimated size of 4.3 m (14 ft 1 in). Under normal circumstances, Nile crocodiles are believed to be responsible for a considerably greater number of fatal attacks on humans than saltwater crocodiles, but this may have more to do with the fact that many people in Africa tend to rely on riparian areas for their livelihood, which is less prevalent in most of Asia and certainly less so in Australia. In the Andaman Islands, the number of fatal attacks on humans has reportedly increased, the reason inferred due to habitat destruction and reduction of natural prey.During the Japanese retreat in the Battle of Ramree Island on 19 February 1945, saltwater crocodiles may have been responsible for the deaths of over 400 Japanese soldiers. British soldiers encircled the swampland through which the Japanese were retreating, condemning the Japanese to a night in the mangroves, which were home to thousands of saltwater crocodiles. Many Japanese soldiers did not survive this night, but their death mainly as a result of crocodile attacks has been doubted. Another reported mass attack reportedly involve a cruise in eastern India where a boat accident forced 28 people into the water where they were reportedly consumed by saltwater crocodiles. Another notorious crocodile attack was in 1985, on ecofeminist Val Plumwood, who survived the attack.In July 2018, a 600-strong mob slaughtered 292 saltwater and New Guinea crocodiles in Papua province in Indonesia in a revenge attack after a man wh

Question: Who was retreating as the British soldiers surrounded them?
Answer: Japanese