SHOCKING STORIES OF JAP. ATROCITIES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 83, 9 April 1942, Page 7

SHOCKING STORIES OF JAP. ATROCITIES

IN NEW BRITAIN

Australian Prisoners Done To Death I'.P.A. and British Wireless. Rec. 1 p.m. LONDON, April 8. How the Japanese slaughtered prisoners after their surrender at Gasmata, in New Britain, is told by three Australian soldiers who escaped. They were the only survivors of a party of 10 officers and 50 men captured In a plantation. The prisoners were tied together with their hands behind their backs. Each officer was given a revolver and a bullet and told to commit suicide. The men were taken into the jungle and led away one at a time by Japanese soldiers with fixed bayonets. Two of the survivors escaped into the bush before they were roped to the rest. The third shammed death when he was shot and wounded by the Japanese. Comment in Britain, while expressing horror at such methods of warfare, emphasises the need continually to remember the "evil things against which Britain is fighting," and the Manchester Guardian records that one of the subjects most frequently heard in street conversations In London yesterday, was an American Senator's remark: "It will not be long now before American bombs fall on Tokyo." Enemy Capture Island A message from Port Moresby, capital of Ktew Guinea, states that Lorangau, on Manus, one of the largest of the Admiralty Islands, has been occupied by a small Japanese force. This Is in the Bismarck Archipelago, 350 miles north of Lae and 400 miles west-north-west of Rabaul. It was expected that Manus, which lies on the Japanese sea route to Rabaul, would be taken earlier.

The Japanese Intention in occupying it may be to protect Rabaul, which is of growing Importance to the war in the Pacific, by establishing outposts capable of carrying out wider sea and air reconnaissances and providing a warning for the main bases. Aerodrome installations and everything that might be of use to the enemy at Lorangau were destroyed.