STABBED SIX TIMES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 31, 6 February 1943, Page 5

STABBED SIX TIMES

U.S. RED CROSS WEARER AT NEW GUINEA OUTPOST (0.C.) SYDNEY, January 27. An American soldier, among a batch of sick and wounded returned from New Guinea, said that although he was wearing a Red Cross brassard, he was bayoneted six times by the Japanese. He was attached to a Red Cross Air Station at Buna. He and two companions were attacked at an outpost. "The Japs slipped up on us quietly at night. We had no idea they were there," he said. "They killed one of the men and badly wounded the corporal who was with us. "When they got me on the ground they stabbed me three times in the back, left me, and then came back and stabbed me three more times. "When they'd got all they wanted from our kit, they moved on. Soon afterwards our Red Cross men took us back to the dressing station." Corporal Tim Fisher, of Sydney, said: "I have seen the campaigns in Libya, and went through Greece and Crete, but I have never seen anything to equal the filth left behind by the Japanese when they were driven out of positions. That applied to hutments and places which the Japanese had apparently used as headquarters. They were fouled as I have never seen troops foul places before." Several of the returned men were impressed by the strongholds the Japanese constructed in New Guinea. One Australian declared that section posts had been found where there was no exit whatever and the only possible manner of tackling them was by throwing a grenade through the tiny opening left for the muzzle of a machine-gun.