MURDER SEQUEL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 251, 23 October 1944, Page 6

MURDER SEQUEL

TARAWA INCIDENT

JAP. COMMANDER'S END

The Prime Minister's declaration that every effort would be made to identify the Jap. war criminals responsible for the massacre of 22 Europeans, including 17 New Zealand prisoners of war, at Tarawa on October 15, 1942, and that they would be punished, fully for their atrocity was unnecessary in one major case at least.; .

. The Jaj. commander of the Imperial Japanese Marines who was responsible for the infamous order under which the murders were carried out "got his" on the second day of the battle of Tarawa in November last. The : story of his end is told by Captain James Forbes, R.N.R., manager of the Devonport Steam Ferry Company, who, on duty as a "roving pilot with the United States Navy," took part in the assault.

16-Inch Shell Hit Him The Jap. commander of the ImB never heard, was killed on the second day of the action," he stated this morning. "I saw his headquarters post, that day—a large concrete command post, 30ft by 15ft, with walls 34in thick. A 16-inch shell from one of the United States warships had gone right through it. "I saw the body of the Jap. commander inside it, and the upper part of his body wasn't pleasant to look at." Captain Forbes, who knew the island settlement' intimately from former experience there, said the commander's command post was on the site of the old Burns, Philp store, adjoining the horn, of the late Captain Isaac Handley, who was so cruelly treated before he was beheaded. The death of the Jap. commander, in these circumstances, was, he considered, "poetic justice." Commenting on the treatment of the European prisoners by the Japs, and the manner of their death, Captain Forbes said that among the Gilbertese any ill-treatment of the head, either in spoken slight or in action, was regarded as the extreme insult of insults. Among the Japanese, too, ill-treatment of. the head was the last indignity. Both these factors, he considered, had bearing on the fact that Handley and others had been beheaded.

Captain Forbes' Part - Captain Forbes took part in the recapture of the Gilberts as the pilot of the frst American ship, a minesweeper, which he took into the lagoon at Tarawa through the Jap/ defences during the early morning' of November 20, 1943. It was thisj mine-sweeper which swept the approaches to the beach before th& landing was made in the 'dawn. Captain Forbes later took part in the action ashore.

It was he who first learned the details of the massacre. While the action was in progress he encoun-

tered a native who was known to him, and inquired what had happened to Captain Handley, who was a personal friend, and who, he knew, had still been at Tarawa when the Japs, invaded the island. The native then told him part of the story. Captain Forbes reported the matter £0 the authorities" and an official inquiry was later made.

For his part in the Tarawa Captain Forbes was given a special? citation in the official records of serl vice of the United States Navyf; Under the signature of the com'! mander of the Fifth American Force I Admiral R. Kelly Turner, it was recorded that the services performed by Captain Forbes had been most valuable, and that his conduct during the action had been courageous and honourable in the highest degree.