TRIAL OF FORMER U.S. PRISONER

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27739, 17 August 1955, Page 11

TRIAL OF FORMER U.S. PRISONER

Alleged Murders In Chinese Camp (Rec. 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, Aug. 15. Sergeant James C. Gallagher today denied he murdered three fellow prisopers-of-war in Korea by throwing them out of a hut in freezing weather. Gallagher is being tried by an Army court-martial for the murder of Corporal Donald Thomas Baxter, Corporal John WilUam Jones, and an unnamed soldier. A score of Army witnesses had testified that Gallagher had ciu> ried favour with his Chinese captors and arrogantly dumped the men out of the hut to freeze.

Gallagher admitted that he slapped two of the men and hung one on a barrack-room peg, but he claimed it was for their own good. He denied having turned Baxter out of the hut in which they were living, at any time, but he admitted putting Jones outside, because he wculd not “clean himself up.’’

Gallagher said that he had put Jones on the peg so that he could “exercise his arms and legs without too much exertion on his body.” Jones was recovering from pneumonia at the time. He said he slapped another soldier. Dunn, several times because he would not get up to take his exercise. Dunn died two or three days after the last time he was placed on the peg, Gallagher said. “He just didn’t want to live.”

A fellow prisoner, Robert Chinault, testified for the defence that Gallagher “is a fine guy in my book. He always treated me all right-’* Another defence witness, Roy Story, said Gaßagher did not mistreat anyone. Under questioning, Story said he would not have trusted Gallagher because of his reputation in the camp. A third defence witness, James A. Chisholm, said Gallagher got into a fight with the Chinese in an effort tq prevent them from taking a sick man away from the camp.