Massacre by Allies in Java alleged

Press, 9 July 1986, Page 30

Massacre by Allies in Java alleged

NZPA-AFP Hong Kong A rag-tag band of Allied servicemen slaughtered entire Javanese villages as they fled the Japanese invaders of the island in 1942, a Hong Kong newspaper has reported. A World War H veteran, Ellis Davies, who was then aged 19 and commander of the 16-man crew of a British naval launch, told the South < China Morning Post in an interview that his band had killed every Javanese old enough to speak whom they suspected to be pro-Japanese, in order to avoid being caught by Japanese troops. Davies said the British sailors had been sent inland to fight the Japanese in Bandung in central Java. But they were surrounded and had to strike I east to escape. > During their flve-month i flight the crew was joined < by individuals who had I refused to surrender and I small groups of soldiers who had lost their units, i and the band grew until it i was some 80-strong, i

comprising Australians, British, Dutch, New Zealanders and South Africans. On their way they killed Javanese villagers who were likely to turn them over to the Japanese because of their resentment of the Dutch, who then ruled what is now Indonesia, Davies said. “It was kill or be killed, so we killed,” he was quoted as saying. “If they (the Javanese) weren’t for us, they were against us,” he said. “We had no compunction. Unless we got full co-operation, they died." Asked how many villagers they had killed, he replied, “I wasn’t counting.” The massacre never previously came to light because the survivors of the band did not mention the killings when they recounted their escape story to the military authorities, he told the newspaper. Davies, now a businessman in Hong Kong, could not be reached for comment.