BEGINNING SOON

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 306, 25 September 1945, Page 7

BEGINNING SOON

Japanese War Guilt Trials THREE CATEGORIES (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.— Copyright.) (Received September 24, 10.45 p.m.) TOKIO, September 24. General MacArthur has announced that war guilt trials by a military tribunal are beginning soon. This is interpreted as meaning that some trials will begin in October and that the first may be started within a week. The preliminary plans call for dividing defendants into three classes, first, those who planned the war, such as General Tojo, Prime Minister at the time of Pearl Harbour, and members of his Cabinet; secondly, officers who permitted brutalities, such as General Hommu [who is held responsible for the Bataan death march]; and, thirdly, soldiers and civilians who committed atrocities. Military tribunals, instead of regular courts martial will be used because they have wider powers and more latitude. General MacArthur will probably appoint the tribunals, which will include members of the other United Nations. Sessions will bo held where possible in the areas where the crimes were committed.

ARRESTS BEING MADE Japanese Responsible For

Atrocities

(Received September 24, 7 p.m.) CANBERRA, September 24. There need be no fear that the Japanese war criminals would escape justice -because of lack of machinery for their detection and arrest stated the Minister of the Army, Mr. Forde. “General Blarney assures he, he said, “that all the commanding officers in the islands are carrying out his instructions to apprehend all Japanese responsible for atrocities.” Mr. Forde revealed that the Australian Army is holding more than 250,000 Japanese in the south-west Pacific. “It is wrong to assume that the Australian Army in the islands is handling the Japanese with kid gloves,” he said. “It can be taken for granted that the men whose business has been to kill them and who since the end of the war have seen the plight of their comrades who fell into Japanese hands are not going to handle them with kid gloves now.”

WIRED AGAINST CELL BARS

Torture Of U.S. Airmen

(Received September 24, 11 p.m.) TOKIO, September 24,

The Japanese Government has banded over unis containing the ashes of at least 2(100 Allied prisoners of war who died during imprisonment in Shanghai.

An American Army _mission which assisted in liberating 1278 British, American and Dutch prisoners of war in Formosa. reported that most of the American flyers shot down over the island were killed immediately, but 11 were spared so they could be questioned and tortured. The men were wired against their cell bars for three months while the Japanese humiliated them in every way they could think of. The men were held in a civil jail and were not even listed as prisoners of war.. Most of the others liberated were taken to Formosa from the Philippines, Hong Kong, and the Netherlands East Indies. Hundreds were forced to work in a mine near Kagi from early morning till after dark and consequently for two years they never saw daylight. Many of the men’s eyes were affected. All suffered from malnutrition and beriberi as a result of a ration of 250 grammes of rice 'and one cup of water daily.

Singapore radio announced that the British arrested the whole of the Japanese secret police at Kuala Lumpur in a raid on the Kempei Tai headquarters. Those arrested include the police commander, who is high on the list of war criminals.

A number of liberated Allied officers are trying to intercede on behalf of their former Japanese jailer, Captain Takahashi, late commandant of the Changi prison, who is at present in British custody, says Reuters’ Singapore correspondent. One army lieutenant, in a letter to the forces newspaper “Seac,” described him as “not a bad Nip.” Other officers who were in the Changi jail spoke favourably of him and declared that he did not commit atrocities and never ordered, prisoners of war to be beaten, and punished guards for any reported cruelty. AMELIA EARHART Not In Japanese Hands, Says Tokio (Received September 24, 7 p.m.) TOKIO, September 23. A Japanese naval spokesman denied the recurring rumours that Amelia Earhart Putnam is a Japanese prisoner. He added that a thorough check of the Home Ministry and Foreign Oflioe and other authorities showed no basis for believing Mrs. Putnam and her navigator, Fred Noonan, are still alive. [Amelia Earhart Putnam, better known as Amelia Earhart, was reported missing on a round-the-world flight on July i, 1937, when her plane failed to arrive at Hawaii from New Guinea. The last message from the plane was that fuel was exhausted, and it is believed to have come down near Howland Island, to the east of the then Japanese-man-dated Caroline Group. When her husband, Major G. P. Putnam, passed through the port of Wellington in an American troopship early last November, he said there was no foundation for reports that she was on a secret mission in the flight, and he took no stock of stories that she had been seized by the Japanese on that ground.]