HOPE GIVEN UP

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 67, 20 March 1943, Page 5

HOPE GIVEN UP

JAPANESE PRISONERS

DISGUST AND DESPAIR

This article, by a "New York Times" correspondent on Guadalcanal, describes the surrender of a group of Japanese. The leader of the party^said the men were in a hopeless position and disgusted with the unfulfilled-pro-mises of their officers. He added that Japan was soundly beaten in the south-eastern Solomons.

A group of shabby Japanese, arms raised in surrender, walked towards the American lines. Leading the way was Private Okiyoshi Hasamoto, 23----year-old veteran of the Japanese campaigns in China, Borneo, and the Philippines. . „„„„ For almost the first time m 1000 years Japanese soldiers were violating the warrior code of their country and giving themselves up in battle. Private Hasamoto was hungry and tired and his nerves were threadbare from incessant American shelling and aerial bombing. But this was not any group of raw recruits, shaken by their first experience under fire, that he was leading up to the lines to surrender. These men were members of the 224 th Japanese Regiment, one of Japans crack outfits, which had'been cited by the Emperor for its work in the Malayan campaign. . They had been defeated by words as well as bullets. The Americans know a few tricks about psychological warfare, too, and for several days loud speakers had been blaring up at the front calling on the hungry, tired Japanese to surrender. American planes had been flying back and forth across the Japanese lines, dropping leaflets printed in Japanese and advising the enemy troops to give up or face death from steel or starvation. An interpreter walked up to Private Hasamoto, and. there was some rapid conversation. He and his fellow-soldiers had not eaten for five days. They received liberal portions of cooked rice. They also got American clothes to replace their rags. Hasamoto earned himself with military bearing and apologised for his appearance when he was photographed. . Then he began to talk, waving his arms excitedly as he explained to the interpreter his momentous decision^o surrender. The heavy shelling, the lack of reinforcements that officers had promised, the shortage of food—all these made further resistance unbearable, he said. , "Finally my feelings as a true Japanese soldier disappeared, he added. "I was despondent and beyond hope. I was resigned to death, whicn seemed inevitable, and I had nothing to lose by surrendering. "My actions were prompted primarily by thoughts of hot food, tobacco, and relief from the unending shelling. Our officers promised us shiploads of reinforcements, hundreds of planes that would drive the Americans out, of the sky, and an abundance of food. "Many of our officers were killed and our units were shot to pieces. Out of one 200-man unit only 26 are left. Another had only 30 effectives left out of 200. We never had artillery support and only about one-sixth of the artillery that we were supposed to have ever was landed. The rest must have been sunk on the way. "I Will never return to Japan, Hasamotp said. "I am disgraced because I surrendered. When the war is over I hope to go to America, learn to speak English, and then . build houses. Japan is beaten herein the South-eastern Solomons. I do n«t knowabout the rest of the war, but here Japan is beaten."