JAP ATROCITIES

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 55, 3 September 1945, Page 5

JAP ATROCITIES

PRISONER-OF-WAR

CAMPS

MEN TREATED LIKE ANIMALS (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright-) NEW YORK, September 1. Further stories of Japanese atrocities in prisoner-of-war camps are related by various correspondents. The Japanese denied prisoners in the Omori camp every common decency and treated them like animals. Super-Fortress ■ prisoners were not allowed to talk. If the Japanese caught them talking, they would club them with rifle butts. Men were kicked and knocked down for smoking, though on rare occasions the Japanese issued cheap Japanese cigarettes. Flyers shot down over Kyushu had. to run the gauntlet of the military and', civilians, who stoned and struck them with clubs. Netherlands prisoners reported that during their three years of internment they saw Japanese officers use prisoners for callous experiments from which few survived. An airman at the Ofuna prison camp stated that they had been clubbed and, stoned by civilians and then knocked into insensibility by sadistic prison Acts of torture continued even after. Japan's defeat. Last winter, prisoners clad only in shorts were ordered into the snow barefoot and forced to| squat with arms over the head. A 1! guard behind the ranks hit arms that sagged with a bamboo rod, while another guard patrolled in front striking with a club knees which bent too far. A naval pilot who was shot down' over Formosa said that, his captors. t:ed his arms and covered him with' his parachute. He heard two shots.] One entered his left shoulder, which? was already full of shrapnel. The second went through the side of hisj chest. Twenty minutes later the guards, made him get up. A Formosan who; thought he was not moving fast enough, struck him in the back with a bayonet. At the hospital, the shrapnel was re-^ moved without an anaesthetic, but he was given glucose and blood plasma.' A Japanese order to those captured on Wake Island decreed the death; penalty for "crimes" such as using, two blankets and being too egotistical.'; A Scottish soldier who^was a prisoner for 44 months said that'after every big;' raid severe beatings were administered to helpless prisoners in retaliation for the damage. Japanese civilians stoned to death.1 an American airman shot down at' Kawasaki. The Japanese women were 1 worse than the men in their treatment of prisoners. SYSTEMATIC STARVATION AND TORTURE. - The existence of a central Japans ese inquisition camp where Allied pri--soners of war were starved and tor-* tured systematically has been revealed, reports the "New York Sun" correspondent- at Yokusaka. Evidence is accumulating of prison deaths -from, beating and lack of medical care. This will be turned over to those responsible for pressing . the charges to be brought against the Japanese war criminals. From prisoners interviewed, it was learned that the camp was operated mainly for captured submarine men. and flyers. They were told that they were special prisoners and would noft be treated as regular prisoners of war, and that the Red Cross would not be notified of their capture. Therefore they would be considered dead or missing. . ■ • Prisoners were taken blindfold to the camps, where groups of 15 were' placed in cells measuring eight by. ten feet. . Some were placed in soli» f tary confinement, and all were tortured and starved in an effort to extort information. There were no sanitary facilities, and the men were forced to live in filth. They were taken from, the cells only when 'interrogated.' This was always accompanied by lashing,, kicks, and slaps. Variations of torture were thumbscrews, the crush-, ing of fingers, or the jabbing of matches under the fingernails. Many men died from torture. Seriously ailing American prisoners at Shinagawa, the only hospital scry- ! ing 8000 prisoners of war in the Tokio area, were guinea pigs for fantastic experiments recalling the sorcery and sadism of the middle ages, declared Drs Mack Gottlieb and Haroldi Kieschner. of New York, after their: release. Dr. Kieschner was forced to manufacture some bizarre drug, solutions of which were used by Japanese physicians for deliberately cruet experimentation which caused the patients unspeakable pain and often death. Dr. Gottlieb said that the number of deaths at Shinagawa was enormous. "We figure that only 7000 soldiers will return alive from 30,000 captured in the United States Far Eastern armies, * he said.