BIG ALLIED CAMPAIGN

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 56, 4 September 1945, Page 7

BIG ALLIED CAMPAIGN

MORE ATROCITY INSTANCES (By Telegraph—Pross Association—Copyright.)

NEW YORK, September 3. While American troops are massing in Japan in preparation for the inarch on Tokio, the Allies are starting a big campaign of operations to locate and remove all prisoners of war. General Mac Arthur, in one of his first acts as commander of Japan, has demanded information regarding all Allied prisoners of war, 60U0 of whom were apparently moved recently from the Tokio area. The Japanese shortly before or immediately after the cessation of hostilities moved prisoners from military targets near which they had been placed in defiance of the repeated Allied protests in an attempt to force the Allies to desist from raiding the targets. The Japanese have been told to see that the prisoners are well fed and clothed and given medical care till ; such responsibility is undertaken by the ■ supreme commander. General Mac Arthur has »also demanded all camp records. As a result of failure by the Japanese to remove the prisoners of war from remote camps in Japan to the central collection points for evacuation, General Mac Arthur has ordered Japanese General Headquarters to provide adequate transport for this purpose immediately. Rescue teams will set out tomorrow for camps in eastern Honshu. Weeks may pass before all the camps are cleared. ' So far only 1500 prisoners have been liberated. A "New York Times" correspondent at Yokohama says that tomorrow will bring the task of rounding up 11,570 prisoners and civilian internees from the camps of Honshu. The Japanese camp administrators are adopting a catch-as-catch-can policy; some are holding the prisoners and others are freeing them to do as they please. Already prisoners who have hitch-hiked more than a day from their camps have entered the Allied lines. It is believed that untold numbers of Allied troops are trudging the roads en route for Yokohama. "WORST PI|AGUE OF ALL." The Japanese till recently looted IlQd Cross supplies of food at the Shinagawa prison camp, said two American doctors, Messrs. Gottlieb and Kieschner, of New York, after their release. They described Shinagawa as the worst plague of all, yet it was a show place which was sometimes inspected by generals. The Japanese previously told the prisoners that there were no Red Cross supplies of food, though there were 20,000 boxes in the camp.

Prisoners, though suffering illnesses, were sent to do manual labour for private firms, including Mitsui. Some were given the "mochsan" treatment, in which burning dried grass was