THE VICTORY MARCH

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

THE VICTORY MARCH

Allied. Forces Massing

LONDON, September 3. Allied forces in Japan are massing for the victory march in Tokio. The order for the march will come direct from General Mac Arthur, > who wants to make quite sure that his forces are in sufficient strength to overcome any possible opposition. Men from the Duke of York and King George V will take part.

placed on the lower portions of the body. Two prisoners died from infection after such burns, and "others were scarred for life. A Japanese army doctor admitted that this was done at the order of Colonel Suzuki, commander of all the prisoner-of-war camps in the Tokio area. Dr. Gottlieb said that the Japanese practised tortures that could be traced to strange perversions. One SuperFortress flyer was dragged behind a motor-cycle through the streets of the city and then stripped and tied to a flagpole in the public square and subjected to peculiar torments by a seminude Japanese woman. Nine American survivors from Bataan and Corregidor, who have been released in Japan, told how thirstmaddened prisoners killed one another in fighting over drinking water during the long sea voyage from Manila, says an Associated Press correspondent in Japan. The Japanese told them that only 8000 survived out of 22,000 prisoners in the Philippines. FIGHTS FOR WATER. A sergeant said that he was among 600 troops who were jammed in a hold 40ft square. They had just enough room to sit with their knees below their heads. On many days no water was issued, and the crazed men fought for even one drop. Eight were killed in fighting over water, and 30 others died from different causes.

Formosan guards beat the prisoners continually. If there was any outbreak of noise the guards would pull the prisoners to the deck and make them kneel for hours on a steel cable which bit into the flesh.

The sergeant said that the story of another shipload was famous throughout the prison camps. These prisoners are reported to have been limited to one flask of water for three men every two days. Some slashed their wrists and drank the blood, and killings in fights over water reached hundreds. It is generally believed that 500 survived the journey out of 1500. Another sergeant said. "They tried to make us beasts."