PRISONERS APPRISED

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 60, 8 September 1945, Page 7

PRISONERS APPRISED

IMPROVISED RADIO SETS

(By To/egraph—Press Association—Copyright.) Rec. 12.15 p.m. LONDON, Sept. 7.

The Allied prisoners of war in the Japanese camps at Singapore had the news of Japan's surrender before the Japanese civilians, says the Singapore correspondent of "The Times."

The prisoners in the Singapore camps, as in Europe, despite seeming impossibility, had short-wave receiving sets, and listened to Melbourne, London, Delhi, and San Francisco. At one time there were five sets operating, but there was only one during the past year. This was built into the back beam of a bunk and was operated by two members of the R.A.F. A clothes line, always hung with clothes, provided the aerial, and electricity was diverted from the camp electric clock, the chief function of which was not to tell the time. Stethoscopes were used for earphones, and four small screw-drivers were inserted to work the controls inside the wooden beam. There was a carefully organised system of news distribution. Five ships are expected to leave on Sunday with prisoners of war and internees freed from the hardships and cruelties of the Singapore camps. ATROCITY DOSSIERS. Formal investigation of war crimes against prisoners has been launched with the appointment of an "atrocity officer" and assistants to visit each camp. A Singapore message says that the administrative personnel among newly liberated prisoners of war are completing exhaustive dossiers on Japanese cruelties and atrocities which may form the basis for prosecutions. Released prisoners of war who travelled by train from Kobe to Yokohama sang every song they knew— except- one. The exception was "Roll Out the Barrel." It had too gruesome a memory for them. An English officer explained that many prisoners failed to survive the first' winter in Kobe. Under orders from the Japanese commander, Colonel Murata, it was the custom to roll bodiesin barrels to the crematorium. "There is not a man here who could hear 'Roll Out the Barrel' again and not shuddef; we sang it so often as a funeral dirge," he said. About 50 men who were suffering from malnutrition, pneumonia, and tuberculosis were carried on to the train in litters. The rest marched proudly on with colours flying. Some wept and others sang and shouted like happy children.