TWO MONTHS IN CAVE
INHUMAN TREATMENT
N.Z. AIRMAN RESCUED
(FUN.Z.A.F. Official War Correspondent.) BOUGAINVILLE, September 10. Imprisonment-in a small, black cave for two months with no one to talk to and no medical attention was the lot of the only New Zealand prisoner of war to come out of Rabaul. He is Warrant Officer Ronald Charles Warren, an R.N.Z.A.F. fighter pilot, of Christchurch. who crashed on operations over Ulu Island, Duke of York group, on June 31, 1945, and was subsequently classified ns missing, believed killed in action.
It is a miracle that Warrant Officer Warren survived the inhuman treatment he was given by the Japanese, especially as he had. a broken leg which he had to splint himself with the-help of two natives who had been instructed by the Japs to guard him. Only when the Japs wanted to interrogate him was he dragged out through a small iron-barred door. At times he was left alone for 10 days at T S tl*G t ctl When he was dragged through the door of his cay door only two feet high and 18 inches wide —his leg caused him excruciating agony. Sometimes during these interrogations bombers would . come over, and as soon as they heard the bombs coming down, the Japs would dive into his . cave and leave him outside. ! Warren did not know one day from another. Time just went past in the miserable blackness of his prison. One day was as black as another day, and day was as.black as night. He tried to keep a calendar, but had to give it up as hopeless. "You see," he said, "I did not even know the day on which I crashed. My Corsair dived between two palm trees, and I was thrown from the cockpit and knocked unconscious. I remembered no more until I woke up in Jap hands." The utter, loneliness nearly drove him mad, Warren said. Sometimes, to relieve his feelings, he would start to sing at the top of his voice. "The Japs seemed to think I was singing because I was happy," he commented. The two natives guarding him could speak Pidgin English, but the Japs had ordered them not to talk, so that they did nothing to relieve his loneliness. They brought him half a pint of water a day and rice three times a day. Though he refused consistently to answer questions, the Japs at Rabaul did not strike him. In the barge on the way from the Duke of York Islands, however, he was slapped fiercely on the face by two Jap privates for no apparent reason. The barge crept down to Rabaul in the dead of night because the Jips feared attack by aircraft.
Warren could not obtain much information from his captors. At one time they told him there were 5000 New Zealand prisoners "up on the hill," but later they said that he was the only white prisoner in the area. Even after he heard that peace was declared —about August 18—he was still told that he was the only prisoner. Ultimately some Japs came along and told him they were taking him to a house where he had some friends. He was taken to meet six Americans and one Australian, all prisoners of war. Two of the Americans, particularly, were pitiful sights. One had weighed 220 pounds, and his weight then was 105 pounds. He was a tall man—6ft 2in in height—and his condition was appalling.
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 63, 12 September 1945, Page 8
Word Count
578TWO MONTHS IN CAVE Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 63, 12 September 1945, Page 8
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