FROM FAR EAST

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 85, 8 October 1945, Page 6

FROM FAR EAST

SICK PEOPLE ARRIVE

TRIBUTE TO HOSPITAL SHIP

With many of her patients still very ill from the privations they had suffered, the New Zealand hospital ship Maunganui reached Wellington this morning five weeks out from Hong Kong carrying civilians and men from a variety of British services from Japanese prison camps at Hong Kong and along the China coast.

At Wellington 100 hospital cases were taken to the Hutt Hospital, and 50 go to Palmerston North. 200 to Burnham Hospital, and 12 to Cashmere. Without exception, the passengers were lavish in their praise of the attention and treatment they had received on the ship, comparing the kindliness of the staff and the sufficiency of the food with the grim details of treatment and rations at the hands of the Japanese. Many of them .had subscribed to the cost of a memorial plaque which they hope will be placed on the Maunganui or her successor recording their appreciation. Addressed to the officer commanding the staff of the ship, LieutenantColonel F. O. Bennett, the letter accompanying the gift of £47 for the cost of the plaque says: "We the undersigned, on behalf of the patients from Hong Kong. Japan, and Formosa, wish to convey to you and all officers, matron, sisters, nurses, and other ranks serving under you, our feelings of deep appreciation and gratitude for all the skill, patience, kindness, and courtesy which have at all times been shown to us during this voyage. So far as we are aware nothing has been left undone which would have added in any material way to our comfort and pleasure, which it was in your power -to perform. We would be grateful if you would convey to Captain Prosser our thanks to him. his officers. ?nd all members of the ship's company for their very considerable contribution in making this voyage such an outstanding and happy one." The passengers contributing suggested the following inscription to the plaque: "Presented by the liberated prisoners of war and internees from Hons Kong, Japan, and Formosa, in gratitude of the sympathetic and generous treatment which they received [rom the hospital staff and shins complement aboard H.M.N.Z.H.S. Maunganui. September-October, 1945. " 'I was sick and ye visited me . . . 'I was in prison and ye (fame unto me. (St. Matthew 25.)'" SUFFERINGS IN FORMOSA. Another comment' of the work of the mercy ship came from an official Royal ■ Naval photographer, SubLieutenant D. E. Thorpe, R.N.V.R., who, after experience in his work taking him to the Belsen Camp in Germany, also inspected Japanese prison camps in Formosa. "You can say this and underline it as much as you like," he said. "The people liberated from Formosa wouldn't have been alive today if it wasn't for the Maunganui.

"They all owe their lives to the ship and its staff. There are men -walking about the deck now whom you wouldn't have given twopence tor their lives when we first saw them. Some, of course, will never be completely cured, but even they have been given two or three extra years of life. Lieutenant Thorpe did not think there was much to choose between the Formosan camps and the worst-of the German civilian concentration camps. "The main difference is that in Japan they made them work and gave them almost enough food to keep them alive, and in Germany they killed them off as fast as they could, he said. "There were the same sights ot starvation and emaciation." Included among the passengers were 12 officers and nine other ranks ot the Royal Navy; two officers and eight men of the Merchant Marine; 30 officers and 185 other ranks of the British Army, four officers and eight men of Australian forces; one R.A.F. officer and three other ranks; four Admiralty civilians; and 89 civilian internees comprising 71 men, 16 women, *and two children.. There were 50 cot cases in all, and 41 people who did not require treatment.

Four railway ambulance cars were drawn up at the wharf to carry those patients bound for Palmerston North, and the ones for the Hutt were carried by motor ambulances and Army transport. The Australians aboard left for home this afternoon by the Dutch hospital ship Tjitjalengka. The Governor-General, Sir Cynl Newall, was at the wharf when the ship berthed and later met several of the patients. The British High Commissioner, Sir Patrick Duff, met the ship in the stream and extended a welcome to the patients to "this kindly country." Members of the Government, including the Minister of Defence (Mr. Jones) also visited the ship and talked to the patients.