FAKE CANTEENS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 150, 22 December 1945, Page 7

FAKE CANTEENS

JAPANESE DECEPTION

YOKOHAMA, December 21. Japanese officers and guards at the Mitsushima prison, camp near Tokio attempted to mislead a representative of "the International Red Cross into the belief that Red Cross supplies were freely distributed to Allied prisoners of war by establishing fake canteens which disappeared half an hour after the representative's visit concluded, according to evidence at the trial of Tatsuo Tsuchiya, the prison guard who is accused of beating prisoners to death-

The statement was made in an affidavit by Lieutenant-Colonel Allen Cory, a Bataan prisoner, who was one of those whom Tsuchiya is accused of mishandling. When a Red Cross representative who was identified only as Pestalozzo visited the camp the authorities established a canteen, the shelves of which were stocked with Red Cross supplies which had been sent to prisoners but which the guards diverted. The Japanese , attempted to give the impression that it-*was regularly open to British and Americans. Lieutenant-Colonel Cory's affidavit said that the prisoners were told before Pestalozzo's visit: "You must answer all questions'favourably to the Japanese," but instead the prisoners told him about bad food, lack of clothing, improper diet and medical treatment, brutal beatings, filthy living conditions, and misappropriation of Red Cross supplies. Pestalozzo told the prisoners it was a regrettable situation, but Japan was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention and the prisoners were treated according to regulations laid down by the Japanese High Command. The prisoners who gave the evidence to Pestalozzo were subsequently punished. Charges of withholding and misusing Red Cross supplies were dismissed on the ground that the evidence was only hearsay. _^