JAP. PRISONERS

Evening Star, Issue 25677, 28 December 1945, Page 8

JAP. PRISONERS

800 TO BE SHIPPED HOME CLEARING FEATHERSTON CAMP (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Dec. 27. Eigiit hundred Japanese prisoners of war urom the Featnerston Camp will go home within a few days in two American L.S.'l’.s, which are now in port in Wellington. Eighty to 90 New Zealand carpenters worked through last week-end building five and three-tier narrow wooden bunks into the tank deck of each ship. In these quarters the Japanese will make the 30-day journey to their homeland after spending ;three years in New Zealand. Four hundred military prisoners will travel in one ship and 400 Japanese labourers, also captured in the islands, will travel in the other. The New Zealand authorities, after inspecting the ships, decided in favour of installing bunks in the tank decks. This proposal was accepted by the American officials, and carpenters were immediately switched to the rush job of setting up these bunks in long and -very Tiigh tiers. The Americans call them boxes. There are 250 of them in each ship, each of them about 6ft long and 2ft 6in wide.

Some of the Japanese will climb five tiers above their fellows to get to their boxes. The more fortunate prisoners will be 150 on each ship wdio will sleep on American cots or camp stretchers placed in the middle of the tank decks between the tiers of bunks. A special compartment will be provided for the 27 Japanese suffering from tuberculosis, and .a doctor and nine pharmacist mates will be in attendance.

An officer said that eight American guards and eight New Zealand Army guards would be stationed round the' tank deck on each ship. There would be two Bren guns at each end of these decks. Officers or men going down to the Japanese quarters would be strongly armed. There would be tommy-guns ready to cover the prisoners while they were on the upper deck, too, though no trouble was anticipated, and it was not considered likely that they would have to be used. The rations to be fed to the Japanese during the voyage are scientificallyprepared “K” rations, similar to those given to American and Allied soldiers when they served in the front line.