PAMPERED CAPTIVES

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 December 1944, Page 6

PAMPERED CAPTIVES

TOKIO BAIDEPS’ “ESCAPE.”

V/ASHINGtON, December 3

Five of General Doolittle’s Tokio raiders of 1942, who landed their Mitchell bomber in Russia, have “esi caped" across some of the world’s most closely guarded borders, and returned to America to tell their story. It is a story of pampered captives, prolonges boredom, and finally easy escape. The bomber made a forced landing on an airport near Vladiyostock, and the fast-talking fliers almost escaped internment. They told the Russians the plane should be accorded the privileges of a belligerent ship in distress putting into a neutral port. The Russians seemed willing to put up the Americans for the night. Next morning, however, the fliers found they were interned under international law, and were not permitted to return to the plane. Later they were sent to the township of Pena, between Moscow and Kuibyshev, where they were provided with a country house. When the German advance on Stalingrade threatened central Russia, ihey were moved eastward. They were visited by the then U.S. Ambassador, Admiral Standley. They were given a comfortable home, good food, and an interpreter guard who taught them Russian. In the winter they were transferred to a town on the Persian border. One day they drove a truck .across the border' into Persia and did not return.