JAPANESE PRISONERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 July 1945, Page 3

JAPANESE PRISONERS

FANATICAL LOYALTY NEWYORK, July 1. Since Pearl Harbour only 3,000 Japanese have been brought to America as prisoners, and they have built up a record of fanatical loyalty to Japan that overshadows even the most unco-operative Nazis and Fascists sent from Europe. Army officers say that the goal of every Japanese prisoner is honourable suicide by hari-kiri on Japanese soil, if and when he returns ' to his

native land. The prisoners have been studied carefully. Some have been sent to psychiatric wards, but the mental process which guides their actions is something that no American has been able to comprehend. Every prisoner considers himself to be dead—his capture is a disgrace which can be softened only by harikiri in Japan, where his funeral service has already been held. At the sight of a camera in, the stokades the Japanese prisoners run, or turn their backs because they do not want pictures of them to reach their homeland. Not one man has

written to Japan since the camps were opened and not one letter or package has been received from Japan.

Army officials who have urged the men to write have been curtly informed that letters would only serve to heap disgrace on their families since they are listed as dead in the Japanese Army -records. Despite their politeness, guards say it is obvious that they still regard the Americans with the same hatred displayed by their countrymen. There is no record of a . quisling Japanese in the American camps.