JAPANESE TORTURES

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 September 1946, Page 8

JAPANESE TORTURES

TREATMENT OF ALLIED WAR PRISONERS EVIDENCE AT. TOKIO TRIAL ~TOKIO, Sept.. 15. An official Japanese report introduced in evidence at the. war crimes trial blamed the time limit placed on the construction of the Siam-Burma railway for the deaths of -10,000 Allied prisoners of war, who were pushed to the utmost to keep the work up to schedule. If anyone had to 'be called to account for the dreadful death rate responsibility ought to be placed on the then Chief of the General Staff (General Sugiyama). who ordered the construction, the War Minister, Tojo. who sanctioned the employment of prisoners, and General Terauchi who was in charge of construction. A former British prisoner. Colonel Cyril Wild told-the Court: "We continually protested that the Japanese had no right to hold us in the Siamese jungle where they could not feed or supply us.”

Colonel Wild produced a document revealing that more than 150.000 Chinese troops and civilians were massacred. in Singapore. They were punished or tortured to death by the Japanese secret police. Spy suspects were specially mistreated. One European was tortured for 55 hours, and another was hit .144 times. The Japanese poured water into one suspect's mouth and nostrils and then jumped on his swollen stomach.