SAVAGE TORTURE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20861, 13 August 1942, Page 3

SAVAGE TORTURE

DUTCH CIVIL SERVANT JAPANESE BRUTALITY EAST INDIES INCIDENT (Special Australian Correspondent.) (9.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, Aug. 13. Grim details of the tortures inflicted on him by the Japanese have been told by a Dutch civil servant here. He was bound hand and foot and, for two days and two nights, was hung by the hands from a wooden fence with a rope around his neck and a bayonet pressed against his forehead to prevent sleep. When the Japanese landed on a small East Indian island where the Dutchman was serving, they immediately took him before the commander. He was kept standing for many hours, and then Jthe Japanese naval officer suddenly decided that standing by a European was out of place in Japanese company and knocked him down. He was then tied in the manner described. Each time he complained he was hit on the face and back with a horsewhip. Other men were also tied to the fence, and the Japanese soldiers kicked them as they passed. On the third day the Dutch official was permitted to join his wife at a local hospital, where they lived for four months on a meagre diet of rice before they were able to escape with the help of friendly natives.