THE BRUTAL HUN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 5002, 17 October 1918, Page 5

THE BRUTAL HUN.

TREATMENT. OF PRISONERS. NO IMPROVEMENT ON EARLIER METHODS. RED CROSS FLOWN OVER AMMUNITION DUMPS. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association and Eeuter’s. (Received October 16, 7.30 n.m.) LONDON, October 15. Sir William Younger’s committee’s report, based on the testimony of upwards of seventy escapees regarding the German treatment of war prisoners taken during the Spring offensive says it is almost an exact counterpart of the treatment of earlier prisoners. The enemy totally failed, in some cases for forty-eight hours, to provide prisoners with any food. This may he explained by tlie number of prisoners exceeding expectations, but the sustenance thereafter was inadequate. Tlie prisoners were also forced to do unauthorised work near the battle front. Many compounds were without warmth, shelter or sanitation. Some guards were cruel and a tew doctor's were brutal. The prisoneis at Villers were forced to live in tlie open for a fortnight and could not drv their clothes and could not wash. The report adds :—The Red Cross was flown over ammunition dumps. In one instance a prisoners hut was six hundred yards behind the line, and it was shelled often and liit and fourteen British killed. A prisoner named Ellis, suffering from a bullet wound in the lung, cried m pain. Hie doctor hit him on the jaw, and the man died next day.