TERRIBLE ORDEALS

Grey River Argus, 2 May 1944, Page 5

TERRIBLE ORDEALS

New Guinea Missionaries MANY KILLED BY ALLIED RAIDS.

(Rec. 11.30.) SYDNEY, May 1. The terrible experiences of missionaries, who were captured bv Japanese in ■ New Guinea fifteen months ago, were recounted by a member of the party who were freed by the American invasion forces at Hollandia. Dressed in tattered clothing, held together with string and canvas, the missionaries were .pitifully gaunt and haggard. Their skins were sallow and grey and many had sores on their bodies. ' They were The first white prisoners to be released from the Japanese in New Guinea. Forty of the missionaries were killed in a strafing ran, bv Allied ’planes, while they were being shipped to Hollandia bv the Japanese. They suffered further t casualties when the American bombing offensive was opened at Hollandia. The missionaries, who comprise several nationalities, were mainly Roman Catholics and Lutherans. They include a number of nuns. An Australian missionary said that after the Japanese invasion, mission-; aries were left alone for a while, but they were systematically rounded up in January, 1943. Then they were moved from village to village. Just before the Americans landed at Hollandia, a Japanese interpreter exhorted the missionaries to bear themselves with soldierly fortitude. “Within two hours, Jananese soldiers were gibbering like idiots,” added the? missionaries, “while Japanese officers scrambled through the mud, , using their swords as walking sticks.”