JAPANESE PRISONERS

Grey River Argus, 12 July 1945, Page 8

JAPANESE PRISONERS

AMERICANS BAFFLED NEW YORK, July, 1. Since Pearl Harbour only 3000 Japanese have been brought to America as prisoners. They have built up a record of fanatical loyalty to Japan. The prisoners have been studied carefully. Some have been sent to psychiatric wards, but the mental process which guides their actions is something no American has been able to comprehend. Army officers asserted that the goal of every Japanese prisoner is honourable suicide by hara-kiri on Japanese soil, if and when he returns to his native land. Every prisoner considers himself to be dead—his capture is a disgrace which can be softened only by harakiri in Japan, where his funeral service has already been held. At the sight of a camera in the stockades 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 J'apan 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.

In spite of their politeness, guards say it is obvious that they still regard Americans with the same hatred displayed by, their countrymen. There is no record of a quisling Japanese in the American camps.