JAP. MASSACRE

Grey River Argus, 18 February 1946, Page 3

JAP. MASSACRE

43 BRITISH SOLDIERS ON BOUGAINVILLE SYDNEY, February 4. In a mass grave on a lonely island off the coast of Bougainville, the remains of aii entire British artillery regiment, which had been posted missing since the fall of Singapore, was found by chance by Australian servicemen. The men had been murdered since the surrender of Japan. The grave was so shallow that some of the bodies were scarcely covered. A padre of the Royal Australian Air Force told of the discovery when he arrived in Sydney yesterday from Torokina. In all, 43 bodies were found, either shot through the head or decapitated, and stripped of all clothing except the boots. Australian doctors who examined the bodies believed that the men had been killed several weeks after the surrender of Japan.

The padre said that the discovery was made when English investigators learned from a casual remark made by a local Chinese I hat hundreds of British soldiers had been brought from Singapore in 1912. The Chinese .‘aid that the Japanese panicked after Hirohito’s broadcast, and decided to kill every British soldier to silence for ever the witnesses of their inhuman practices. The Chinese said that the soldiers were packed into boats and taken to a small island a few miles away. The boats returned empty.

The soldiers’ remains were exhumed and reburied in Australia!' and American war cemeteries a Torokina.