JAPAN FACING HUNGER

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 259, 1 October 1945, Page 5

JAPAN FACING HUNGER

SHIP SUNK AT RABAUL

(Rec. 11.15 a.m.) BRISBANE, Oct. 1. While 600 British prisoners of war were being transferred from Singapore to the Solomons in February, 1943, an American aircraft bombed the ship aud 517 of the prisoners were drowned. This tragedv, which occurred in Rabaul harbour, was revealed when 18 former British prisoners, the only survivors of the partv of 600. arrived m Brisbane yesterday. They are the first prisoners to return from New Britain and are suffering from malaria, tinea, ulcerated legs, beriberi and hookworm. They said that in the transfer from Singapore to Rabaul one man died on the ship and 517 were drowned in Rabaul harbour. Sixty-four, men died from disease and malnutrition at Rabaul. - . Six hundred British were the only prisoners there for several months, but they were joined later by 80 Americans, one New Zealander, one Australian and one Dutch civilian.

LOW DIET NEXT YEAR

(Rec. 12.30 p.m.) TOKIO, Sept. 30. Japan, on the basis of her own official figures, will be in very real danger of starvation by the end of the year or early in 1946, says the New York Times correspondent in Tokio. Colonel Kramer, head of the Economic Control Board, stated that Japan had been largely cut off from essential food imports'by the Allied air and submarine blockade since 1944. Her supplies of cereals and other foodstuffs are expected to furnish a diet averaging only 1551 calories a person in 1946 compared with 2160 calories which the Japanese health authorities hold as necessary and 4000 calories prescribed for the American troops. Colonel Kramer stressed that the American occupation army cannot and will not independently undertake the task of feeding the Japanese. He added that the Japanese Government has so far suggested no plan, for dealing with the critical situation. . Japan desires to import 2,000,000 tons of petrol a year from the United States, and as many cars as possible, to revive her domestic transport system, according to the Minister of Transport (Kohiyama). The Government is requisitioning vehicles for the occupation authorities, who require 400 cars, 700 trucks and 100 buses. The American air raids reduced the annual capacity of Japan's railways from 150,000,000 metric tons to 60,000,000. The railways had 3891 locomotives available, compared with 6030 before the war, and 29,774 freight cars, compared with 117,598. The tracks, also, were severely damaged. Merchant shipping was reduced from 6,380,000 tons before the war to 1,200,000, of which only 200,000 are at present fit for sea. The merchant marine lost 31,000 seamen during the war, and 85,000 others were involved in shipwrecks. ,