JAPANESE PRISONERS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXVI, Issue 27, 31 December 1945, Page 4

JAPANESE PRISONERS

LEAVE DOMINION (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Dec. 31. Two strange express trains sped down from Featherston in the light of early morning yesterday. Their journey ended at Aotea Quay,where they swiftly discharged New Zealand's 800 Japanese prisoners of war into waiting American L.S.T.'s. By one o'clock in the afternoon the American ships had sailed, and so was completed New Zealand's first major venture in the imprisonment of an enemy on her own soil. ■ The first prison express entered the quay just before 8.30 a.m. Guards with bayonets to their rifles were stationed at every carriage, and from the windews there stared keen, curious Japanese eyes, taking in everything within their vision. For most of them it was their first excursion beyond the Featherston barbed wire in three years. What they thought and felt about it their manner and expression did not disclose. In charge of the New Zealand party was Captain A. Ashton, who was an interpreter and interrogator at the Featherston camp, and who formerly lived in Japan for 11 years, holding for some time a post as lecturer at the leading Japanese university. A second interpreter was Lieutenant K. E. Robertson, and there were two sergeants, two corporals, and 12 "other guards. It was not known when they sailed whether the New Zealanders would travel all the way to Japan.