GRIM DOCUMENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 11 September 1945, Page 5

GRIM DOCUMENT

REVOLTING ATROCITIES JAPANESE IN PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT Canberra, Sept. 1 0. Details of atrocities so revolting as to be almost unbelievable are contained in the report by Mr Justice Webb submitted to the Commonwealth Government and released to-day. The report was compiled from evidence supplied by actual nesses of these atrocities, including many responsible officers, both military and civil, and five Australian soldiers who were left for dead but recovered and escaped. This grim document has been submitted to the War Crimes Commission in London. The report tells of soldiers brutally murdered and mutilated for the entertainment of grinning Japanese, of missionaries slaughtered, nuns raped and bayoneted, and of surgical operations on live soldiers for the entertainment of their captors.

Sir William Webb says that at the time these atrocities were committed Japanese torces were still advancing towards Australia. "Japanese armies were still winning victories when a Guadalcanar native boy had his tongue severed with a Japanese bayonet, when Catholic priests and nuns were bayoneted and nuns raped. American soldiers still alive had their livers, removed by a Japanese surgeon for the entertainment of Japanese troops, and at Tarawa, 21 New Zealand. Australian and British civil servants were tied to trees and after a day or two Japa nese troops were let loose on them.” At Milne Bay Sir William Webb found that the Japanese without justification killed 59 male and female natives and 36 Australian soldiers. Many including females, were subjected to frightful mutilation and some were used for bayonet practice while still alive.

The report details many other individual instances of brutal and sadistic treatment of natives, whites and soldiers, maltreatment of Australian and American dead, and mutilation and cannibalism.