IN SINGAPORE

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

IN SINGAPORE

FINAL SURRENDER CEREMONY TERAUCHI TOO ILL TO ATTEND "VERY SICK OLD MAN” London, Sept. 1U General Terauchi’s latest face-saving trick is to send a message to Saigon headquarters stating he is too ill to attend the final surrender ceremony at Singapore on September 12th, says the Exchange Telegraph Agency’s Singapore correspondent. Admiral Mount--batten, alive to Terauchi’s treachery, sent a special medical envoy to Saigon to ascertain if he is malingering. If the ’Physician reports Terauchi is just face-saving, the correspondent says it would not be surprising if Admiral Mountbatten ordered his forced appearance at Singapore, where he will be compelled to participate in the ceremony restaging all the humility of the British surrender. A British medical officer who went to Saigon accepted Terauchi’s story that he suffered a stroke after the Japanese surrendei and added that Terauchi is a very sick old man. Terauchi will probably be unable to attend the surrender of Singapore.

The Associated Press of Great Britain points out that the Japanese as a result have no officer of equal rank to Admiral Mountbatten to repiesent them at the surrender. Terauchi is in his seventies. The Australian Associated Press correspondent in Malaya reports that a deputy, who was not named, is arriving to-morrow for the ceremony.