CRUELLY TREATED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25937, 1 September 1945, Page 7

CRUELLY TREATED

AUSTRALIAN WAR PRISONERS HUNDREDS DIE IN BORNEO (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, Aug. 31. About 600 Australian prisoners died at Sandakan (North-east Borneo) between November, 1944, and May of this year. They were cruelly treated, overworked, starved, and neglected, and died of malaria, beriberi, and dysentery, but could have been saved if the Japanese had provided medical supplies.

These revealing facts were told by Gunner Owen Campbell, of Brisbane, who escaped from Sandakan at the end of May. He is now recovering in hospital at Morotai after wandering for 24 days in the jungle before being found by a friendly native. Campbell, who was taken prisoner at Singapore, said it was not uncommon for prisoners to be worked 24 hours at a stretch, sometimes twice a week. “Bashings were handed out pretty liberally. If the Japanese thought you were not working fast enough they just hit you with shovels, bits of wood, or lumps of iron. They used to flog prisoners with a dog whip, and once they made all the officers stand by while they whipped one of our men.” Campbell declared that one man was shot for trying to escape from Sandakan, where Campbell was taken in January of this year. The Japanese commandant then starved all the prisoners for 24 hours. “Close on COO Australians are buried at Sandakan. They could have been saved if the Japanese had given us medical supplies. We had to bury our boys in common graves five or six at a time.” Of 5500 Australians in Singapore, 1200 are hospital cases, according to a broadcast from Singapore picked up by the Prisoner-of-war Relatives’ Association listening post. The Japanese announcer said the message was from Lieutenant-colonel F. G. Gallaghan, senior officer of Australian prisoners of war in Malaya. The broadcast said about 80 per cent, of the men in Singapore were suffering from chronic malaria and were in indifferent health. The men in Java and Sumatra, according to the latest messages received in Singapore, are in ' worse condition, added the broadcast. Supplies of atebrin and quinine were urgently needed.

The All-India radio, quoting a message from the Japanese commander of Allied prisoners in Singapore, said there were 30,500 Allied prisoners of war at present on the island, of whom 14,000 are Indians, 6760 British,. 5516 Australians, 4040 Dutch, and 184 others. .