EXECUTION OF CHINESE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25952, 19 September 1945, Page 5

EXECUTION OF CHINESE

UNWILLING EYE-WITNESS AUSTRALIAN TRUCK DRIVER Sept. 18. Forced by the Japanese in Singapore to drive their trucks, an Australian prisoner, Driver C. M. Barnier, had the gruesome task of taking Chinese civilians to their executioners, watching their heads fall into the main street, and then drive through the city a truck from which the heads of the executed Chinese were displayed on poles. Barnier, the only Australian to witness the Japanese execution of civilians on a large scale, will appear before a board in Sydney to give evidence on enemy atrocities. Barnier was one of 43 prisoners of war ygjio landed in Brisbane from Singapore He tells how, after picking up Chinese men and women ip his truck, he drove them to the Japanese courthouse. “They were inside only a few minutes, then taken to an hotel opposite. Through the doorway of the hotel I saw Japanese guards raise their swords high, then I saw the heads of these Chinese roll out into the main street.”

Barnier says every morning he was forced to diive to some quarter of Singapore, pick up Chinese men and women, and take them to the courthouse. After a summary trial they were taken to the hotel and executed.