4000 JAPANESE DEAD

Southland Times, Issue 25737, 30 July 1945, Page 5

4000 JAPANESE DEAD

HIGH COST OF BURMA ESCAPE BID (8.0.W.) RUGBY, July 28. Activity has been confined to aggressive patrolling to clear the areas between the Mandalay-Rangoon road and the Sittang river, says a south-east Asia correspondent. East of the Sittang British guerrilla forces ambushed parties of Japanese who had succeeded in crossing the river. More than 4000 enemy dead have now been counted since the attempt to break out from Pegu and Yomas started, and the total number of prisoners is 525. Part of the 250 Japanese who crossed the Rangoon road nine miles south of Penwegon were scattered by artillery

fire and took refuge in two villages east of the road and railway, where they were again, engaged by patrols. Liberators attacked Bangkok and Singapore railways. Preliminary reports indicate that three bridges were damaged. On the Nyaungleben section of the front, where the,Japanese are trying to break out, Spitfires bombed and strafed troop positions and villages. More than 30 jungle huts were destroyed or set on fire and a light anti-aircraft gun position silenced. Off the coast of Kra Isthmus Sunderlands damaged a 100foot schooner and a smaller craft. STARVING JAPANESE IN LUZON Evidence Of Cannibalism (Rec. 6.30'p.m.) NEW YORK, July 28. A message from Manila says that a former Japanese war correspondent, the American-born Ken Nurayama, told the Associated Press correspondent that iron discipline, backed by harsh courts-martial, kept restless, starving Japanese in the firing line in northern Luzon, where cases of cannibalism are reported. Nurayama predicted that the Japanese would surrender within a few weeks. He reported dozens of cases of murder, fights and thieving as the starving Japanese fought for food. American patrols in the Sierra Modre mountains reported increasing evidence of cannibalism. One Japanese surrendered in fear of the cannibalism that had befallen others. A patrol told the Associated Press correspondent that skin was tom from the thigh of the body of a Japanese left unwatched for an hour after being killed by the patrol.