NIGHTMARE IN JAPAN

Southland Times, Issue 25795, 5 October 1945, Page 6

NIGHTMARE IN JAPAN

Grim Stories Told By Prisoners FORCED TO 1 WORK IN COAL MINES (P.A.) AUCKLAND, October 4. Patients interviewed aboard the hospital ship Tjitjalengka on arrival from Japan last evening told their stories in an almost-detached manner, as if speaking of a nightmare from which they had just awakened. It seemed that it was hard for them to realize it was all over. Many of them had lost limbs,

some more than one, for- no other reason than Japanese indifference to their plight. A man who could not work was not worth worrying about—that was the attitude of their captors. On the voyage to Auckland, the patients averaged a gain in weight of two stone. One former prisoner quoted a Chinese proverb to sum up their feeling towards the Land of the Rising Sun, which they were so glad to leave: “Men without honour, women without virtue, flowers without smell, and birds without song.” In a nine-hour shift, four-men gangs had to produce 23 tons of coal, said Driver C. O. Tarleton, formerly a member of the R.A.S.C. in Hong Kong, one of the men who was forced to work in Japanese coal mines. “We worked at the 800 metre level, and had to walk up inclines to get there. There were no safety precautions, and hundreds lost their lives in tunnel blockages,” he said. BAREFOOT IN SNOW

Driver Tarleton’s legs are paralysed, but doctors tell him he has a good chance of walking again. He came from a recognized hell camp known as 14D, a short distance north of Tokyo. The food consisted of a teacup of rice per day, and sometimes a little daikon, a type of pickled horseradish. Prisoners whose boots wore out were forced to walk barefoot in the snow, and many lost limbs from frostbite. They fell as they marched to the mines, and died where they lay. “After my legs became paralysed I was shifted to what they called a hospital. If anything, it was worse than the mines,” said Driver Tarleton. “Those of us who could still work a little were put on half rations. The rest got quarteirations. Tuberculosis cases were simply isolated in a hut. They were left without attention, and died like flies. The prisoners,” he concluded, “never lost their morale.”

WORK ON SIAMESE RAILWAY

SEVERE ORDEAL FOR PRISONERS (P.A.) AUCKLAND, October 4. “We will use the bodies of our prisoners as sleepers if necessary. This railway is going through.” This was the greeting received from the Japanese prison commandant by prisoners of war taken to work on the railway line which was to stretch through virgin territory from Taanbuzayat in Burma to Bangkok. Five Australians aboard the hospital ship Tjitjalengka last night told something of their experiences on this project. About 82,000 prisoners of all nationalities set to work, hacking out dense jungle, making cuttings in precipitous mountains and bridging endless ravines. The sector of the line on which the Australians worked was completed at a cost of 27,000 white lives.

“We had one bridge 180 yards long over a ravine 150 feet deep,” said one of the party. “We called it the GOO bridge, because that was the number of men we lost building it.” Out of one working party of 1200 only 32 survived. They suffered from malnutrition, beriberi and all the ills of the jungle, of which the worst were tropical ulcers and malaria.

The men could not speak too highly of their own medical officers who, despite lack of medical supplies and instruments, never ceased to fight against the effects of lack of food, continuous forced labour and the toll of the tropics. Operations were carried out with hacksaw blades and scissors, and one Sydney specialist performed amputations with a butcher’s knife, which had to be sterilized and sent back to the cookhouse after use.