STILL A MYSTERY

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 23014, 4 October 1944, Page 7

STILL A MYSTERY

The Japanese Mind

That the Japanese mind remained a complete mystery to those who had come to grips with him in actual warfare was a point covered by the speaker, Lieutenant-Colonel G. E. Waterworth, at a luncheon gathering of members of the Napier Returned Services’ Association. Lieutenant-Colonel Waterworth instanced how a batch of Japanese prisoners received medical attention from the American medical section. They were discharged but 20 of them committed suicide. “The American colonel was very crusty about it,” he said. He, the speaker, had known one of the party. This Japanese could speak English and was of a more cheerful disposition than the rest. He could tell the doctors how the other men felt. When the Lieutenant-Colonel heard that the men had committed suicide, he naturally asked after the particular Japanese. The answer was: "Oh yes, he was one of them!” The speaker said that the Japanese looked on action like this as a very brave gesture to make. When one considered this— and the way they committed suicide by holding hand grenades to their chests—how could it be said that we understood them? “This is what makes them so hard to deal with, so tough,”, he concluded, “but I will say this, however. In not a single other department have they got our chaps beaten or equalled ”