BATCH OF SICK PRISONERS

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23316, 27 September 1945, Page 5

BATCH OF SICK PRISONERS

Harsh Privations

(Rec. 7.30 p.m.) BRISBANE, Sept. 26. So emaciated and ill were 700 Australians who arrived to-day on the hospital ship Oranje that they could not be interviewed. The men, some of whom were suffering from tuberculosis brought on by starvation, were prisoners of the Jap>anese in Singapore for more than three years. The condition of 100 Queenslanders who were transferred to hospital was suclf that the Deputy Director of Medical Services placed a ban on their being interviewed. Relatives were not allowed on the wharf and only the nearest next-of-kin will be permitted to visit them at hospital to-day. As the Queenslanders were being taken off the ship into waiting ambulances there was a rising tide of resentment and disgust among those who witnessed the transfer of the emaciated men. Former prisoners who have been reasonably fit and well, have reached Australia from Japanese camps in recent weeks, but the Oranje’s arrival gave the other side of the picture.