OILY JAPANESE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23317, 28 September 1945, Page 6

OILY JAPANESE

Smiles After Cruelty Underlying Callousness YOKOSUKA, Sept. 2. Behind the brutal and bestial treatment of prisoners of war by the Japanese lies a story of a barbaric people. In spite of a veneer of culture copied from other countries, barbarism still lies too close to the surface to permit Japan and the Japanese to be treated as civilised members of the human race, writes William Marien, "Sydney Morning Herald” correspondent. To have mingled with Japanese civilians and soldiers as I have done over the past few days, and to have been absolutely inundated with a flood of subservient smiles, ultra-polite bows, and acts of menial servitude in a saccharine desire to please, is to be completely confused by the illogicality of the Japanese. Three days before we landed, ano after Japan's unconditional surrender, guards continued their vile treatment of weakened and defenceless prisoners. Civilians who are now shuffling picturesquely on their stilted wooden clogs, twitching at fans, and smiling shyly at the occupation troops, were until a few days ago feared more by the prisoners than were the military guards. Callous Detachment Such a volte-face as we have witnessed, a complete somersault from undiluted barbarity to an oiliness unsurpassed by any Italian waiter in the past, is possible only in a nation devoid of the principles of sincerity, and rich in those of hypocrisy. Their very subservience is the best possible reason to distrust them. It is the considered opinion of experienced men like Admiral Halsey that the treatment meted out to the Japanese must be severe, and that the iron discipline on which they, as a race, have been for so long nurtured, must be continued. There is something rather horrifying at hearing Japanese civilians who speak English discuss the destruction of Hiroshima by the atomic bomb with complete detachment, smiles, and amused indifference. One interpreter told me that the bomb was nothing. “The Tokyo earthquake was much worse.” he said, seeming to indicate that the atomic bomb was something that residents of other parts of Japan could take in their stride. This indifference to the misfortune of others is a Japanese characteristic which I have seen many times in the Pacific, but nowhere better illustrated than at Iwo Jima. Preoccupation with Money A number of Japanese prisoners of war captured only three days previously were working near the front lines under an American guard. Suddenly a vast battery of rockets sped on their roaring flight of destruction and death. The reaction of the Japanese ex-sold-iers was typical. They laughed delightedly and slapped their thighs as they watched the enormous flock of rockets headed for their comrades in arms of only a few days ago. And now at Yokosuka the indifference is being displayed. The only thing on which the Japanese seem to feel strongly is money, and almost every Japanese will ask you what will America do for occupation money. They want American use of Japanese money, and they want prewar exchange rates immediately established. For them the war was nothing but a game lost, and they want—so unbelievably self-centred are they—it to be immediately forgotten, and Japan resume immediately the status of the honest little Oriental who would not harm a fly. (From the number of flies I have personally encountered in the Japanese occupied islands. I submit that as a very true observation, but only to flies do the Japanese seem to extend leniency when the power of life and death is in their hands.) The leaders of the Allied world will lay down the terms for the Japanese, and I sincerely hope that in doing so they do not overlook the brutal crimes which present bowing and smiling are meant to conceal.