SLAUGHTER IN MANILA

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23346, 1 November 1945, Page 5

SLAUGHTER IN MANILA

Evidence At Trial (12.10 a.m.) NEW YORK. Oct. 30. Witnesses at the Yamashita trial described the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians last February, when the Japanese realised they were unable to hold Manila. Troops ran down the fashionable Taft Avenue hacking, stabbing, shooting and raping in a futile frenzy. Father Francis Cosgrave gave evidence that as the American Marines fought their way past the De La Salle College, a Japanese officer ordered the inmates to be slaughtered. Forty men, women and children were killed, including Brother Xavier, head of the College. Father Cosgrave was giving absolution to an aged priest when a Japanese bayonet thrust under his upraised hand killed the priest. Father Cosgrave himself was bayoneted and lay on the floor a long time with two corpses sprawled across his feet and a woman’s corpse slumped against his head. Major-General Basilo Valdes, Chief-of-Staff of the Philippine Army, giving evidence at the Yamashita trial, said he found the half-cremated bodies of his elder brother and nephew in a pit filled with decomposing flesh under the ruins of a paper factory in Manila. He added that the pit was filled with many bodies. He recognised his relatives by their clothes and belt buckles. The defence indicated that it would seek to prove that anyone who fought the Japanese after the surrender by General Wainwright could be considered a war criminal, and that the Japanese occupying Manila were in a situation where any or all civilians might be guerrillas.

Captain Adolf Reel said the defence would attempt to show that the existence of an underground army without uniforms was responsible for the actions of the Japanese troops under General Yamashita.