TREATMENT OF PRISONERS

Waikato Times, Volume 89, Issue 13891, 17 October 1918, Page 5

TREATMENT OF PRISONERS

BRITISH COf.IIVSISSiON'S REPORT. failure to provide sustenance. cruel guards and brutal doctors. abuse of the red cross. (Australian, X.Z. and Reuter.) Received October 16, 7.40 fl.m. LONDON, October 15. Mr Justice Younger's committee's report based on the testimony of upwards of 70 escapees, regarding the German treatment of war prisoneis, taken during the spring offensive, says: fci'We have almost the exact count'er*part of the treatment of earlier prisoners. The enemy totally failed in some cases for -iS hours to provide prisoners With any food. This may be explained by the number of prisoners exceeding expectations, but sustenance thereafter was inadequate. The prisoners were also forced to do unauthorised work near the hattlefront. Many compounds were without warmth, shelter or sanitary provisions. Some of the guards were cruel and a few doctors were brutal. Prisoners at Villers were forced to live in the open for a fortnight and could not dry their clothes and could not wash." The report adds:—"The Red Cross *was flown over ammunition dumps." Received October 17, 1 a.m. LONDON, October IG. «' The slates that in one instance a prisoners' hut COO yards behind the line was shelled and often hit, and 1 i Biilish killed. A prisoner named Ellis, suffering from a bullet wound in the lung, cried with pain, whereupon the doctor hit him in the jaw. The man died next day.