JAPANESE FIRE ON PARACHUTES

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23965, 4 June 1943, Page 5

JAPANESE FIRE ON PARACHUTES

INCIDENT OF BURMA AIR FIGHTING NEW DELHI, June 2. Japanese fighters gave a brutal illustration of what the Americana call “rat warfare” when they killed three American airmen who were parachuing down over Burma after their aeroplanes had been crippled. The incident occurred on May 21 when Japanese Zeros shot off the tail of an American bomber which was returning to its base. The crew bailed out and the sole survivor, Sergeant Marvin Beckman, and the crews of other bombers, have told the story. The Zeros circled round the descending men and three parachutes collapsed at a height of 500 feet, hurling the men to their death. Sergeant Beckman was wounded, but he landed in friendly territory and reached a British outpost four days later. Japanese atrocities in the prison camp at Tengyueh in China, have been described by a Punjabi who escaped from the camp. He said that prisoners caught in attempting to escape had been publicly tortured and executed. The Punjabi escaped with two others after throttling a Japanese, sentry, and reached an Allied camp in the Hickin Hills area of northeast Burma. One man who tried to escape whs caught and then, before the prisoners in the camp, he was used by the garrison for bayonet practice. The Punjabi said that he saw three other men ordered to kneel while a Japanese swordsman lopped off their heads. One man, on refusing to kneel, was cut to pieces where he stood. THE RAID ON TOKYO AMERICAN AIRMAN’S ACCOUNT (Rec. 7 p.m.) MELBOURNE, June 3. One of the American airmen who bombed Tokyo on April 18 last year is in Australia on way home on leave. He is Captain Edgar McElroy, of Texas. Describing the Tokyo raid, Captain McElroy said; “Frankly, we were scared. We drbpped our eggs and beat it for China.” He himself bailed out when his aeroplane ran out of petrol. Helped by Chinese, he made his way to Chungking, where he was decorated by Marshal Chiang Kai-shek with the Order of the Celestial Clouds. .Since then he has been fighting on ithe Burma front.