DROVE CAPTIVES TO SUICIDE

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 257, 29 July 1942, Page 5

DROVE CAPTIVES TO SUICIDE

Sadistic Japanese RELEASED NEWSMEN’S FURTHER ACCOUNT 'By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Received July 28, 7 p.m.) LONDON, July 27. Twelve Britons were driven to suicide by the Japanese after internment, says “The Times” correspondent at Lourenco Marques. They included Mr. E. AV. .Stagg, manager of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank at Yokohama; Mr. L. Sykes, manager of the Chartered Bank of Yokohama; and Mr. John Watson, manager of British real estate interests at Harbin, who was ftaher-in-law of the British vice-consul. Mr. K. F. Krugher, marine adjuster, who died in prison as a result of exposure, and Mr. J. A. Hewitt, a (missionary, died in an insane asylum after imprisonment. Fourteen Britons are known to have died in Hong Kong, and others face death from malnutrition. Some Ashamed. The former Far East correspondent of the “New York Times,” Mr. Otto D. Tolisehus, who has arrived at Lourenco Marques, reports that some Japanese are frankly ashamed of the actions of the Japanese military and police whereby the latter are trying to exterminate the whites in the Far East, He says the Japanese .military and police are following traditions reaching back to the primitive ages, ranging from the disregard of diplomatic courtesies to the murder, imprisonment, and ill-treatment of Britons and Americans.

One hundred thousand war prisoners in Japanese camps urgently need food, clothing, and medicines, especially the Americans in Japan and tiie British in Hong Kong and 'Singapore. Mr. Tolisehus says that the fate of officials was enviable compared with that of civilians, scores of whom were thrown into prison and many were tortured. All the American newspaper men and Miss Phyllis Argali, a London newspaper woman, were examined with violence. Miss Argali was tied up and her face was slapped till the skin broke. The Japanese police said, “All newspaper men are spies because they discover the truth." Mr, Tolisehus declares that British and American wounded at Hong Kong and AVake Island were massacred, and that British women and girls, including war hospital nurses, were raped and slaughtered.