JAPANESE ATROCITY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 10, 7 October 1943, Page 5

JAPANESE ATROCITY

Barbaric Murder Of Allied

Airman

SYDNEY, October 6.

The barbaric murder of a young Allied airman by a Japanese officer, is revealed in a diary which was among the documents captured at Salamaua. The airman, whose plane was shot down by anti-aircraft fire, was beheaded by the Japanese officer, after which his body was mutilated aud flung into a waterfilled bomb crater. . . . The execution was carried out with a ceremonial sword which was then handed to a superior seaman who, to quote the eye-witness, “laid open the abdomeii with one sweep.” The dairy records that the airman, who was a captain or flight lieutenant from Port Moresby, remained unshaken to the last.

It was announced at General MacArthur's headquarters that the officer who committed the atrocity was . SubLieutenant (First Class) Komai, and that the next senior responsible commander was Lieutenant-Commander Tsukioka. The State Department at Washington announced that Japanese officials would have to answer for the atrocity at the end the war. “’lne incident should awaken Americans to the realization of what we arc facing in the Pacific,” said Representative Melvin J. Maas, of the House Naval Affairs Committee. “I hope it will rouse the High Command as well as the public to the necessity for a major offensive against Japan.”