Tokio's Death-or-Glory Stuff Unimpressive

Taranaki Daily News, 2 September 1942, Page 2

Tokio's Death-or-Glory Stuff Unimpressive

SOMEWHERE in Ceylon's jungles and the surrounding Pacific Ocean is the answer to a first-class war mystery. On Japan's own admission nearly 100 aircraft, with perhaps 300 airmen, have disappeared around the island, writes Alan Moorehead, Sunday Express correspondent at Colombo. No prisoner has been taken alive. The majority, of course, are known to have been shot in the air, killed on crashing to the ground, or drowned at sea. It is now reasonably certain that none who crashed survived, but the mystery still is this — does an unsuccessful Japanese pilot commit suicide on landing in enemy territory? Does he fight determined to win or die? A good deal in the war out here depends on the answer, and as far as I can see you are not going to get it from the jungle. It is almost impossible to (penetrate in parts. Still, every day outlying villagers are coming in with news that they have found another wreck. One Japanese Zero fighter bounced from under the brush into one of Ceylon's many inland pools, and it was only by chan^ce that a native hunting in the bush caught sight of the tip of its wmg lying above the water. I saw to-day a set of nine photographs of different crashed Japanese aircraft. But many more must be lying out there among the coconut palms and mango swatnps. I have talked here with men who have been fighting in Malaya, Singapore and Java, as well as Ceylon, and they differ about the Japannese suicide-minded-ness. Said one pilot: "We took two Japanese airmen prisoner in Singapore. As soon as they were picked up they asked for revolvers to slioot themselves. We xelus-,

ed and gave them decent treatment. At the end of a week they had given up all idea of committing suicide. They confessed that at first they were certain we were going to shoot them if they did not do the job themselves." Examination of Japanese equipment does not help much. Sometimes the pilots carry parachutes, sometimes not. They do not appear to have had parachutes over Ceylon, so it, was pretty certain death for any of them shot down here. None of their fighters has got any armour protecting the pilot. I examined bits oi some of their wrecked machines. They were made of some sort of aluminium alloy, very light — so light, in fact, that it rips away from its rivets at any really hard knock. In one encounter the wing of a Japanese machine was torn bodily away by the force of the wind when the pilot straightened out of a terrific power-dive. And aircraft wrecks burn away to practically nothing within a few minutes of hitting the ground. No one suggests that Japanese fighters are no good — they all escceed 300 miles an hour with wonderful manoeuvrability— but it seems they are death traps when they are hit, and Japanese pilots know it. "Last Salute." A flamboyant story has just come over the Tokio radio this week-end about the last Colombo raid. "I saw my flight eommander crashing into Ceylon harbour, raising his hand and shouting his last salute to the Emperor," broadcast one pilot who did get back. British pilots who fought the Japanese that day do not believe that dcafii-aad-glory stuff. They chased out

to sea many Japanese, who determined to do one thing— escape. . One pilot, who was a psychologist before the war, told me: "It is a puzzle to know how far they are indifferent to death. Certainly they have got guts. When I baled out the Japanese pilot came after me, machine-gunning both me and my parachute. When I landed and hid among the palm trees still he came nosing round looking for me, despite ack-ack fire." And he added: "That stuff in the local paper about a Buddhist priest disguising me by throwing his yellow robe around me is all nonsense. I happened to land beside the priest and he was in just as tough a spot as I was." Converted Liners. To launch their fighters and bombers against Ceylon and the East Indian coast the Japanese have converted their N.Y.K. (Nippon-Yusen-Kaisha) passenger liners into arcraft-carriers. These are fast ships. Their tactics are to approach their targets through the night and fly the aircraft off just before dawn. The air-craft-carriers are already rapidly stegming off for safety when their aircraft— if any— rejoin them. On long flights their fighters carry extra petrol tanks, which they discard when empty. Some of these tanks were washed up on the Ceylon beaches. The Japanese machine -gun enemy parachuting pilots, and are apparently under orders to go to extreme lengths to destroy the pilots as well as their machines. These, then, are a few clues to the proposition that the Japanese, indivdually and as a nation, would rather die than lose. But then I don't find much spirit of compromise on the matter among Royal Air Force pilots here either