FLAT DEMAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 December 1941, Page 4

FLAT DEMAL

OF LONDON STATEMENT NO SCORCHED EARTH POLICY IN MALAYA. VAST & VALUABLE STOCKS LEFT TO ENEMY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, Noon.) SINGAPORE, December 23. The report from London that the scorched earth policy was followed at Penang has been greeted with mixed feelings in Singapore, where the absolute failure to destroy the greater part of the valuable installations in North Malaya is well known. It may be true that the smelting works and power station were destroyed, but thousahds of tons of tin ingots, thousands of tons of stacked rubber and thousands of gallons of petrpl were left in Penang ready for the use of the invaders.

Service men and correspondents returning from up country state that in the British withdrawal whole towns are being left intact for the Japanese, shops completely stocked being abandoned. In the first fortnight of the war, thousands of tons of very valuable food stocks must have fallen, into Japanese hands. In the Penang warehouses it is reliably reported, there are two months’ supplies sufficient for Penang’s population. Looting which broke out in Penang first is being repeated elsewhere.