BRUTAL SAVAGERY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 August 1942, Page 2

BRUTAL SAVAGERY

JAPANESE TREATMENT OF DUTCH CIVILIAN.

(Special Australian Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, August 12

Grim details of tortures inflicted on him by the Japanese have been told by a Dutch civil servant here. He was bound hand and foot and for two days and two night hung by his hands from a wooden fence, with a rope round his neck and a bayonet pressed against his forehead to prevent sleep. When the Japanese landed on the small East Indian island where the Dutchman was serving, they immediately took him before the commander. He was kept standing for many hours, when a Japanese naval officer suddenly decided that a standing European was out of place in Japanese company and knocked him down. He was then tied in the manner described. Each time he complained, he was hit on the face and back with a horsewhip. Other men were also tied to the fence and Japanese soldiers kicked them as they passed. On the third day, the Dutch official was permitted to join his wife at the local hospital, where he lived for four months on a meagre diet of rice before they were able to escape with the help lof friendly natives.