JAPANESE TACTICS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 October 1942, Page 4

JAPANESE TACTICS

ATTEMPTS TO WEAKEN MORALE IN BATAAN. APPEALS TO FILIPINOS & AMERICANS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.15 p.m.) NEW YORK,' October 20. How the Japanese used sex as a weapon during the Bataan campaign was described by Colonel Carlos Romulo, of the Philippine Army, interviewed by “P.M." Colonel Romulo, who was an aide-de-camp to General MacArthur, and the last man to leave Bataan, is here on a lecture tour. He said: “One of many tricks the Japanese used in attempting to break the morale of the Bataan defenders was the dropping of handsomely-lithographed pictures of nude women over the front lines. Our soldiers had been lying in fox-holes for months, living on a daily handful of rice and suffering the terrible hardships of jungle war, and the pictures would be captioned, ‘Why go on suffering? Why not enjoy the pleasures of life? Come to us. You are our brothers.’ Their leaflets always emphasised the colour line and always pleaded with Philippine soldiers to join their Oriental brothers in fighting the white race. In addition, big loud-speakers, turned towards the American troops, broadcast English programmes from the Japanese-con-trolled Manila station, subtly designed to breed discontent.”