PRISONERS OF WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 January 1943, Page 3

PRISONERS OF WAR

REPORTS ON TREATMENT IN ITALY AND FAR EAST. RESTRICTIONS ON CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The Prisoners of War Inquiry Office reiterates that prisoners of war in Italy are not permitted to receive shirts other than khaki-coloured. This includes Naval and Air Force prisoners as well as others. With regard to footwear, too, only Army boots, sandshoes, and soft indoor slippers may be sent. Sandals or slippers leather soled are rejected. Food parcels packed and despatched from New Zealand are now freely arriving in prison camps. Cabled information has been received from the International Red Cross to the effect that their representative in the Far East distributed before Christmas food parcels to approximately 2,500 prisoners of war and internees in camps in Yokohama and its vicinity. A Tokio cablegram states that the Woosung Camp, in Shanghai, is amply supplied with books and recreational facilities, and that for Hong Kong a Red Cross representative has collected and delivered to prisoners of war camps 3,000 books. For the Stanley Camp, a thousand books, besides several hundred for children, were provided. Further purchases are being made with available funds. The cablegram said recreational facilities and sports gear supplied to the Stanley Camp are ample. The Inquiry Office has received a letter direct from a prisoner in P.G. 57 (Italy), written on October 24. He says most of the prisoners play baseball and cricket, while there are also Badminton, volley ball apd football. There is a good library, and concerts are remarkably good. The office would appreciate being allowed to have copies of letters from prisoners in Japanese hands.