CAPTURED CHINESE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 April 1943, Page 4

CAPTURED CHINESE

COMPELLED TO FIGHT FOR JAPAN. VERY CHEERFUL PRISONER IN AUSTRALIA. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, This Day. The Japanese have conscripted Chinese to fight for them. Standing with other war correspondents and idly watching a batch of Japanese prisoners, Harold Guard, a United Press representative, was recognised by a thin, bedraggled Chinese among the prisoners. Mr Guard was formerly in Hong Kong and Singapore. “We started to look over a batch of Japanese prisoners brought from Wau,” says Mr Guard, who is now in Australia. “When I heard the greeting, ‘Hello, Mr Guard,’ I turned and saw a tattered Chinese grinning widely at me. I recognised him as Chan Chai, who had been caretaker at the building of the South China ‘Morning Post,’ a British daily paper in Hong Kong, where I had my office three years ago. Chan told me that after the capitulation of Hong Kong the Japanese impressed thousands of local Chinese into labour corps and sent them to various Pacific war stations. He was forced to take part in the fighting at Buna, and later at Wau. At the latter place he was captured, but he is the happiest prisoner I have ever seen.”