FORTY-THREE MONTHS IN JAVA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 332, 2 November 1945, Page 11

FORTY-THREE MONTHS IN JAVA

The Sense Of Being Hopelessly Lost Was Worse Than The Floggings

EADERS of The Listener will remember Dr. Lai-Yung Li, the Chinese Professor who ar‘rived in Pearl Harbour the day the Japanese came, escaped to New Zealand, and lived and worked here for some months before a chance came to return to China. They will remember him, first because the manner of his arrival here was sensational, and was fully reported, and in the second place because he was more than once in our columns as a contributor. Well, the other day we heard from him again-but not from China. A New Zealander, P. D. Sladden, who had just been flown out Of Java after spending 43 months as a prisoner of the Japanese, came in to tell us that Dr. Li had been captured by the Japanese on his way back to China and taken to the camp im which Mr. Sladden himself had latterly'been held. They had got to know each other very well, and Mr. Sladden brought greetings from him to The Listener and other New Zealand friends. He was weak, but otherwise ‘unharmed, and if any friend wishes to write to him the letter should be addressed C/o President C. J. Lin, Fukien Christian University, Foochow, China. In other words, we were assured that all is well that ends well so far as Dr. Li is concerned.

So we turned to Mr. Sladden. Would he tell us the story of those 43 months? Were the Japanese the beasts so many reports have made them? We accepted the starvation reports, but what about the bashings and beatings? What was the truth about the treatment of women? Was there anything good to be said for the Japanese at all, or was the picture too black to be forgotten while the present generation of Japanese survive? » "Black Wall of Silence" Mr. Sladden was very reluctant to answer. He had come, he said, with a message from Dr. Li, not with a complaint from himself. He would appreciate the use of our columns for the purpose of thanking New Zealand first for remembering them, and second for so promptly rescuing them. Another’ three months of it, he told us, and there would have been a vastly increased death-roll. "But "it was the black wall of silence that was so crushing. We knew that if we had been soldiers there would be a record of us somewhere. But we were civilians-stray individuals and groups gathered in from places that New Zealand had never heard of. So few letters came; no parcels. It was difficult to resist the feeling that we were hopelessly lost." "Letters were not delivered?" "A very few letters, two years old, were delivered, but other mail, which we knew to be just over the road, was de-stroyed-save after August 15 (VJ Day). It was such a complete black-out that life resclved itself inte two unceasing struggles--one for food and the other for faith, if I may say that. Morale is just holding on to yourself, and in our case it meant getting enough sustenance to keep us alive, sustenance of any kind at all---tice, rats, frogs, snakes, even dogsand resisting the tendency to be mere scavenging animals."

"One of the Lucky Ones" "You look reasonably well now." "Yes, I was one of the lucky ones. I began with a strong ‘constitution, and it was policy to keep those going who could keep going." "You mean that you were given a little extra food?", "I was not often given extra, but I did oftener than most get a chance to -Scrounge extras." "You were sent out to work?" _ "Yes, sometimes from before daylight till after dark, and it would occasionally happen that I picked up something while I was away. But if I look well today it is not merely that I have had a month in which to rest and eat, but that the psychological effect of discovering that I was not forgotten started all my vital forces flowing again. I don’t know how to. convey to you what that meant to all of us, and there is really nothing else that I want tq talk about,

If you will somehow or other get that out to your readers, the rest does not matter." e Systematic Flogging "But it matters. to-get facts right. People in New Zealand don’t know what to think about the Japanese. Most are filled with loathing at the thought of them. It is very important to us to hear what you think after being so many months in their power." "What particularly are you ontitrined about? I don’t want to talk, but I have nothing to hide. If I can help, tell me what you want to know." "Well, those beatings to begin with? Were you ever beaten. yourself? If not, did you ever see others beaten as the newspapers say they have been?" "T have been beaten, and bashed too, but not seriously. I was lucky. But the truth is- worse than you have been told. There is nothing in British experience anywhere that even approximates to what the Japanese will do. They are simply madmen when they start beating people up. It is not a question of 50 blows or 100, but systematic flogging for perhaps an hour or longer, using bamboos, pickhandles and even iron bars. If the victim becomes unconscious, they bring him round and start again. It was almost more sickening to see than to suffer: and they took care often that we did see." "The prisoner would die, of course?" "Sometimes, yes. But not often. Until you have been through things like that you can’t realise what the human body can endure. Many survived the beatings, but few the Gestapo treatment afterwards, for which the beatings were a mere ‘warming up.’"

Anything Would Start It "What would start them on _ such punishments? What was the exciting cause?" "Anything, Anything that annoyed them. Refusal to give information (which you usually didn’t have). Neglect to bow to them — you had to bow to every Japanese you met or could see, even if he was 50 yards away. Attempts fo escape. Picking up scraps of food or an empty rice bag for a blanket. Speaking when talk was forbidden. Smiling when you were bullied or bashed. But it is no use going on. In these matters they are lunatics." "Did you see anything at all in them that you admired?" "Well, their discipline was good in some camps. I was free for six weeks at the beginning, in Batavia, and there we had no pillaging or offences against women. Any soldier who offended was shot." "Is it true that women were ah, respected?" "I would not go so far as that. They were beaten, starved, neglected, left to

die of disease. But they were very rarely raped. I knew of a few cases, but they were certainly exceptions." Experts at Mental Torture "Was brutality a policy or simply bestiality in the guards?" "Both. The desire to degrade and humiliate us was always present. They would strip women naked and parade them before the natives (who to their credit usually refused to look). They would go out of their way to cause as much annoyance as they could — the world has never seen such experts at mental torture. They would receive letters and refuse to deliver them. Give starving men food to handle and brutally ill-treat them if they stole it. Take sick people into hospital knowing that lice and bed-bugs would weaken them faster than neglect. in their own camps. It is impossible to exaggerate their psychological brutality." "Was that universal?"

"It seemed to be, though there were times when I thought the guards wanted to be less harsh, but were afraid. From the commanders down they lived in fear of the secret police. The Japdhese Gestapo have nothing to learn from the secret police of Europe. They should be de-stroyed-to the last man." The indonesions "Did, you have an opportunity to form opinions about the present revolt of the Indonesians?" "No, I would sooner not speak about that. I was not long in Java before I was gathered in. A prisoner knows only what he sees and hears in camp, and we were a hopelessly mixed lot. Everybody who thought at all-hundreds had lost the power-wanted to see the end of the Japanese. To the Javanese in general they were just animals-beasts. But a sprinkling of the better-educated Javanese now hold jobs that were formerly held by the Dutch, and they naturally cling to them. We learnt not to allow other people’s problems to come near us. It was just a daily struggle to. survive — enduring, forgetting, shutting our eyes, Shutting our minds, our only aim to continue to exist."