Hoyt: Japs murdered bulk of 50,000
Former OWI official hits censorship practices of government
New York (UP) –
Palmer Hoyt, former OWI Domestic Branch director, said in a signed magazine article criticizing the U.S. government’s censorship practices today that the Japs have “brutally murdered most of the 50,000 prisoners taken at Bataan.”
Asserting that the Japs still hold 25,000 American nationals in prison camps, Mr. Hoyt said he did not agree with “some of our leaders” who withheld publication of the fate of Bataan prisoners for fear of retaliation against the “unfortunate hostages” still remaining in Jap hands.
Cleared by censors
The article, to be published next week in The American Magazine, censures military authorities for holding up the release of much vital war news usually on the contention that secrecy is necessary for “reasons of security.” The account was cleared by the Office of Censorship, headed by Byron Price, which he said has taken a “common-sense” attitude.
Mr. Hoyt’s account was released only a few hours after the joint War and Navy Department announced that 7,700 Americans had been tortured and murdered in Jap atrocities.
Crushed by trucks
Mr. Hoyt wrote:
We haven’t known for two years that the Japanese brutally murdered most of the 50,000 prisoners taken at Bataan. They marched them through deadly heat without water, although they had thousands of available vehicles. And they crushed the thousands of men who did not die from exhaustion and thirst by running trucks though their columns.
Mr. Hoyt revealed that military authorities last December withheld for two weeks the story of the attack of German bombers on the Italian port of Bari, in which 17 allied ships were sunk and 1,000 men were killed or wounded.
Danger withheld
Mr. Hoyt continued:
When the Aleutians were seized by the Japanese, there was no hint of the awful danger of our position. Much of our military and naval activities in those regions had to remain military secrets but there could have been no justification for completely drawing the curtain.
That kind of censorship lulls us into indifference and may, if we put up with it, destroy our freedom.
Mr. Hoyt also criticized government officials who warned repatriates arriving recently on the exchange liner Gripsholm against talking of Jap atrocities foe fear of reprisals among prisoners still held by the Japs.
Sees reaction
He said:
I don’t agree with this. If we tell the story of Japanese bestiality, frankly and boldly, and as a part of each day’s news, I think the Japanese will treat their captives better. With the war going against them, they will fear to do otherwise.
Mr. Hoyt said he did not charge there was:
…malicious obstructionism or a sinister conspiracy to withhold the truth from the people of this nation.
It is simply that there are too many men in the Army and Navy, sustained by too many like men in civil life, who do not think it necessary to keep the people informed.