State Department shows –
Only Allied bullets, bombs can end tortures by Japs
Scores of U.S. protests on atrocities against military, civilian prisoners ignored by Tokyo
Washington (UP) –
Bullets and bayonets and bombs are the only language the Japs can understand.
The State Department made that clear today with the publication of new chapters in the continued story of Jap cruelties committed not only against prisoners of war but also against civilian internees.
Neither threats of retaliation against Jap prisoners in American hands, the promise of certain punishment after the war, not appeals that she abide by her pledged word, the State Department disclosed, have swerved Japan from the campaign of abuse she launched against her hapless captives in the early weeks of the war.
Radio Tokyo, commenting on the American disclosure that 7,700 U.S. troops had been tortured and slain after the fall of Bataan and Corregidor, announced today that “there will be no change” in the Jap policy in regard to treatment of prisoners of war.
New horrors revealed
The State Department story was released late yesterday by Secretary of State Cordell Hull after an hour-long conference with President Roosevelt. It added new horrors to the account of war camp atrocities published by the Army and Navy last Thursday night.
The Army-Navy account revealed the mass murder of more than 7,700 American and 14,000 Filipino heroes of Bataan and Corregidor. The State Department release went less into statistical detail, but it itemized “categories of abuse and neglect” to which not only war prisoners but also civilian internees were subjected by their “brutal” and “barbarous” and “depraved” captors.
Congress seethes
Congress still seethed with indignation over the earlier revealed atrocities. Rep. Augustine B. Kelley (D-PA) introduced a resolution urging President Roosevelt to enter into agreement with Allied governments to make certain that war criminals shall not find sanctuary in neutral countries “but shall be brought to justice and punished for their barbaric crimes.”
The State Department story disclosed that starting on Jan. 13, 1942, five weeks after Pearl Harbor, this government had sent Japan from one to 11 protests a month – 89 in all – charging such crimes against American prisoners as starvation, torture, solitary confinement, illegal prison terms, corporal punishment and plain murder.
All of protests futile
Mr. Hull said the list of protests was released to acquaint the American public with the department’s attempts to persuade Japan “to treat American nationals in its hands in accordance to human and civilized principles.”
Significantly, the last of the protests, dated the very day on which the Army-Navy atrocity account was published, listed 18 specific complaints – all of which had been cited repeatedly in previous representations. Two years of diplomatic spade work through “the protecting power,” Switzerland, had succeeded in removing not a single ground for protest.
Jap promise recalled
The list of representations disclosed that as early as Nov. 17, 1942, the State Department was protesting against crimes so serious as to warrant the use of the word “atrocity.” On that date, this government protested against “six cases of atrocities perpetrated by Japanese authorities.”
The protests constantly called to Japan’s attention the fact that although she is not a signatory to the Geneva prisoners of war convention, she had promised to apply the humane principles of that convention to U.S. prisoners.
Threatened retaliation
The State Department release disclosed that early in he war this country threatened – in the mild language of diplomacy – to retaliate against Japs in American hands unless the enemy changed his tactics. There has never been any indication, however, that the U.S. government ever carried out such a threat or even seriously considered doing so.
On Feb. 14, 1942, the State Department disclosed, the United States informed Japan that this government might:
…have to reconsider its policy of extending liberal treatment to Japanese if assurances are not given by the Japanese that liberal principles will be applied to Americans.
The promise of punishment for those responsible for crimes against U.S. prisoners had been published before. It was made on April 12, 1943, after the Jap government executed U.S. airmen who fall into enemy hands after the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo.
Ask list of wounded
Through the list of protests there ran repeated requests “for lists of American wounded, sick and dead;” for permission for Swiss and International Red Cross representatives to visit prison camps in Japan, China, Thailand and Burma; for adequate food, heat, clothing, medicine.
In connection with efforts to get names of prisoners, the list revealed that on May 25, 1943, the State Department was still trying to get a list of civilians captured when the Japs conquered Wake Island on Dec. 22, 1941.
Senator condemns atrocity release
Washington (UP) –
Senator Dennis Chavez (D-NM) charged yesterday that the government release of the story of the Bataan atrocities more than a year after they occurred was “inopportune and inhuman.”
Senator Chavez said mothers throughout the nation, who had been told for many months that help was reaching their sons in prison camps, were now told that they “suffered the agony of the damned.”
Senator Chavez shouted:
Why was it necessary? I have only heard one answer. The Secretary of the Treasury says we will sell more bonds.
New Mexico, he said, felt the blow deeply for the entire New Mexican National Guard was lost on Bataan.
Senator Chavez cried:
It is a shame that American mothers have to suffer as they have suffered without our at least holding out the hope that Gen. MacArthur will receive 1,000 planes instead of a negligible number.
Red Cross explains delay in report
New York (UP) –
Richard F. Allen, vice chairman of the American Red Cross in charge of insular and foreign operations, said yesterday the report on Jap atrocities was suppressed six months ago while an attempt was made to send supplies to American prisoners.
He said at the North Atlantic Conference of the Red Cross:
We thought it more important for the prisoners of war to get relief than for the American public to know what happened.
Mr. Allen said that at the time the Red Cross learned of the atrocities committed against American prisoners in the Philippines, it also received a Jap suggestion that supplies be sent via Vladivostok.
The Japs proposed to transship the supplies to prison camps, Mr. Allen said. The supplies were sent six months ago, but it is reported that they are still in the Soviet port.
