The Daily Record

ORIENTALS AND PRISONERS

Shortly after the war, this column exposed the shameful way American prisoners were treated in Jap prison camps. These conditions are important today only as a contrast with the kid-glove treatment U S. authorities have given Korean-Chinese prisoners.

Without inferring that we should emulate the brutality of the Oriental, the following condensed account (Merry-Go-Round, May 23, '47 of the treatment handed out to Americans in Jap Prison Camp No. 17. Fukioka District, shows what the Oriental expects in the treatment of prisoners:

"William S. Knight, army enlisted man, was beaten to death because he stole some buns. Corp. James Pavlockus, of the Shanghai 4th Marine Regiment, was slowly starved to death until on the 38th day he died. Pavlockus had refused to help the Japs mine coal, on the ground it was helping them with the war, though his actual punishment was for purchasing some rice from a Jap soldier.

A sworn affidavit by Edgar Van in Wagen of Pomeroy, Ohio, a prisoner in the same camp, stated:

"Private Knight was tortured and starved to death. During the beatings he passed out two or three times, and the Japanese guards would revive him and continue the beating. Knight was not fed during the 15 days of torture. Four or five times he was suspended by ropes tied to his fingers, feet off the ground and left that way for several hours. After fifteen days of this treatment Knight died and I helped bury him."

Koreans made up a part of the Japanese Army and are familiar with these gruesome tactics. So also are the Chinese. Yet they have had the nerve to protest-vociferously at the kid-glove treatment given their prisoners. Furthermore a good part of the Asiatic world believes them.