JAPANESE CAMP CONDITIONS
SIR,—It so happens that the letter from Miss Mary Thomas published in your issue of October 4th was brought to my notice just after my husband and I had finished reading the extracts from the evidence given in the War Crimes Court in Singapore as reproduced in the Straits Budget, a Singapore weekly paper. This evidence was, of course, given ' on oath and was subjected to cross-examination by the defence. I quote a few passages, omitting the names of the witnesses:
(i) By a lady doctor: Held Suzuki responsible for conditions generally. These were incredibly bad owing to overcrowding, malnutrition, vermin- infestation and general filth, all of which combined to create widespread deficiency diseases and skin troubles. Internees had no privacy of any description. The only fresh medical supplies in the women's camp were obtained from the men's dispensary. These supplies were negligible. Frequent requests to the Japanese staff for medical supplies never suc- ceeded. On_May 22nd, 1944, Tominaga struck me three times across the jaw with the bar portion of a towel rack, bruising me badly. He then gave me ten severe blows, as the:sesult of which I was very badly bruised and was not able to sit down for several days.
(ii) By a woman internee: Kawazue made me kneel down and bend forward. He- then beat me very severely across my back all the way down from my neck right to the base of my spine' with a stick II inches in diameter. While he beat me, two other soldiers kept themselves busy, one called Yamada devoted himself to terrific kicks on each breast. and very low in the stomach. Tominaga was right next me. When I fell on several occasions he snarled at me and told me to get up again, and then they proceeded to beat me all over again. After that, Suzuki came round to the front with his big stick and he proceeded to prod me in the forehead with this big stick, thrusting me back.
1 (iii) By the manager of a tin mine: Suzuki was the commandant, but the rest pretty well did what they liked, with Tominaga as the evil genius of the place. On one occasion Kawazue, who was drunk, after beating up 22 men with a sword-stick which broke in bits in the course of the beatings, picked up another piece of wood and entered the women's section. The following morning the commandant of the women's section reported to the Central Committee that Kawazue had kicked two women (one of whom was an elderly cripple) out of bed and thrashed three others. The whole incident was reported " up-stairs " (i.e., to the Japanese), but nothing came of it.
(iv) By a rubber planter: Several (i.e., of the 22 men mentioned in (iii)) were so badly beaten that they had to be admitted into- hospital im- mediately. One man was beaten while still on his bed. There was no reason for these bashings. Kawazue was drunk. The same witness mentioned the death of three chronic diabetics when the supply of insulin in the prison hospital ran out. His evidence reads: "Neither Suzuki nor Tominaga, whom he had approach*, had been helpful to requests for supplies of insulin. Every day I went ' up-stairs' and' presented either written or verbal requests, but the net result was nil. On the liberation of Singapore large stocks of insulin were found in the General Hospital bearing the Government mark."
(v) By a rubber planter: Beatings were so frequent that individual cases were not reported to the camp committee ; only the big mass beatings.
(vi) By a member of a commercial firm, in regard to Red Cross parcels: He saw Suzuki and told him, " Many men and women are starving, and these parcels might save their lives." Suzuki replied that the parcels would have to be examined by a Sergeant-Major Tanaka, who said that we had to give them out on the basis of 42 internees to a parcel. I pointed- out that these parcels were the gift of.the International Red Cross, and that unless we could have an immediate issue of one parcel per internee I would accept nothing. Eventually internees received three-quarters of a parcel each. Many of the tins of milk had split and were black, and the chocolate was full of maggots, but we ate it just the same. (Note.—This was on April loth, 1945, when the parcels were three years old.) There is much more evidence of the same kind, both from men and Women, but I submit that the extracts which I have quoted above show that our treatment in Changi Prison and then at Sime Road Camp was far from being " comparatively humane." I use Miss Thomas's words. Changi prison was built to accommodate some 600 convicts ; over 2,70o internees, men and women, were crowded into it. We were grossly nealected, and many of us suffered extreme brutality. That so few, in comparison with our number, died is solely due to the magnificent work carried out in shocking conditions by our own doctors and nursing sisters, for whom no praise can be too high. The first time that men and women In the prison were allowed to meet was on Christmas Day, 1942, ten months after the fail of Singapore. For the first six months my husband '.v,s in the prison, and he tells me that the conditions then were worse than in five of the six camps in Formosa and Manchuria, where he spent
the rest of his internment. Yet, when he was with us, conditions were at their best.
I do not want to exaggerate, but I cannot make light of what we went through. To do so would be rank injustice to all those men and Amen who from the beginning to the end kept' their heads and their hearts high, and especially to those who died and whose names will always be held in happy and honoured memory.—Yours faithfully,
London. MARGUERITE THOMAS.
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