Jap Hands

Rescued By The Americans

Missionaries Tell Pitiful Story of 16 Months in Jap Hands

MISSING since the Japanese occupied northern New Guinea 15 months ago, 100 missionaries (including 40 nuns) of the Lutheran Church and Homan Catholic Orders, have been lib erated by the American capture of Hoi landia, Netherlands New Guinea.

Gaunt, ill and nerve-racked, they tell a harrowing story of their sufferings dur ing imprisonment. Forty of their num ber were killed last February when the ship in which they were being trans ported from Kairiru (an island off Wewak) to Hollandia was attacked by American Mitchells; further casualties resulted from the pre-landing bombard ment of Hollandia in April.

Two Australians were among those rescued—Mr. Raymond Barber, of Wal lawalla, NSW, and Mr. August Bertels meier, of Temora, NSW. There were 12 Americans —Dr. Theodore G. Braun, of South Dakota, his wife, and four other Lutherans, three Roman Catholic priests, and three nuns. The rest of them were German, Dutch, Polish and Czechoslo vakian men and women missionaries.

Twenty-four half-castes were also with the party.

When the Japanese first occupied the Madang area they left the missionaries alone, but towards the end of January, 1943, about 100 missionaries were rounded up and interned, first in one village, and then, after they had grown gardens, moved to another. They were all even tually taken to Kairiru and from there some were placed on the ship which was attacked so disasterously by the Mit chells. The survivors were later joined in Hollandia by those who had remained behind on the island.

Their own limited supplies of food were exhausted early in their captivity and from that time onward they were forced to live on rice and other Japanese foods.

When rescued, all were pitifully weak and thin; many with their feet and hands swollen and red from malnutrition.

A FEW days before the landing they were moved six miles down the coast from Hollandia, and in the dawn of April 22, they heard the Allied warships begin the pre-landing bombardment.

They were ordered by the Japs to pack up and be ready to move; even the oldest nun was made to carry a pack of ammu nition and food and to try to keep up with the Jap soldiers. Their weakened state caused many of them to collapse by the wayside; there they were left while the others were made to press on. Fin ally, the Japs decided that their own progress was being retarded too much and while they were crossing a swamp, they hurried on and left them. The missionaries returned to help those who had fallen out and when it was learned that the Americans had landed and were near, Father William Hagen led a patrol to meet them. It took American infantry men two days and nights to get the more exhausted cases down.to the coast where tent quarters had been prepared and where clothes, medical aid and nourishing food were given them.

In their whole story of tragedy and privation, only one incident stood out in lighter relief: shortly before the Ameri cans landed, Dr. Braun told his rescuers, a Jap interpreter exhorted them to bear themselves with the same fortitude as Japanese soldiers.

“Within two hours those same soldiers

were like gibbering idiots,” continued the doctor. “It is the first time I have seen Japanese officers scrambling through the mud, using their swords as walking sticks.”

Mr. J. B. Wright, Treasurer and Col lector of Customs at Rarotonga, arrived in the Cook Islands recently after fur lough, part of which was spent in West ern Samoa, where he is well known.

Pastor E. B. Rudge, well-known in the South Pacific —especially in Fiji—as a Seventh Day Adventist missionary, per formed an heroic act during a fire at Warburton, Victoria, in April. He heard a woman screaming for help, and he dashed into the ourning building, and found a woman holding a child, and ap parently paralysed with fear. He seized the child and threw it through a window.

As he did so, a mass of stored film ex ploded beside him, burning him very badly, and hurling him also through the window, where he fell a considerable dis tance. Both the mother and child were comparatively unharmed. Mr. 'Rudge is recovering from his burns, but it is feared that his right hand will be permanently injured.