News Of Gilberts People

MR. BRUNO REYMOND, of the Gilbert Islands Colony, who was loaned by Australia to show the Americans the way into Butaritari Atoll last Nov ember, is at present in Sydney, under going special training. He expects to be back in operational areas before long.

Mr. Reymond brings news of various people who were overtaken by the Japanese invasion of the Gilberts in December, 1941. Mr. Williams, Adminis trative officer at Butaritari, was taken prisoner by the Japanese, and his where abouts are unknown. The Roman Catho lic missionaries (mostly French men and women of the Sacred Heart Order) in the Gilberts were not mistreated by the Japanese, and Bishop Terrienne is well.

As officially reported from Suva, some weeks ago, the Japanese made prisoners of Captain I. R. Handley (Tarawa), Rev.

A. L. Sadd (Beru), Mr. A. M. MacArthur (a trader at Nonouti), Mr. R. G. Morgan (of the King George School, Tarawa), and Mr. B. P. Cleary (Government Hos pital, Tarawa), and all of them were eventually killed by the Japs. Mr. Rey mond says that the Japs proposed to “honourably” behead the whole five; but Captain Handley and one other put up such a fight against decapitation that they were'shot.

The fate of men of the New Zealand forces, who were coast-watching in the Gilberts until December, 1941, and who were taken prisoners, is not known.

Mr, Fritz Reiher, one of the three well known Reiher brothers (William. Fritz and Henry), lost his life during the Jap occupation. He went out fishing, in a canoe; and, later, his canoe and his mangled body were found. He evidently had been taken by a shark.