The Gentle Methods Of
p. 48 · Read in the full issue
The Jap
A BRITISH officer at Tarawa tqld me a story that is typical of how the Japanese are frequently frustrated by their own greedy impatience.
When the Japs made their first raid on Tarawa from a destroyer, in Decem ber, 1941, a party of Marines went straight to the Government station. One of the first things the NCO in charge did was to relieve the sub-accountant of his keys.
Later a Jap officer arrived with another party and demanded that the sub accountant open his safe. The sub accountant said that the keys had been taken by the NCO, for whom the officer at once ordered a search should be made.
After a few minutes, however, the offi cer grew impatient and told the men to break open the safe, an enterprise on which they embarked by hammering off the brass handle. The NCO then arrived with the key but the officer discovered, to his rage, that though he could now unlock the safe it would not open owing to the absence of the handle. So he had to return to the destroyer without laying hands on the contents of the safe.
Nearly a thousand pounds of Govern ment cash, together with important papers, thereby escaped confiscation.—