Only 745 Returned

Account of How Japs Took 1,200 People From Nauru

(Prom Our Special Representative)

WHEN I met Mr. T. H. Cade, police chief of Nauru, in Fijji, I got, for the first time, the full story of what the Japanese did to the Nauruans.

When the war came, the Australian Administrator, Colonel Chalmers, and three other Europeans, refused a passage on the evacuation ships in 1942, and stayed behind to help the natives, who then numbered about 1,800. Eventually all the Europeans, and about one third of the Nauruans, were murdered or starved to death by the Japanese.

When Mr. Cude returned to Nauru in September, 1945, his first duty was to look for the Nauruans. He has been in Nauru since 1927 and is very fond of these people.

He found only a half-starved remnant, numbering 600, of a once happy and prosperous community. He learned that 1,200 —men, women and children, whole families —had been taken away overseas in July and August, 1943. Reports were received, through American channels, that there were some hundreds of them in the Carolines.

Mr. Cude was sent off, via Guam, to find these neople, and renort. The Americans helped him in every way, and directed him to Tol, in the atoll of Truk, in the Carolines, where, in December, 1945, he found 745—-all that was left of 1,200.

They told him that, when food became scarce on Nauru, the Japs sent them away in small shiploads of 600, to Truk, where they were placed on the islets of Tarik and Tol. The local people were friendly, and gave them permission to gather toddy and cultivate gardens; but immediatelv thev began to produce food, the Japs siezed it.

The 1,200 Nauruans had as their leader their very competent chief Detudamo, and he helped them very much in their two years struggle against starvation and the thieving Japanese and saved many lives.

The ship was going back from Truk to Nauru for the remaining 600 natives, when it was torpedoed, and so they es caped deportation.

The Japs seized most of the able-bodied men on Tarik, and forced them to help build air-strins on Moen, and other islands, and the remaining people were not strong or numerous enough to produce enough food. The Japs would give food only to those who worked for them. When the Nauruans caught fish the Japs seized the fish. For long periods, the prisoners subsisted almost entirely on sweet potato leaves. They suffered terribly from mal nutrition and dysentery. As the Ameri cans battered their way northwards, and many Jans cleared out, conditions became worse. As many as 10 Nauruans died from starvation in one day.

When the |Americans occunied Truk, they were appalled at the condition of the Nauruans, and gave them abundant food and medical care. When Mr. Cude con tacted them, they were improved, but still were weak and sick.

Mr. Cude stayed with them, and ar ranged their food, and an American doc tor saw them every day. When, in Feb ruary, 1946, Australia sent the Trienza to Truk to embark the 745 survivors, there was only one stretcher case remaining.

The arrival of the 745 at Nauru, to be greeted by the 600 who had remained, was attended by scenes which Mr. Cude said he could never forget—joyous re unions in some families and a tragic seek ing of missing people, in others. Of the two missionaries (Fathers Kayser and Clivaz) who went away with the natives to Truk, Father Clivaz returned —Father Kayser died of malnutrition.