MANILA, P.I. (AP) — APR. 2, 1945 — Captured Japanese
documents bearing dates between last Dec. 23 and Feb. 14
strongly suggested today that wholesale atrocities on
civilians in Manila were the result of orders issued to the
Nipponese garrison.
The atrocities were not, the reports indicated, the work of
isolated groups of Japanese who took matters into their own
hands, although at the time a good many of them so appeared.
Included in the documentary reports of Japanese slaughter of
helpless civilians in the downtown battlefield were
Nipponese documents and orders captured by soldiers of the
U.S. Army’s 14th Corps, some of them mimeographed and bound.
Death Order Found
One Japanese message book contained the following order
issued to the Kobayashi group, then inside the walled
Intramuros, on Feb. 13:
“All people on the battlefield with the exception of
Japanese military personnel, Japanese civilians and special
construction units will be put to death.”
The following is a paragraph from a Japanese battalion order
dated Feb. 8, captured in the Intramuros by 14th Corps
soldier:
“When Filipinos are to be killed, they must be gathered into
one place and be disposed of with the consideration that
ammunition and manpower must not be used to excess. Because
the disposal of dead bodies is a troublesome task, they
should be gathered into houses which are scheduled to be
burned or demolished. They should also be thrown into the
river.”
A diary, presumably belonging to a member of the Akatsuki
force in Manila and captured by the 14th Corp, contained the
following items: |
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Feb. 8—Guarded 1,164 guerrillas newly brought in today.
Feb. 9—Burned 1,000 guerrillas to death tonight.
Feb. 13—150 guerrillas were disposed of tonight. I
personally stabbed and killed 10.
The pattern of atrocities as described in the affidavit
reports is so similar as to indicate strongly they were by
general order to all Japanese troops.
Many Are Starved
Some of the cases rival the most brutal of (...illegible)
and tortures. Perhaps the most horrible is contained in the
report of atrocities at Fort Santiago, inside the
Intramuros, sworn to by Col. J.D. Frederick, commander of
the 129th Infantry of the 37th Division.
Probing in the rubble of the destroyed fort, Frederick and
his men found a dungeon-like room partially below the ground
whose only exits were sealed by two seven foot steel doors
bolted from the outside.
Inside, they found the decomposing bodies sprawled around
were oriental civilians. The only window in the five-foot
thick walls was partly sealed.
Frederick thinks most of the victims starved to death, but
that some of them suffocated. Thirty bodies were sprawled
around the steel doors. They died trying to force the doors.
Throughout the Intramuros Frederick and his men found
smaller piles of corpses, of both sexes, many with their
hands bound and wearing bayonet wounds. |