The Abilene Reporter-News (Abilene, Tex.), Vol. 63, No. 226, Ed. 2 Saturday, January 29, 1944 Page: 1 of 10
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anuary 28. 1944
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WAR BOND SCORE
4th War Loan quota $3,245,000.00
Sales Friday 662,493.50
Gales this month 1,411,718.25
Shortage 1,833,281.75
VOL. LXIII, NO. 226
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ABILENE, TEXAS, SATURDAY EVENING, JANUARY 29, 1944—TEN PAGES
leavies Wh
Doolittle Raiders Tortured Unmercifu
By Japs Before Executions, Editor Te
6 Fliers in Terror cA IN
House at
(Editor Note: This startling story is the first eye—and ear—
witness disclosure of the revolting tortures administered to Ameri-
• can pilots who bombed Tokyo. It was told by J. B. Powell, editor of
the China Weekly Review in Shanghai, to his assistant of four years
ago, Frances Long. She tried to get home before Pearl Harbor, was
captured in Manila, and while Powell suffered loss of his feet
through Japanese treatment while an espionage suspect, she was in-
terned in the Philippines. They came home together in the first
. exchange of American and Japanese nationals and met again last
• Friday to talk over the latest revelations of Japanese atrocities.
It was then that Powell revealed that he had listened to the tortures
of the American pilcts who later were murdered.)
By FRANCES LONG
NEW YORK, Jan. 29.—(AP)—The Japanese not only
executed American fliers captured after Jimmy Doolittle’s
famous raid on Tokyo, but also tortured at least six of them
unmercifully beforehand, J. B. Powell, former editor of the
China Weekly Review, said today.
Powell, a prisoner in the notorious bridgehouse in
Shanghai at the time, now is in Presbyterian hospital here.
• "In the next cell to us were six American boys," he said.
“At first we thought they were Marines who had tried to
escape from concentration camps, but later we found out
they were aviators captured after the Doolittle raid.
“They were tortured unmercifully daily. The Japa-
• nese seemed to delight in torturing them, more than
civilians. That was because, I suppose, they refused to
divulge any military secrets. Later two or three of them
were taken to Japan and executed." 1. 1
The bridgehouse, near the bridge which joins Shanghai
Proper and Chapei, is a drab brown building which used to
- be known as “the public residence of virtuous neighbors."
- The bridgehouse has become a place of torture for Chi-
nese and, since Pearl Harbor, for whites.
People Should Know, Maimed Victim Asserts
Little was known about what went on behind those brown walls.
There were rumors but there was no definite information until some
of the prisoners were repatriated to this country in June, 1942.
Powell is one of those who came back. When I was Powell’s as-
" sistant before the war, he was a cheerful, slender man of 157 pounds,
a I saw him today in Presbyterian hospital, a changed man: hag-
e gard, nervous, embittered. He has lost both feet. His weight today
is 120, a gain of 45 pounds since his repatriation.
"I am glad the Army and Navy released that material on atrocities,"
he told me. “Torturing of American, British and Chinese has been going
on since the war started. It is right that the people back home know
how the Japanese are treating our people in the Far East, especially
@he way they are treating the military prisoners." •
Powell’s own story is an example of the treatment of which he speaks.
- Long regarded as- an enemy because of his sympathy for the Chinese
and his outspoken editorials in their behalf, the Japanese threw him
into the bridgehouse on December 20, 1941.
Forty Prisoners Jammed in 12-by-18-Foot Cell
From that day until March, 1942, he lived in a 12-by-18 foot cell
with 40 other persons, most of them Chinese.
“Twenty-two people could have sat in that cell fairly comfort-
ably" he said, “but we were forced to sit, day in and day out, with
. our knees hugged closely to our chests.
• "But that was not so painful as sitting Japanese style, with our
knees crossed and most of our weight on our feet. That type of sitting
was considered punishment by the Japanese. If one of us disobeyed in
the slightest way, the rest of the prisoners were punished, too.
“We received regular beatings, even if there was no disobedience.
The Japanese usually used a pine club, two by four inches, or a
a piece of board from packing cases. They beat every part of our
" bodies with these clubs, with malicious delight.
"We could not touch or help any of those who were beaten. That
‘ was the worst part, because so many of the prisoners died as a
result.” 6
On the first day of March, 1942, Powell was taken to Klangwan and
put in solitary confinement until the latter part of May. He was forced
% write letters to friends in Shanghai to the effect that he was beir/
well treated and wellfed, despite the fact that his daily ration of one
bowl of rice had been cut in half.
“By that time I was more dead than alive. Gangrene had set in my
feet because of malnutrition, cold weather and also because of the way I
was made to sit. I finally became unconscious with pain and was taken
t the general hospital, where my feet were amputated."
TEXAN BACK WITH HIS FAMILY—Marine Maj. Jack
Hawkins of Roxton, Tex., shown with his mother, Mrs. Nel-
die Hawkins (left), and his bride, the former Miss Rhea Ritter
of Detroit (right), said at Fort Worth that he knew from
talking to prisoners that details of Japanese atrocities are
true. Maj. Hawkins, one of several American prisoners who
escaped from the Japanese in the Philippines, and Mrs. Haw-
kins were married last Dec. 23 at Annapolis. This picture
has taken during a visit to a sister at Fort Worth.
Associated Press (AP) United Press (UP)
PRICE FIVE CENTS
n Frankfurt
y Russians Roll
Y On Last Nazi
IS Escape Line
MOSCOW, Jan. 29.-(AP)
a
TO WHO ESCAPED TO TELL OF JAPANESE ATROCITIES—Three American officers
who escaped from the Japanese and whose sworn statements were the basis of the Army.
Navy report on Japanese atrocities against prisoners in the Philippines are seen here with
Gen. Douglas MacArthur at his headquarters in Australia Aug. 4, 1943, after their escape.
Left to right: Lt. Col. William E. Dyess, Albany, Tex.; Cmdr. Melvyn H. McCoy, Indian-
apolis; Gen. MacArthur, and Lt. Col. S. M. M ellnik, Dunmore, Pa. Dyess was killed in a
plane crash recently in California. McCoy and Mellnik are on duty. This picture was re-
leased by the War Department. (AP Wirepho to from U. S. Army Signal Corps).
March of Death
Horror Related ,
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 29—) —A
story of studied cruelty inflicted by
Japanese upon American fighting
men after the fall of Bataan was
related here last night by a pale
young Army Air Forces captain who
escaped after experiencing more
than a year in the successive hells
of Nipponese prison camps in the
Philippines.
Capt. Samuel C. Grashio, 25,
of Spokane, Wash., talked for
three hours at an Army-spon-
sored press conference. The de-
tails were so harrowing that
several women, including Mrs.
William Dyess, widow of his
commanding officer in the Phil-
ippines, were ushered from the
room.
The slender captain, husband of
Devonia Montgomery Grashio and
son of Mr. and Mrs. Anthony G.
Grashio, Spokane, Wash., stood on
a chair and traced on a map the
route over which he said he and
the others were beaten, starved and
clubbed until they wound up in the
Davao penal colony on Mindanao.
"There was a little A. A. F. boy
lying out there,” said the captain.
Tears came to his eyes and he look-
ed into space. ‘A short recess was
called and then he continued:
"He was lying naked out by a
garbage pit. He was nothing but
skin and bones. He was almost
gone from chronic dysentery. The
blow-flies were literally eating him
alive.
‘‘I asked if I could de any-
thing and he ... he showed he
See DEATH MARCH, Pr. 1, Col. 4
Nauru Raided—Japs
NEW YORK. Jan. 29—UP—The
Tokyo radio said today that six U.
S. bombers raided Nauru island,
west of the Gilberts, yesterday.
The broadcast. recorded by U. S.
government monitors, said anti-air-
craft fire drove off the raiders and
“no damage was caused to our posi-
tions."..
IN ABILENE
— Those who miss their
copy of The Reporter-
News and call between
the time listed below, can
get delivery:
- Morning, 8 to 9:30 a. m.—
(Delivery starts 9:30 a. m.)
Evenings; 6-to 8:00 p. m.
(Delivery starts 8:00 p. m.)
Sundays, 8 to 10:00 a. m.
(Delivery of 10:00 a. m.)
The telephone number is
7271
OUTSIDE OF ABILENE
—Please call your Repor-
terNewe agent or carrier
S. British Pus
—Red army units west of
Novgorod were but 20 miles
from the Leningrad-Pskov
railway today and were
smashing forward across a
country white with a deep
new snowfall toward that last
supply artery for all Germans
pinched between Lake Ilmen
and Lake Ptivus.
(Lake Peipus forms part of the
Estonian border.)
With the Leningrad-Moscow
line almost completely in Rus-
sian hands, the Leningrad-Vi-
tebsk, railway, severed by Gen.
K. K. Meretskov’s forces, and
Gen Leonid A. Govorov’s units
astride the Leningrad - Reval
(Tallinn) east-west line. Red
army ski-men pushed the drive
to close the last bottleneck below
Leningrad.
This battle over difficult country
west of captured Peredolskaya on
the Leningrad-Vitebsk railway was
a repetition of the Soviet strategy
of the autumn and winter in the
Ukraine where the constant aim was
to cut German communications.
Already cut off were the Ger-
mans in the Chudovo sector on the
Leningrad-Moscow railway, while to
the south of Lake Ilmen another
large body of the enemy of Staraya
Russa faced the distinct possibility
of being isolated likewise.
A Russian drive down the west-
ern shore of Lake Ilmen toward
Shimsk was aimed at the rear of
the Staraya Russa garrison.
• • *
The Russian communique gave
Berlin Burns From
Second RAF Blow
LONDON, Jan. 29.—(AP)—The Eighth American "air-
force sent the greatest number of heavy bombers in its his-
tory—well over 800—in a thunderous assault against induse
trial Frankfurt today even as Berlin smoked and burned
anew from last night’s second heavy RAF blow in a row.
Fighter escorts probably numbering several hundred ac-
companied and assisted the Liberators and Flying Fortresses
in the blow at the highly-industrialized German city. Losses
were not announced immediately.
Swedish reports said- the complete evacuation of burn-
ing Berlin was contemplated, and the Nazis clamped a tight
censorship on details of the second successive devastating
RAF blow to mop up the rubble-strewn capital.
“We have gone through one of the most horrible nights
since the English raids of annihilation began against Berlin,”
said the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet’s Berlin corres-
pondent.
“Disastrous fires" are blazing in the shattered city, he
wrote, adding that the Nazi
censorship prohibited him
from giving a detailed picture
of the damage and the num-
ber of victims.
Bond Purchases
North From Anz
ALLIED HEADQUARTERS, Al-
giers, Jan. 29—(P) — American
beachhead troops, striking toward
the Appian Way and the main rail
line to the Cassino front, have ad-
vanced to within light artillery
range of Cisterna astride both ar-
teries 14 miles northeast of Anzio,
it was announced today.
At the same time other Allied
forces pushing north from Anzio
up the Anziate road captured a
bridge two miles beyond Carroceto
where the British routed a German
unit Thursday. This Allied force
was about 19 miles southeast of
Rome, and 12 miles north of Anzio.
The Germans launched heavy
air attacks against shipping c
the beachhead yesterday and
again suffered badly at the
hands of the Allied air forces
which shot down 21 enemy
planes over the area.
Fourteen more planes were shot
down during a heavy bomber raid
on Ferrara. The day’s total bag was
36 Nazi aircraft for a loss of five
Truce Called to
Move Wounded
By HAL BOYLE
WITH THE FIFTH ARMY IN IT-
ALY, Jan. 27,—(Delayed-),
Two men—an American captain and
a private—carrying a Red Cross
banner tied to two sticks marched
through battered no man’s land to
the brink of the bloody Rapido riv-
er today and crossed into German
territory amid a deathly silence.
They walked on across the strick-
en land—scene of the heaviest
fighting since Salerno—until they
came to a barbed-wire barrier,
where they were soon greeted by a
German officer.
They were there in response
to a German request for a bat-
the lull to evacuate casualties.
Allied planes.
Violent fighting raged north of
Cassino where American tanks and
infantry hacked out gains against
fierce opposition and repeated
counter-attacks. Farther n or t h.
troops seized two hills north of
Belvedere mountain and smashed
down three German counter-
thrusts.
British warships hurled shells at
German batteries in the Anzio sec-
tor. The air forces flew 1,500
sorties.
(The Algiers radio said today
Canadian units of the Eighth army
had made a slight advance in the
vicinity of Orsogna, about 10 miles
inland from the Adriatic port of
Ortona.)
(The German-controlled Par-
is radio, in a broadcast record-
ed by the British Ministry of
Information in London, said
last night that German mill-
tary quarters are expecting an-
other Allied landing in Italy
shortly. It declared that increas-
ed Allied- naval activity has
been observed and asserted that
“besides the Fifth and Eighth
armies another army is expect-
ed to participate in the battle
for Italy."
A communique said that during
the "heavy and accurate” naval
bombardment of the Germans in
the Anzio sector a train moving up
supplies “was cut in half by a di-
rect.hit.” The town of Formia, on
the Gulf of Gaeta to the south,
also was bombarded and traffic on
the Gulf of Gaeta to the south, also
was bombarded and traffic on a
coast road disrupted.
little news of fighting on other sec-
tors of the long front. In the south-
west Ukraine, where Gen. Nikolai
Vatutin was trying to reach the
Odessa-Warsaw trunk railway and
the Rumanian border, German
counterattacks were again beaten
back, the Moscow bulletin report-
ed Sixty-five enemy tanks were de-
stroyed and 1,200 Nazis killed in
this fighting, it was added.
German broadcasts, however, re-
ported Red army attacks in southern
Take Leap Here,
Yesterday’s bond sales totaled
$662,493.50, almost as much as the
amount received since the begin-
ning of the drive.
Bond workers were not par-
ticularly impressed with any re-
action to the story of Japanese
treatment of prisoners, although
one person handled a bond for
a man who commented that his
son was held as a prisoner of
the Japs. “I’ve been buying
stamps," he said, “but it’s bonds
from now on.”
Most bond customers Friday were
regularly buyers. One father of four
sons buys a $25 bond at regular
* HAVE YOU
BOUGHT YOUR K,°
S.tiaBONDS W:
-All Swedish correspondents made
it clear the attack was one of the
severest yet directed against Ber-
lin.-----—
“One felt the ground shaking as *
the result of the enormous air mines
which crushed whole apartment
house blocks," one correspondent
reported, and a rain of incendiaries
was followed by a “hurricane of
fire."
Berliners “by the. hundreds could
be seen carrying what they had
saved—a suitcase, or a bundle wrap-
ped in blankets and sheets—,” he
added.
The American raid by more
than 800 bombers obviously was
the greatest daylight attack of
the war on a single target.
Forty-seven bombers failed to ree
turn from the Berlin and other
night blows—the heaviest, RAP loss
TH
LOAN
and after terms were agreed
upon locally both sides withheld
their fire while 75 Yankee med-
ical officers and a-amaller num-
ber of Germans removed the
dead and wounded. Some had
been lying under heavy artillery
fire for three days.
The Americans brought back 25
| bodies and four wounded men, one
of whom was a medical officer.
When he was lifted into a litter,
the latter grinned feebly and, said:
| “Look, I have got maid service-
you can’t beat this battlefield ‘
Elsethere fighting raged uninter-
rupted along the battlefront and
soon after the truce time expired
both sides opened up with heavy,
rolling artillery barrages. This sec-
See TRUCE, Pr. 7, Col. 1
White Russia, inside the old Polish
border and southwest of Cherkasy
in the southeastern Ukraine. All
were repulsed, the broadcasts said,
with heavy losses.
Nazis Expect French
Invasion in 120 Days
LISBON, Jan. 29.—(UP)—Neutral
diplomatic sources reported from
Vichy today that the German high
command expected the Allies to tn-
vade France within 120 days and
was massing troops, guns and trains
accordingly.
One Vichy source was quoted as
reporting that the Germans, seeing
April as the most likely invasion
month, were concentrating large
reserve forces near Paris and Lyons
and were building new rail lines
fanning out from those cities to vi-
tal coastal points.
A third large reserve force was
reported being held in the Rhine-
land, from where it can be rushed
to the point of greatest need in
trains commandeered for the pur-
pose.___________________________________
Russian Warships
Shell Baltic Coast
NEW YORK, Jan. 29—UP—The
Hungarian radio in a broadcast re-
corded by U. S. government moni-
tors said today two Russian battle-
ships had shelled Nazi positions and
the road leading to the Estonian
port of Narva on the Gulf of Fin-
land.
intervals. Another who has all of
his sons in service commented that
“they don’t need to have a drive to
make people buy bonds."
One Abilene man, describing his
reaction Friday to the story of the
suffering of prisoners, said he read
the story, went off to himself and
wept, and then went down and
bought two bonds.
One woman bought a bond in
observance of the birthday of her
son in service.
As a rule children secure their
bonds through- school, but this
morning a small red-haired girl
piled 70 pennies on the ledge of
the postal savings window in the
postoffice. She has two pages in her
book filled already, having lost a
book she started earlier. She didn’t
have on a coat and her toes were
peeping through the ends of her
shoes, but she had a brother who
was in service until not long ago
when he received a medical dis-
charge. She’s taking up where he
dropped out. . . with the family’s
help.
Pay Your Poll Tax
County goal ............15,000
Paid Friday :.......... 340
Paid to date ...........7,519
$1.75 qualifies you to vote in
this year’s elections.
Pay at:
Collector’s office. Court House.
Fain Pharmacy.
West Texas Utilities office.
Branch post office at Me-
Murry, Hardin-Simmons, and
ACC.
Deadline—Jan, 31.
Counselor of Presidents—
SAGE OF EMPORIA' DIES QUIETLY AT AGE OF 75 -
EMPORIA. Kas., Jan. 29.-00-1
William Allen White, famous edi- |
tor of the Emporia Gazette and
widely known as “the Sage of Em-
poria,” died quietly today. He was
75 years old.
White had been in failing health,
for nearly a year and, his friends
and associates had known for some
time that his condition was dan-,
gerous. No public announcement of
his condition was made, however,
due to the family’s desire to be
spared any added burden.
In an attempt to regain his ro-
bust health. White entered the
Mayo clinic at Rochester, Minn.,
last October and submitted to a
major operation.
White, who bought the Gazette
in 1895 with $3,000 he borrowed,
was the friend and counselor of
presidents and governors. In his la-
ter years he was an elder statesman I
of the Republican party.
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE
Only once in his long career
did White swerve from the par-
ty of his choice. That was in
1912 when his good friend Theo-
dore Roosevelt ran for president
----on the Bull-Moose ticket.
"Roosevelt bit me and I went
mad,” he explained years later.
White’s famous editorial,-“What s
the Matter With Kansas?" which
he wrote a year after he took over
the Gazette, skyrocketed him to
prominence. It was a masterpiece of
sarcasm.
From then on his fame grew, not
only as an editor but as an author.
He wrote numerous books, most of
which concerned politics and po-
litical figures. His “Masks In a Pa-
geant’ reviewed the life and times,
of the ten presidents he knew inti-
mately.
| Funeral arrangements have not
ibeen made.
in the 72-night battle to erase.Ber-
lin but less than the losses of some
of the earlier attacks on the capital.
The RAF’s many hundreds of tons
of shattering explosives and fire
bombs thundered down on the city
already flaming in a score of places
from Thursday night’s massive 1,-
500 long ton attack.
Although the Air ministry’s com-
See AIR WAR, Pg. 1, Col. 1
—. m----—
Chutist Falls in
Phantom Lake
Search was being made in
Fort Phantom Hill lake this
morning for body of an Army
flier who fell in the lake after
parachuting from his ship,
which exploded in mid-air and
sank in the waters.
Mrs. G. E. Risley, who was
near the lake, said she was
watching a group of planes fly
over the water when something
“fell out" of one. Presently a
parachute opened and she saw
the man descend into the lake
as the plane exploded and
dropped also.
Fishermen called the lake-
keeper and boats went to the
approximate ‘ location of the
flier’s fall, said Mrs. Risley.
Some of them heard the flier’s
screams for help but he was
not located before sinking. Aft-
er a few-minutes a part of the
parachute came to the surface
but there was no trace of the
man. 1
City firemen were going to T
the scene at 11:30 a. m., two
hours after the accident. Army
Air base headquarters were no-
tifled and had sent men to di-
rect efforts to recover the body,
it was learned.
THE WEATHER
v. s. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
WEATHER BUREAU
ABILENE A ND VICINITY: Mostly
cloudy with mild temperatures this afs
ternoon tonight and Sunday: rain this
afterneen and tonight.
EAST TEXAS east of 100th meridianit
Mostly cloudy with mild temperatures
this afternoon, tonight and Sundayt.
rain this afternoon and tonight and east
and south portions Sunday.
| WEST TEXAS Partly cloudy with lit-
the temperature change tonight and
Sunday except mostly cloudy in Pecos
valley east of the Pecos river and Del
Rio Eagle pass area where scattered
light rain will occur tonight.
Highest temperature yesterday City
office, 65 Airport 63
Lowest this morning City office, 493
Airport, 49.
VICTORY
TEMPERATURES
Sat-Fri Fri-Thr
A. M Hour P.
Sunrise this morning: n
Sunset tonight: 7:10.
DO YOU VALUE YOUR CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS $1.75 WORTH? PAY YOUR POLL TAX BEFORE FEB. 1st!
C Ms *
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The Abilene Reporter-News (Abilene, Tex.), Vol. 63, No. 226, Ed. 2 Saturday, January 29, 1944, newspaper, January 29, 1944; Abilene, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1635988/m1/1/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Abilene Public Library.