 in pits they were forced to dig. Their chests, heads and eyes were then prodded with bayonets after which the pit was sprayed with bullets until the helpless victims were all dead. The Director of Health and President of the Indian Independence League, Diwan Singh, was arrested and nearly 2,000 of his Peace Committee associates incarcerated in the local jail and subjected to the water treatment, electric shocks and other unspeakable forms of torture for eighty-two days. Those left alive were then taken out to the country and shot and buried. After the massacre the Japanese resorted to a reign of terror, women were abducted and taken to the officers club to be raped by the officer elite. A shipload of Korean girls was brought in to participate in this 'sport'. During the three and a half years of Japanese occupation, out of the 40,000 population of Port Blair around 30,000 were brutally murdered. The small islands of the Andamans were left a scene of utter devastation. This was Japan's way of helping India get her freedom from British rule.
A few miles outside the city of Tacloban, the principle city on the island of Leyte in the Philippines, was a prisoner-of-war camp for Allied soldiers. In charge of the prisoners was a senior British officer, Major Cumyns. Considered by the inmates as a strict disciplinarian, arrogant and conceited who used every opportunity to advance his own creature comforts and at the same time to endear himself to the good graces of the Camp Commandant, Captain Yoshishito. In the camp were 44 British and 120 Australian prisoners-of war plus one solitary American. On Christmas Eve, 1943, four Australians made a desperate attempt to escape. Hunted down, with the help of Major Cumyns, the four were eventually captured. Next morning, Christmas Day, the four Aussies were beheaded in front of the assembled prisoners. Hatred towards Major Cumyns spilled over in the hearts of the Australians and around midnight that night a small group of Australian prisoners crept into Cumyns' hut while he slept, slipped a leather cord around his neck and strangled him to death. From then on the British P.O.W.s refused to have anything to do with their Aussie mates. On the 20th of October, 1944, units of the United States 6th Army liberated Leyte and the P.O.W. camp. There were 120 survivors in the camp who were eventually shipped to Brisbane, Australia. Interrogated by officers of the Judge Advocates Office regarding the death of Major Cumyns, the full story came to light. Nothing came of the inquiry, the whole episode was covered up by the British and Australian governments.
MASSACRE ON ANDAMAN (August 14, 1945)
Situated midway between the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, lie the tranquil Andaman Islands. As the food shortage became acute during the last month of the war, the Japanese occupiers decided to exterminate all those who were no longer useful or employable. All were deprived of their personal possessions and household goods before being embarked on three boats. About two kilometres from the shore of the uninhabited Havelock Island they were forced to jump into the sea and swim to the beach. Most of them, around a hundred, drowned on the way and those who made it were abandoned to die of starvation. Of the original 300 who landed only eleven were alive six weeks later. The next day, 800 Indian civilians were rounded up and transported to another uninhabited island, Tarmugli. Transferred to the island in small boats, they wandered aimlessly on the beach waiting for further orders. Soon, a detachment of 19 Japanese troops arrived and what followed was one of the most heinous crimes in the annals of the Pacific war. It took the detachment just over an hour to slaughter all but two of the 800 victims by shooting and bayoneting. Next day, August 15, 1945, the day of the Japanese surrender, a burial detail of troops arrived to remove all traces of the massacre. Within twenty-four hours all 798 bodies were collected and burned in funeral pyres until only fragmented bones and ashes remained. The ashes were then bu