Evening star., 1942-10-10
MunucIinq
Continued From First Page J

safeguards for prisoners of war.
Briefly, these were the steps:
The Germans. accusing the Brit
ish of handcuflng Germans cap
tured at Dieppe and in a raid last
Sunday on the Channel island of
Sark, announced yesterday that
they had chained 1876 captives,
At noon today q am. E. w t. a
deadline elapsed for British threat
to carry out counter-reprisals
against an equal number of Ger
mans in their hands.
At the same time, the deadline
passed for a German retort that
they would manacle three times the
number of Britons in their hands.
With the expiration of the noon
deadline, Canadian authorities issued
an order to start manacling Ger
mans as retaliation for the steps
against the Dieppe prisoners, most
of whom were Canadians.
British Overtures Spurned.
So far. the British overtures to
the Nazis for Swiss intervention to
check the authenticity of the Ger
man charges-which had been de-
MED repeatedly and insistently
heretofore-have been spruned.
The British statement today said
that in the Sark instance the lc
men of the British raiding force
were compelled to tie the hands OF
the Germans captured in order to
bind them to their captors but that
no orders had been issued to that
effect.
The Government statement said:
In order that the true facts of
the controversy about the tying of
the hands of prisoners Of war may
be clearly before the public. the
following statement is issued by His
Majesty's government:
I'm the Dieppe raid the order was
Issued without authority to the effect
that, wherever possible, the hards
of prisoners of war will be bound so
that they cannot destroy their
papers.
Order C0untermanded.
"On the complaint of the German
government, the War Office at once
before there had been time to make
inquiry. issued a statement that if
any such order had been issued it
would be countermanded, because
they considered that such an order
might be held to imply that, ire
spective of circumstances, the hands
of prisoners of war should be bound
"On inquiries being made no evil
dence was found that any Of the
prisoners brought back from Dieppe
had their hands tied. But the ex-
lstence of the order came to light
and it was countermanded.
The raid on Sark was carried
out by a party of 10 officers and
men.
Seven of the party captured five
Germans. The hands of the Ger
mans were tied in order that their
arms might be linked with the cap
tors.
mo orders, written or otherwise,
had been issued, but the prisoners
had to be taken past German-oc-
cupied barracks on the Way to the
boats and precautions therefore
we're necessary. In spite OF the pre-
cautions four of the five Germans
broke away shouting and had to be
shot to prevent them from raising
an alarm.
Question of Circumstance.
The Geneva convention contains
no statement about the tying OF the
hands of prisoners but prescrloes
humane treatment. The question
at issue, therefore. is what consti-
tutes humane treatment.
Clearly this differs according TO
circumstances. There is wide dlf-
ference between what is appropriate
to prisoners in safe CUSTODY ana
prisoners in the course of battle.
TT will be observed that the ac-
tions complained of by the German
government relate to action IN the
course of battle.
THE German government has
however, itself taken action TO Tie
the hands of prisoners OF war IN
custody and far removed from the
battlefield as an act OF reprisal.
Acts of reprisal against prisoners OF
war are specifically forbidden by
H. ,o,yent tion "