Evening star., 1944-01-29
To Be Avenged

americans will read and reread
with angry eyes the Joint Army and
Navy announcement of what hap
pened in the Philippines after the
surrender of Bataan and Corregidor.
1t has been said that statistics do
not bleed, that mere figures and
words are at best only a pallid ap-
Proclamation OF the realities they are
meant to describe. That Is true, but
the approximation in this case is
vivid enough to make all of us see
the kind of enemy we face in the
Japanese.
The rape of Nanking, the bayonet-
Ing OF British prisoners in Hong
Kong. the cold-blooded murder of
our captured flyers after the raid on
Toklo-none OF these monstrous
brutalities was an isolated act,
attributable simply to troops gone
suddenly berserk. or to momentary
lapses in discipline. or to some fleet
Ing official whim or impulse. For
the list OF such japanese crimes is
long and ever lengthening, forming
a pattern Of savagery so atrocious
and widespread as to seem part Of
the very nature of this enemy, a
thing making him uniquely evil, and
by the same token, uniquely strong
the kind of foe who battles viciously.
to the death, as at Tarawa.
In the Philippines, between April
and October of 1912, more than
$500 Americans out of some $1,000,
died as result Of japanese barbar-
ism. In addition, thousands of their
Filipino comrades in arms went the
same way. According to the care.
fully authenticated Army and Navy
announcement, their tortures in
cluded horrible march OF DEATH"
beatings, bayonetings, beheadings,
deliberately imposed starvation,
cruel sun treatment" and other
wanton punishments beyond de-
scription. But this is not the whole
story Of what happened after the
fall of Bataan and Corregidor, for it
covers only the period up to October,
1912, and thousands more may have
died since then. Indeed, Palmer
Hoyt, former head of the domestic
branch of the Office OF War Infor-
nation, suggests that the number
runs as high as $4,000.
This is inhumanity at its worst,
pitched to level of beastiality out
jungling the jungle. And not its
least appalling feature is that there
appears to be no disposition on the
part of the enemy either to regret or
correct it. The White House, in fact,
now reveals that the Government
has abandoned hope of getting relief
to surviving prisoners in japanese
hands. the criminals of Toxic pre-
sumably having made it clear that
they do not propose to become any
less uncivilized than they already
are. Britain, thousands of whose
empire troops have suffered the
same fate as our American-Filipino
forces, apparently is faced with an
Identical problem. so that with the
United States. it can do little more
at this time than prosecute the war
to the hilt and vow righteous venge-
ance.
For their part. the American peo-
ple-all Of us here on the home
front-can take the story of the
Philippine tortures as a text not to
inspire burning rage alone but to
give new meaning and direction,
new energy and unity to the effort
needed in this country to speed up
the day when that vengeance will be
exacted and the Japanese are paid
in full, and with compound interest,
for the terrible things they have
done and are doing This much, at
least, we owe to the memory of all
those thousands of brave men who
walked their last mile on Tojo's
n1erciless march of death"