The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-11-09
Gen. Wainwright Tells OF Many Ordeals
Suffered During Long Period In Jails

that the picnic was over, and we
were walked back to our camps
under guard.
Late in November, 1943, we re-
ceived an old copy Of the English
language Nippon Times at Muksaq
and in Swimming through it my
name leaped out of the page. 1t was
a Domei dispatch:
''BUENOS AIRES, Oct. .
President Roosevelt promoted
five United States Army offic-
ers who are In the wartime
rank Of Lieutenant-General to
the formal rank of Major-Gen-
eral today and asked for the ap-
prevail of the Senate, according
E to Washington reports.
"Officers appointed Major
Generals are:
Joseph w. Stillwell, Conn
mander-in-Chief of the United
States Forces in India, Burma
and China;
George S. Patton, Jr., COM
mander of the United States
Forces in Sicily;
"Brehon B. Somervell, Chief
Of the United States Army
Services of Supply;
"Joserh G. McNarney, De-
putty Chief of Staff of the Unit
ed States; and
Jonathan NJ. Wainwright
former Commander of the Fill
pino-American Army in the
Philippines, who succeeded
General Douglas Macarthur,
and who is now a prisoner Of
the Japanese Forces"
I was refused permission to
write to the War Department &C.
cepting the new permanent rank.
It would have to be done, the Japs
ruled, through an Individual in
America.
So I wrote to my wife on Nov.
ember 80 to have her tell the Ad.
jutant General of the Army that
accepted. But there being no real
assurance that the letter would get
through I later wrote out a form
addressed to the Adjutant Gener-
al, and witnessed by Generals King
and Moore, and in 1T a notation
which read: TT being impractic.
able to deliver this acceptance at
this time, it has been signed and
the signature witnessed, and is
hereby retained for delivery to the
Adjutant General at the earliest
possible date"
As for the earliest possible
date" I had long since had to re.
wise my old written prediction that
we would be liberated by Decem.
Der 81, 1943. Our removal to For.
mosa had condemned all such pos.
sibility, I felt, and now at Muksaq
we were swamped with so much
Jap propag anda about the success.
ses of their fleet and Army that
I sometimes found myself wonder
ing If they could possibly be telling
the truth. There was no way to
check the assertions they presented
as facts.
One such officer lined us I'D one
day before Christmas to tell us
that the United States had lost 16
battleships and the British two
battleships since the opening of
the war. The propaganda line was
clever, for we knew they were tell
ing the truth about the British bat
tleships-tte Prince of Wales and
the Repulse, sunk off Singapore in
the early days of the war.
But there was a slip-up right
after that in the Nippon Times. 1t
quoted Admiral King as saying that
the U. S. then had 20 serviceable
battleships. I knew therefore thai
we could not have lost what the
Japs claimed.
We were constantly urged to
write personal letters to our homes
or to the War Department, telling
how well we were being treated,
a roundabout effort on the part
of the Japs to cause the United
States to relax in its determina-
ton to pulverize Japan.
Tomorrow: Christmas at Muk-
SAP, and bouts with the Jap propa-
ganda machine.