Evening star., 1945-10-30
|Japs Bayoneted Priest
Receiving AbsoIution,
Yamashita Trial Told
By the Associated Press.

MANILA, Oct. 30.-How japanese
bayoneted an aged Manila priest
while he was receiving absolution
and hacked to pieces woman try
ing to defend a child was described
today at the trial of 1t. Gen. Tomo-
|yuki Yamashita on war crime
charges.
Father Francis Joseph Cosgrave,
white-robed Irish Redemptionist
priest, told the military commission
trying Japan's former chief Of oc-
cupation forces in the Philippines
that he was In the act of giving abb
solution to an aged fellow priest,
when a Japanese bayonet, thrust un-
der his appraised hand, killed the
dying man.
Father Cosgrave also told how
saber-swinging japanese officer
hacked to death Mrs Vasquez Prada,
Manila society woman, as she sought
to defend small boy after the jap
anese had killed her husband and
three older sons.
Scores Of Incidents.
These were but two out OF scores
OF brutal incidents that took place
at De La Sale College last February
during the killing of 40 men, women
and children, including Brother
Xavier, the college head.
Pretty Rosario Carlos, who lost
four members of her family in the
massacre, said she was shot in the
breast by japanese soldier who
then attempted to assault her as
she lay wounded.
Other witnesses told of the mas
sacre of perhaps so men and boys,
including paralyzed Supreme Court
Justice Anacleto Diaz and his two
sons, by soldiers who lined them up
and fired machine guns pointblank
into rows of civilians and finished
off the job with crude spears and
bayonets.
Found Bodies in Pit.
Mai. Gen. Basilio j. Valdes, Phil.
ippine chief of staff, today told the
commission that he found the half
cremated bodies of his older BROTH
er and a nephew in pit filled with
oecomposing flesh.
Earlier, the generals sister-in-
law, Mrs. Agela Lopez de Valdes,
and Mrs. Justa Guido, described
how their huSbands-Lt. Coils. Alejo
Valdes and Jose Guido-were tied
up by Japanese soldiers under YAM
ashita's command and taken away,
never to be seen alive again.
Mrs. Lopez testified japanese
officer brandishing a revolver came
to her house and ordered all occu-
pants upstairs except her l5-year-
old daughter.
II did not like to leave my daugh-
ter" she cried. Il saw the Japanese
driving her toward my husbands
study. She was crying. ! went to-
ward my daughter and put her be-
hind my back. Go ahead and kin
u.s. told him in Spanish and Taga-
log and anything else / could think
of. If you had a daughter, would
you like these things to happen to
her?'"
Defense to Blame Guerrillas.
Meanwhile, the defense indicated
1t would seek TO prove that those
who fought the Japanese after the
surrender of Gen. Wainwright could
be considered war criminals and
that the Japanese occupying Manila
found themselves in situation
where any and all civilians might
be guerrillas in disguise.
Explaining he did not condone
atrocities, Capt. Adolf F. Reel of
Boston said the defense would at
tempt to show that the existence of
this underground army without uni
forms was responsible for actions of
the Japanese troops under the
Tiger Of Malaga"
An indication that the defense of
Yamashita would be more than a
mere negative defense of war crime
responsibility charges was the ar
rival in Tokyo of one of his several
appointed American Army attorneys,
Maj. George F. Guy. on an evidence
seeking mission.