Evening star., 1945-09-27
Ashes Of ; Executed
DooIittIe Airmen
Recovered by u. ).
By the Associated l'ress.

SHANGHAI, Sept. 27.-The ashes
of three Doolittle flyers who were
executed by the Japanese were re-
covered today, the United States
War Crimes Commission disclosed,
and several eyewitnesses told fresh
stories of the shooting In an old
Chinese cemetery at the edge OF
Shanghai on October Is, 1912.
The ashes were found In three
small wooden boxes on a shelf in a
Shanghai funeral parlor.
One of the three flyers whose
ashes were recovered was 1t. Will
liam Glover Farrow, %, of WASH
ington, D. c., and Darlington, s. c.
Seizure earlier of court-martial
records which doomed the three
Tokyo-bombing flyers had afforded
America proof that the infuriated
japanese military had singled out
the three airmen for discriminatory
treatment.
The Japanese government, in re-
sponse to American protests, had
contended that airmen were handled
like all other prisoners of war.
But the court-martial papers
showed the flyers. among the 80
who raided Tokyo and other jap
aneSe cities on April 18, l942, under
command of then 1t. Col James
Doolittle, were tried on charges of
violating military regulations re-
garding aircraft crews" Col. Doo-
little was promoted to brigadier gen.
eral the day following the raid. He
is now a lieutenant general.
Proceedings in japanese.
The trial required only 80 minutes.
with all proceedings in Japanese
The proceedings decreed execution
for the following:
1t FarroW, accused of plotting a
plane which "dived and strafed
Nagoya grammar school building and
children playing on the grounds"
1t. Dean Edward Hallmark, 27, OF
Dallas, Tex, accused of plotting q
plane which bombed and strafed
the city (of Tokyo blindly and dis
criminately killed scores OF
civilians and destroyed several civil
ian buildings
Sergt Harold A. Spatz, 20, of
Lebo, Kans., a machine gunner on
one of two B-29 Mitchells whose
crash landings in China resulted in
eight airmen falling into Japanese
hands.
The death which befell the three
also had been decreed for the other
five. Their sentences were COM
muted to life Imprisonment the
day before the executions, but one
of the five, 1t. Robert J. Meder,
"a, Of Lakewood, Ohio, died Decem-
Der !, l943. in Nanking prison
camp after suffering from disease
due to poor care and malnutrition.
All eight were tortured in notori-
GUS Bridge House, Shanghai, in the
days before the trial
Japs Knew Hornet Was Used.
Strangely enough, although the
fact the flyers took of from the.
carrier Hornet was kept a tightly
guarded military secret in the
United States for a year after the
raid, the Japanese apparently knew
Of. it almost Immediately.
Capt. J. S. Bailey, San Francisco,
of the War Crimes Commission,
said a japanese approached the
airmen the day after their capture
and asked them how to pronounce
Hornet"
The seized document started a
search for the trial Judge, 1t. Col
Nakaio Toyama; the prosecutor,
Hata Itsuro, and two minor judges
as war criminals.
The four American survivors, all
liberated last month in China. are:
1t. Chase J. Nelson, Hyrum, Utah;
1t. Robert Hite. Earth, Texas; 1t.
George Barr. Madison, Wis. and
Sergt. Jacob D. de Shazer. Madras
Oreg.
| 1t. Farrow's mother, Mrs. Jessie
S. Farrow. was visiting the home
of her niece. Mrs. Robert Phelps,
ia Edgewood street, Arlington,
when she was notified by the War
Department of her sons death. A
former employe of the Board of
Economic Warfare here, Mrs. Far
row plans to return to Darlington,
S. c., the birthplace of her SON.
"All the atrocity stories have been
so terrible that I feel he was spared
much suffering Mrs Farrow said