Evening star., 1945-11-14

GEN. WAINWRIGHT.
/ -AP Photo.
but he bore down hard on the in
Escription on the card.
"Oh, that's a joke" Kelly laughed.
at is not joke! 1t is an attack
on the Japanese war effort!" Marui
yelled.
= But Kelly kept laughing.
Poking Fun at General.
mo, it's a joke, lieutenant" he
insisted You see, we were just
poking fun at the general"
"Fun?"
Yes" Kelly lied, manfully. "You
see, the general has slogan of his
own, and we wanted to ridicule it."
What is your generals slogan?"
the Jap asked suspiciously.
1.-The Golden Gate in 49," Kelly
answered, without batting an eye
lash, and that seemed to please the
oaf.
Maruis worry over Home Alive
in AS" was that he feared we were
getting news of Jap reverses. But
| there was no way for us to find out
what was happening in the world.
We repeatedly made efforts to get
newspapers or radio news, but to no
avail. We wrote the Jap colonel in
charge of all prison camps in Man
churia and to the International Red
Cross. The British and Dutch wrote
to their respective protective pow
ers in Toxic. But the lid was on
tight.
Our barracks, as I have said, were
heated by steam. But it was at
times so cold in there that had to
wear most of my clothes day and
night. Sergt. Carroll and Corpl. T.
j. Willard helped by wangling some
-four from the kitchen, making
paste and sticking paper over the
ill-fitting windows
When all the books were read and
reread at Sian spent my daylight
hours serving as the official razor
blade sharpener of the camp. Just
before he died at Karenko, poor
Sergt. Cavanaugh willed me his lit
tie concave-shaped razor hone. I
became quito proficient at the job,
in fact so proficient that I was kept
busy at it through most of each day
the rest of my time at Sian.
Becomes Razor Sharpener.
was able to, sharpen as many
as 20 blades q day. There was no
way of buying new blades. so it was
imperative that our old ones be kept
sharp. I made my own two blades
last a full year with Cavanaugh's
hone. I kept the Dutch Governor
Generals single blade in workable
condition for months and "a days.
The long Manchurian winter
dragged on and. each man to his
own taste, we did what we could
to occupy our minds. I just about
committed to memory Kenneth
Roberts "Oliver Wiswell," his
Northwest Passage" and Stewart
Edward Whites fine frontier story,
'The Long Rifle"
And I continued a string of soli-
taire games which 1 had commenced
about year after my capture. 1
decided that I would play 10000
games and record the results. BY
the late winter of 1945 I had passed
the $500 mark.
Finding enough to smoke was
problem at Sian. The Japs would
not give us enough of our Red Cross
cigarettes. AS substitute we were
occasionally permitted to buy the
thin, quick-burning and tasteless
cigarettes of the Jap military. I
smoked perhaps six of these day
all I could get-then cut UP the
butts and used their contents in
my pipe.
Suffer With Teeth.
All OF our teeth we're in bad con-
dition at this late date in physical
neglect and after much dickering
the Japs let us hire a Jap dentist
in February. He came with a rudi-
mentary type of filling and stocked
1t into our cavities with primitive
skill. Several of us, including my
self, had teeth which had been
broken off at the gums but the
dentist would not pull what was left
and we suffered greatly from these
nubs.
The thieving Jap supply men at
Sian, with their warped outlook.
often offered to sell us things for
which We had no earthly use: jap
pictures, toy dolls, toy horses.
cigarette cases and-one day-sey-
eral sets Of curling irons.
"A new loneliness crept in on lis as
the endless winter continued. All of
our mail was cut off and since we
were permitted to hear no official
news as to the progress of the war
we began to feel more abandoned
than ever in our bleak exile.
We did notice, however, that the
number OF air-raid drills increased
and more often than not, at night.
we were told to draw our blacko,It
curtains. We had no way of know
ing for certain, but we reasoned that
on more than one occasion these
exercises were more than mere drills.
though we heard no planes or bombs
we ached for some such harbinger.
1t was still freezing at Sian on
March 81. but the Japs methodicallyl
ordered us to turn in the warm
clothing they had issued to us, and
they shut off the heat-for this was
the first day of spring. BY April
3. when it was 16 degrees above zero,
we all had heavy colds or influenza.
The Japs then made concession
and turned the heat back on for an
hour in the morning and an hour In
the evening. But this stopped q
week later.
Garden Plots Assigned.
They put the enlisted men to. work
about this time, ploughing garden
in the nearby ground, though the
ground was still frozen from Ia to-
18 inches deep. The senior officers1
were given small plotssin which they
might raise vegetables. Sergt. Car
roll, in addition to his heavy work,
generously planted me some string
beans, red peppers. melons and