Evening star., 1945-11-13
Prisoners Sabotage Jap Machinery, Steal Food
To Sell Officers, One Mon Making $4,000


the first chance the officers had
had to spend American money for a
long time, and they spent it so en-
Enthusiastically that prices rose diz-
zily.
The cost of a can of milk, OF
pound of powdered milk, rose to $25;
a 12-ounce can of corned beef was
worth as much as $25; a package OF
American cigarettes brought Sc
The enlisted men were given more
to eat than the officers, so the lat
ter occasionally even bought left
over food. Sour -four buns sold for
ST each, with more bidders than the
enlisted men could supply. One
boy is said to have amaSSed nearly
S25 900 during his stay at Mukden
If so, he earned every penny of it
for the chances he took were ap-
pailing.
Another American soldier, boy
Of Polish extraction, got out of the
factory one evening with a bottle
of ink and few pencils-a semi
priceless haul in view of the ex-
treme shortage of such things at
camp The bottle was too big to
get in the false bottom of a food
bucket, however. But the Polish
boy recalled that the Jap sentry at
the prison gate seldom inspected
the under portion of the food bucket
cart. So he climbed under it and
was in the process of fastening the
haul to the bottom of the cart S
floor boards when Jap soldier
surprised him. seized him and the
ink and pencils, and dragged him
off.
Sticks to His Story.
The boy explained quickly that
he had seen some one under the cart
and that the person had run into
the factory's engine room when he
approached. So he had crawled un-
der to have look and then
the guard came along.
He was marched to the guard
house, where he told the same story
The Jap guards leaped on him and
gave him an eXcruciating beating
Again he told the same story. They
beat him once more. He stuck to
his story. and again he was whipped
pitilessly He repeated the story.
They made him stand at atten-
tion in front of the guardhouse
all that bitter night, beat him
several times the next day but never
shook his story. After three days
of this torture they released him,
convinced he was telling the truth.
The boy knew throughout the
terrible beatings that if he did con-
fesS he would be beaten even worse
then thrown into solitary confine-
ment for anywhere from a week to
three months, awaiting trial.
News Gets Cheaper.
Our men got their news at Muk-
den under easier terms. A wrist
watch here brough a month S
supply of papers, stolen from the
factory Offices by Jap soldiers and
smuggled into camp by the enlist
ed men. The papers were delivered
each night to Coils. Hoffman and
Wood, and after they had made two
paraphrases of the news the papers
were burned, and so were the para
phrase sheets when they had been
read.
To protect the translators, our
men strung themselves out all over
the barracks, posted our own guards
at the windows. When a Jap ap-
preached one of our "outposts" our
guard would say "Butch"-and this
warning word would be tossed all
the way up to the translating
colonies.
Our enlisted men at the factory
became sosadept disappearing to be
busy at work, when they were not,
that the Japs never knew they had
gone into the pipe-making busi-
ness. They turned out really won-
derful pipes, some even having
hard-rubber stems and machined
aluminium filters, thanks to stolen
Jap materials. These pipes they
sold or gave to officers back at the
camp. where cigarettes were so
scarce that pipes-and such rancid
Manchurian tobacco as was avail
able-had to be used by inveterate
smokers.
Tomorrow: The generals last
days of captivity
(Copyright, 1915, King Features
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