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STATEMENT OF COL. ALFRED C. OLIVER, JR., UNITED STATES ARMY, RETIRED, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Colonel OLIVER. I would like to give personal testimony concerning the attitude of the Japanese men who had us in camp.

On April 11, I found myself the senior chaplain, and the senior officer, with a Lieutenant Colonel Gatley, in the first camp where the men from Bataan were received. That was in Camp O'Donnel. I prepared a letter in which I stated about as follows, and this letter was written by Colonel Gatley and myself to the Japanese commanding officer:

To the Japanese commanding officer: We said we assumed that the Japanese would abide by the Geneva Convention, and then we asked certain specific things under the Geneva Convention, such as the privilege of holding religious services, such as having proper medicine, and food, and care of the sick.

After 3 days he called us before him in the presence of an interpreter, and answered our letter. In substance, he denied everything we asked for.

At that time the men did not have enough water to drink. Those who could would have to stand in line for 36 hours before you could get a canteen full.

We had food that was full of maggots, and full of stones.

Everybody had been on half to one-third rations on Bataan since January 6, and because of the fighting were in a bad condition physically when we made the death march. I asked him, and he said no, he would not give us any medicine. I asked him especially if we could take these men who were wounded to a Japanese hospital, and he said no.

I said, Could we take them to a Philippine hospital, and he said no. And he got more and more angry. He said I want you to understand that I hate you, and I hate all Americans, and the only thing I am interested in is when one of you die; then I will see that you bury him.

In spite of this, chaplains held services behind buildings and under buildings. In 6 weeks' time 1,700 of our men died through negligence. The Philippine Red Cross sent in two truckloads of medicines and supplies, and I was present and was called to headquarters, but the Japanese commander would not let us unload a thing and never did. After 1,700 of us had died, those left were taken to Cabanatuan where the men from Corregidor were also brought. I landed there June 2, 1942, and from June until the middle of August the new Jap commander would not even permit us to hold a religious service or bury the dead. Some 1,800 men were put in graves, dumped in like cordwood, head to foot, as many as 46 in a grave, and often covered so thinly that the barrio dogs came and ate the bodies.

There are many things that I could tell you about, but I would like to tell you just how they treated chaplains. For instance, I think it is not generally known but the chaplains in the Japanese Army have a military character. They are used to arouse the men to go into the battle, and I never could convince the Jap CO that American chaplains had a spiritual mission. Consequently the officers of that camp

were treated, contrary to all Geneva Conventions, as common laborers, and the specific thing they were forced to do was to clean out the Japanese latrines. We went in there with buckets and dippers, and nearby there was a farm which we were cultivating for the Japanese Army. We did not get the supplies from it. And these officers every day would go and spread this fecal matter and urine on the farmland. barefooted, their feet cut by the volcanic rock until they were ulcerated and bleeding. I can well remember certain of my chaplains, both Protestants and Roman Catholics who went with those men and did that thing, day after day.

A common procedure, gentlemen, was this: Every morning we would line up, maybe 5,000 of us, line up to go out to work on the farm. They lined us up outside the barbed wire in groups of one hundred. No one had said a word, no one had done a thing, no one had given any indication of disobedience. Remember, this happened day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. The Jap guards would then take five or seven of these American soldiers and bring them out in front of the group, cause them to kneel, and then with 2 by 4's and baseball bats-our own baseball bats-would beat them unconscious and maybe kill them, kicking the unconscious bodies. We would carry these bodies back inside the barbed wire. Men went insane over this inhuman treatment. Many a man went insane in anticipation of what might happen to him the next morning.

None of us were like we are now. I weighed 215 pounds before capture, and I went down to 103. Other men were down to 90, 80, and even 60 pounds, just skeletons.

I am not going to put in any claims. I am a retired colonel in the Regular Army with permanent total disability, and I get enough to live on. The money that may be available should be given to the enlisted men, and to those who are not as fortunate as I am. For them I tell this personal incident.

They took 17 of us down to the city of Cabanatuan and stripped us and put us into two stinking cells. They crowded us in. They took me, for instance, because as the senior chaplain they thought that I was the instigator of anything that was done in camp. They had captured some material which indicated that I was one of those who had been bringing medicine into camp. I was.

We had an epidemic of diphtheria, and I watched 133 men choke to death. As chaplain, I watched them, and the Japanese would not give us a bit of medicine for them. And they had medicine antitoxin within 50 yards of where they were choking. They got a little scared and gave us some, one-quarter of a dose, which left the men paralyzed; then it was that I began to contact my Manila friends through the underground and bring in some supplies.

In Cabanbatuan they tried to get me to tell, and the other men with me, who inside of camp were mixed up with this entry of supplies. We would not tell them. They tortured me and beat me unconscious three times, and then put me in solitary and left me there for months, unable to speak, unable to stand, unable to lie down, except late at night. I actually almost went insane.

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There was a Jap guard in front of me with a bayonet. If I nodded, or did anything, he prodded me and stuck me.

One day I went out to the latrine and stopped to wash my hands in front of the Japanese guardhouse. As I stood there washing my hands, which was usual procedure, my guard hit me, without provocation and when my back was turned, with the butt of his rifle and knocked me down, crushing two vertebra in my neck. I crawled back into my cell.

I finally fainted after a month, from the pain, and when I got back here to Walter Reed 10 months later it was too late to do anything for me. This sort of treatment happened to scores and hundreds of men, and when you think that 4,500 men died in those two camps that I spoke about, you realize the uncivilized treatment we all received.. Gentlemen, the cats and dogs would run across from the nearby village, and we trapped them, and outside of an occasional carabao that constituted our meat. All of us had beriberi.

They came into camp and brought up photographers from Manila, and took our cooks who were mostly going around with G-strings and dressed, them in white. They brought in five scrawny chickens. and took pictures of our preparing a meal. They did not show that these five chickens were to be the only meat for 9,000 starving American soldiers.

I could tell you of many other specific things that happened. But, gentlemen, I hope I have convinced you that the Japanese disregarded the Geneva Convention and were barbaric in the treatment of prisoners, and they have no more depth to their civilization than the lacquer on a woman's nails.

That is all I have to say, Thank you.

Mr. HINSHAW. Colonel, the members of the committee appreciate your coming here to testify today, particularly under the difficult circumstances under which you find yourself as a result of the inhuman treatment given to you.

I do not know that any member of the committee desires to question you directly; perhaps they should wait until we have heard a few more of the witnesses.

Colonel OLIVER. If there are no questions, I would like to be excused, because I have to go home now.

Mr. HINSHAW. Thank you, Colonel. We will excuse you. We appreciate the time and trouble you took to come here.

Mr. HINSHAW. The next gentleman we will have the pleasure of hearing is Major General King, Jr.

General King, it is our understanding that you were in the very unfortunate position of being in command of the troops on Bataan.

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. EDWARD P. KING, JR.,

WASHINGTON, D. C.

General KING. Yes, sir. Under General Wainright.

Mr. HINSHAW. Will you be seated, sir, and proceed with your state

ment.

General KING. I desire, first, to state to the committee that I have no selfish interest in this or any other legislation. I, like Chaplain Oliver, am a retired Army officer, and I do not at the present time. consider that I have any claim against the Japanese for definite damage. I wish to make two points: First, that those acts which have

resulted in injury to the members of my former command, were acts caused by the policy of the Japanese Government, and for which I conceive the Japanese Government is both legally and morally responsible.

Scond, that these acts have produced injury or damage which can be physically measured and properly evaluated.

By far the greater number of my people were damaged by starvation of two types: Quantitative and qualitative. I was in a total of seven Japanese jails. In five of these the food was allowed to rot in the storehouses and was thrown away by the Japanese rather than given to us. I personally have heard two Japanese prison commandants, and I am informed by other prisoners, American, British, and Dutch, that statements were made throughout the islands containing the Japanese prison by different commandants, that it was their deliberate policy to refuse us food, for which three reasons were assigned. First, to show the people of what they called Greater Asia that Europeans and Americans could subsist on a lower ration than any Asiatic coolie had to live on, and that is a fact that we had always denied. Next, that we might not develop sufficient physical vigor to escape or to mutiny.

And finally, that it was necessary that Europeans and Americans be humiliated in the eyes of the people of Greater Asia in order that these people might realize that the Asiatics represented by the Japanese were the finest and most powerful people in the world.

Those were statements made by Japanese prison commandants; statements stating that that policy was a government policy of the Japanese.

I think the amount of damage that was done individuals in starvation was unquestionably dependent to a great extent on the labor required of them. I had to labor less than most, which I think is primarily responsible for my sound physical condition today.

I am much concerned over the results, until now, but mostly for the future, of the qualitative starvation to which we were subjected. This was a matter which my surgeon, who was imprisoned with me for more than a year, discussed with me considerably. The ration of the prisoners was almost entirely rice. What little there was besides rice were leafy and root vegetables. Meat was practically nonexistent, except for the fortunate few of us who finally found our way into Manchuria-I mean had our way found for us into Manchuria. There were no legumes. In consequence, prisoners were without protein food of any sort.

My surgeon tells me that protein is essential to rebuild worn tissue, and there was one muscle in the body that had to work 24 hours a day, the heart. He expressed the fear that long after imprisonment ceased the men were going to develop heart troubles due to the weakness induced by this qualitative starvation.

Another item of qualitative starvation was those subtle food items, vitamins. We have many blind, many whose sight is being progressively lost. Apparently nothing can be done for those.

I wish to repeat that at the greater part of the time that starvation was being inflicted, food was available and food which was allowed to rot rather than give it to us.

Now, the other source of injury is the physical violence of the Japanese sentries against prisoners. My own observation, where I

was, is that these beatings were turned on by the Japanese prison command. As we put it in our vernacular, "the heat is on." For a period of 3 or 4 days beatings would be frequent and violent. And then, about as suddenly as it began, the heat would disappear, and men were comparatively free from violence. I do not mean slappings and smaller irritations, but heavy and material beatings.

These beatings, I am convinced, these periods of beatings, were part of the deliberate policy of the Japanese Government towards prisoners. I thank the committee very much for this opportunity to speak. Mr. HINSHAW. We thank you, General King.

Would you care to answer questions that the committee may have? General KING. Very happy to.

Mr. HINSHAW. Is there any member of the committee who desires to question General King?

Mr. Dolliver?

Mr. DOLLIVER. As a matter of curiosity, General, I heard General Wainwright recount his experiences in Manchuria. Were you with his party in Manchuria?

General KING. I was continually with General Wainwright after he surrendered. I surrendered a month earlier than he. But from the time he joined the American prisoners I was continually with him. Mr. DOLLIVER. Thank you. That is all.

Mr. HINSHAW. Are there any further questions?

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HINSHAW. Mr. Miller.

Mr. MILLER. General, I heard your opening statement. I was not quite sure if you said you would not want any benefits under this bill, or you are not entitled to any benefits under this bill.

General KING. I do not desire any benefits under this bill. I do not at the present time consider that I have any damage inflicted upon me by the Japanese.

Mr. MILLER. I know there is some misunderstanding in my mind, and I know in some minds of the other members of the committee. Some feeling, based on mail I have received, is that this bill would entitle every prisoner of war of the Japanese to some award. Is that your understanding?

General KING. My own interest, sir, is in my men who have been damaged.

Mr. MILLER. Anybody who knows you knows that would be your attitude. But I wondered if the act was so drawn that the man would have to show that he was brutally treated above and beyond the normal brutality of the Japanese.

sir.

General KING. I have not read the bill which is under consideration,

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, General.

Mr. HINSHAW. Mr. Rogers.

Mr. ROGERS. General King, are there still some of these prisoners dying by reason of heart trouble, as a result of this treatment they have received?

General KING. Yes, sir. Three weeks ago yesterday, Major Sharp died in his sleep, of a heart condition, and he had not been previously diagnosed as having any heart trouble. There is a case that, because of the closeness of the man to me, has come to my attention. I hear frequently of cases.

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