SIX P.O.W.s DIED ON VOYAGE TO AUSTRALIA
Grim Evidence of Jap Brutality
SYDNEY, Thursday,
Royal Navy hospital ship, Oxfordshire, brought to Australia the first, grim evidence of Jap brutality when it berthed at Brisbane to-day.
Six of the 400 P.O.W and ínternees from Hongkong died during the voyage, and 87 were so emaciated that they had to be taken off the ship in stretchers.
Even well passengers showed signs of their ordeal.
Many civilian patients and Indian Army personnel were too ill to be interviewed.
Others described the almost unbelievable horrors which became commonplace to them.
A "water cure" was the favourite torture with the Japs.
A private of a Middlesex Regiment said the Jap policy was one of slow, scientific murder.
He added that the bombing of Hongkong had been the greatest factor in keeping up the morale of the prisoners.
Source
Canberra Times, September 21, 1945, page 1