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Daily Mail
2 9 MAY 1942
HONGKONG Conditions JAPS CURB CRUELTY
By Daily Mail Reporter NEW, and in many respects en-
couraging, details about the treatment of British prisoners in Hongkong are supplied to The Daily Mail by Lieut. Joseph Wil- liam Hurst, R.N.R., who has reached safety from the island.
Lieut. Hurst lived in Hongkong| for some years. He was there in the early days of the occupation.
He believes that the atrocities against the British were the work of a small proportion of wild hill men used as shock troops.
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Since then, he says, the Japanese have shown themselves almost pathetically anxious that Europeans should think well of them."
Japs Baffled
Of Japanese treatment of British Army prisoners, he says:
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'Officers and men were treated as equals. Senior officers marched with their men and carried their own kit. The Japanese left them alone. Their attitude was neither friendly nor hostile. They appeared, if anything, baffled by their 'pri-
soners.
"In spite of everything, they still betray an inferiority complex where Europeans are concerned."
52108/646
H.K:
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