"For God's Sake!"

In Yokohama, for more than two years, the U.S. Eighth Army has been operating a criminal court system almost twice as large as New York City's--and much more than twice as ugly, for most of its Class B and C defendantsts/- are Japanese officers and men charged with torture, brutality, head-choppings and assorted sadism under the guise of war. Last week, more than 500 cases had been disposed of and there were some 250 still to go.

In Idiocy. Frozen-faced Hisakichi Tokuda, the "Mad Doctor" of Shinagawa Prison, had found amusement in injecting soybean protein into the veins of prisoners. One victim had been British Merchant Mariner William Holland. The court heard how Holland's legs had jumped and his mouth foamed in howling idiocy before he died.

Shusuke Wada was a nimble, hunchbacked interpreter nicknamed "Running Wada" by the American prisoners he escorted from Manila to Japan. Once, from the steaming hold of the Oryoku Maru came the desperate cry: "For God's sake, Mr. Wada, we must have water! The men are dying. They're drinking their own urine!" Shouted Wada: "If they die, it's no concern of mine." Of the 1,619 prisoners, only 450 survived the trip.

The defense asked witness Lieut. Colonel Austin J. Montgomery how he could be sure the word Wada used was "concern." Said lean, bitter Survivor Montgomery: "I consider myself pretty much of an authority on Mr. Wada's English expressions. We called them Waddisms." The court also got superlative evidence of the American soldier's ability to wisecrack. Through parched lips, American prisoners had muttered: "Wada, Wada everywhere, and not a drop to drink."

In Gratitude. Mr. Wada, apparently more hurt by gibes at himself than by revelations of his inhumanity, compressed his lips, looked wanly at the floor. Finally, Tokuda and Wada heard their sentences. The "Mad Doctor" would be hanged. Mr. Wada would get life imprisonment instead of the rope; he had merely been an interpreter relaying orders.

Few Japanese cared to talk about the Yokohama trials; the documented details shocked many of them as much as the judges. Last fortnight, however, a little, old, obi-wearing lady appeared in the Advocate General's office in Yokohama. She explained that she had read that her husband, convicted of chopping off a prisoner's head, had just been hanged. From a bundle she took out a silver cigarette case. Bowing, she said: "I have come all the way from Osaka to offer this gift to the Americans in gratitude for the fair trial my husband received."

On the other side of the world last week, some prisoners got tired of waiting. In Nuernberg, Field Marshal Johannes Blaskowitz, 64, accused of butchering civilians and P.W.s in Poland, threw himself over a prison parapet, fell 30 feet to a tile floor, died of a crushed chest and punctured lungs. Next day, in Paris' Cherche-Midi Prison, General Otto von Stuelpnagel, 69, convinced that he would be shot for shooting wartime French hostages, finally succeeded (second try) in hanging himself with strips torn from his bedding and underwear.

† As distinct from Class A war criminals like Tojo, being tried in Tokyo. Not all the accused at Yokohama are military. Standing before the bar this week will be a nurse and 27 civilian doctors and teachers of the Medical College of Kyushu Imperial University. The charges: cannibalism and vivisection of U.S. war prisoners.

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