CHINA: Japanese Torture

Last week the Chicago Daily News’s lanky, quiet-spoken Far Eastern Correspondent Archibald T. Steele sent out a tale of a visitor to No. 76 Jessfield Road, Shanghai. He had interviewed in Chungking one of the few Chinese alive to tell the story of a visit there.

Shanghai, as Hollywood viewed it, was a bright and glamorous city of glittering vice; the real Shanghai was a powerful economic organism sucking nourishment from the trade of the Yangtze valley. To day both Shanghais are dead—and within the putrefaction of its mist-shrouded cadaver the maggots of destruction worm silently about. Cabarets, with their white slaves, adventurers, opium-runners and hatchetmen, still operate in Shanghai; but ringed about with Japanese bayonets, spies, terrorized by free-firing gunmen, they have lost their glamor. Most efficient of the operating agencies in this Oriental caricature of Hell is the Japanese Special Service Section; under its jurisdiction is notorious No. 76 Jessfield Road where those whom the Japanese Empire has reason to fear or dislike are brought. Only rumor marks their disappearance.

But Correspondent Steele met Major General Liu Teh-ming. General Liu had gone to Shanghai, attempted to worm his way into the confidence of Arch-Traitor Wang Ching-wei’s underlings, was suspected, taken to No. 76. First the chief of the torturers used persuasion; then, says General Liu:

“He handed me over to his Chinese muscle-men—picked for their great size and strength—and told me that I must confess that night. . . . The strong-arm men removed me to the torture room, and the inquisition—which was to last all night—began. First I was beaten repeatedly about the head and this was followed by 50 lashes with a whip. . . . Then I was flattened on my back, my head was jerked back and water was poured into my nostrils. . . . Next they strapped me into the ‘tiger’s chair’—an ordinary chair anchored to the floor. Bricks were placed under my feet and piled up one by one. As each brick stretched my taut leg muscles farther, the agony became unbearable. I fainted seven times within 40 minutes. . . . They gave me what they called the ‘electric punishment.’ I was forced to grasp two electrally charged tubes and the voltage was gradually stepped up. Every inch ofm y body trembled like jelly. I felt as though I were going to burst.” But Liu did not talk; months later the Japanese released him, still under suspicion, let him join the Puppet Government at Nanking. Traveling one day from Shanghai to Nanking by train, Liu outwitted shadowing spies, slipped off at a way station. By devious route he then made his way to Chungking, told his story to Steele.