IKEUCHI/MASAKIYO

Also known as Frank, Snakers and Kangaroo was Interpreter and Camp Manager at Tantoei between Feb 42 and Aug 45. On 12 July 42 33 Dutchmen were brutally beaten for exchanging letters with members of the Dutch Civilian Internee Camp. Beating lasted for 3 hrs, one Japanese being allocated to one PW. Ikeuchi participated in this beating and his victim died the next day of internal injuries. Two other victims, one of whom had an eye torn from its socket, died on the day following the beatings. 33 returned to camp with broken legs, arms and/or ribs.

Ikeuchi had responsibility of supplying the working parties requisitioned by the Japanese units. To make up the required number Ikeuchi would make a round of the hospital and huts and club sick and dying men, some on crutches, on to the working pde. For allegedly breaking out of camp and visiting a native village, 23 APWs were systematically beaten and tortured for 8 days - some bound to trees, others were strung up by cable wire around their wrists with their toes just touching the ground - beaten senseless with pick handles and revived with cold water and beaten senselessly again - tortured by lighted cigarettes up their nostrils. Victims given one rice meal a day with water - sometimes after they drunk the water, the Japanese would jump on their stomachs. The ill who could not return to camp were executed  cf NAA 721016 p 4.