NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
VOL. XLVII. No. IIP. NOME. ALASKA. WEDNESD AY, SEPT. TT, TSTi
Etta Jones
Evacuated From
Jap Prison Camp
HONOLULU, Sept. 12——
White-haired Etta Jones, Indian
Service School teacher on Attu for
twenty years, who was captured
by the Japs on Attu three years
ago and interned in a Yokohama
prison camp for two years and
then transferred to another camp
twenty miles away stopped here
briefly enroute to Seattle.
She is the first woman ot be
evacuated from a Jap internment
camp by the Air Transport Com
mand.She said she had been treat
ed very well by her captors and
the lack of news from relatives
was her main inconvenience.
FAIRFIELD, Calif., Sept. 12—
(£*)—The gallant gray-haired
school teacher, the only American
woman captured by the Japs in
the Aleutian campaign, stepped
from an army transport plane af
ter the flight from Japan.
She is Mrs. - Etta Jones, 65,
whose husband Charles, was
killed by the Japs on Attu, where
they both were captured early in
1942.
She is very frail, and told with
calmness and dignity of having
been kicked and slugged by the
i Japs and spending three years
hidden from the world in a Nip
pon prison. She could still speak
of the kindness of the children of
Japan as “poor people.”
Her husband, 62, had gone to
work on Attu as a weather ob
server and radioman. She was at
tached to the Indian Service there
to teach the native children. They
were the only white people on the
island.
The Japs came, two thousand
strong, June 7, 1942, Mrs. Jones
recalled. “I was beaten with the
butt end of a rifle and struck
across the back by a Jap soldier
acting as interpreter. He knocked
me down, stepped on me, kicked
me in the stomach. Then I saw
them hit my husband and knock
him down.”
They were thrown into separate
buildings and the next day the
natives told her her husband had
been killed by the Japs. The na
tives buried him. She never
learned other details. Within a
few days she was taken on a
transport to Yokohama and es
♦ carted to the Bund hotel there.
She said whether the guards re
spected her age, or for whatever
1 reason, she received remarkably
fine treatment. She was treated
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ROLL OUT THE BARRE L—At an American Red Cross
club in Paris Pfc. Kirby C. Horton of St. Louis wears a barrel
while his only pair of pants is repaired. Pfc. David J. O’Brien,
Saratoga Springs, N. Y., waits at right.
Kamikaze Planes
Did Great Damage
At Okinawa
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12—</P)—
The Navy has revealed that in the
Battle for Okinawa, when the
Japs threw the kamikaze horde at
our fleet it cost the Navy and Ma
rines twenty-four thousand eight
hundred sixty-nine casualties.
Thirty ships sunk, including
twelve destroyers, and two hun
dred twenty-tnree damaged. Ten
battlships, thirteen carriers, three
heavy cruisers, two light cruisers,
and sixty-seven destroyers were
damaged.
The Navy added that three
thousand eight hundred thirty
six Jap planes were destroyed by
naval forces.
14 Navy Men Die
In Plane Crash
MIAMI, Sept. 12—<>P)— Four
teen Navy men died in the crash
of a four-engined Privateer. One
engine was afire and being guided
to the cleared runway by radio.
One man escaped by lepaing with
a parachute.
France Presents
Her Views On
Treaty For Italy
LONDON, Sept. 12 — </P) —
France presented at a conference
of foreign ministers of the world’s
Big Five powers, her views on the
proposed peace treaty with Italy,
insisting that at least the principle
of reparations as outlined by
American and British views indi
cate both governments are op
posed to the collection of repara
tions from Italy, because they
wager to get Italian economy back
on a sound basis.
France wants a small rectifica
tion of her border, mainly the Al
pine frontier around the towns of
Labrique and Tante and would
like the complete control over the
Roy a valley on the frontier just
north of the Mediterranean.
The French are inclined to side
with the British and Americans
on Trieste to leave the city in
Italian hands, but to establish an
international authority to assure
Austria, Czechoslovakia and Yu
goslavia the' free use of the port.
When the United States entered
the war there were more than
100,000 persons of Japanese ances
try living in the western states.
Joe Bill, Repentant
| Girl Slayer Hanged
Friday
—
Joe Bill, was hanged at 1:25
: a.m. Friday, for the brutal murder
' of Irma Irene McGough, 5, April
22. He blames no one but himsefl
for his crime, his wife Carrie, said.
“He is very repentant about his
awful deed and continually says,
I ‘May God forgive me’.” Mrs. Bill
said. “He wants to ask all his
Seattle friends to forgive him.
He read his Bible throughout
I the day; prayed and talked with
; a priest twice a day. He re
i ceived literature from religious
! groups all over the country and
! he read every bit of it.
j Mrs. Bill said that her husband
I had lost more than 45 pounds
I since he gave himself up to the po
! lice April 28.
Mrs. Bill has five daughters and
| a son, who is in the army, all by
1 a previous marriage. She married
! Bill two years ago.
War Risk Insurance
| Costs Lessened
Gradually
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 — (/P)
War risk insurance costs and war
time freight surcharges on ship
ments to and from Alaska are be
ing continually reduced a Mari
time Commission spokesman said,
but he added there will be no wip
ing off of these additional costs
at “one fell swoop.” There may
still be some Jap mines or war
wrecked derelicts floating around
the Pacific, he explained.
Alaska Land
Transfers To
Be Recorded
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 — <>P)
—The House Public Lands Com
mittee approved Alaska’s request
for help in locating its land own
ers. Up to the present there has
been no method of registering land
transfers in the Territory. The last
Legislature adopted a plan requir
ing each private landowner to
register his property and asked
the Federal Land Office to act as
registrar until the Territory can
set up its own machinery. The
committee approved Dele gate
Bartlett’s bill authorizing the land
office to act in this capacity.
Aleutians May
Be Site Of
Petroleum Reserve
WASHINGTON, Sept. 10——
There are indications that a pe
troleum reserve may lie in the
wide bay anticline on the Pacific
| side of the Alaska peninsula, di
rector William Wrather of the
geological survey reported.
The anticline is about one hun
dred fifty miles west of Kodiak
island. Geologists this summer
studied sixty square miles near
the southwest end. The anticline
comprises three hundred square
miles.
SHANGHAI, Sept. 10— </P) —
The Associated Press reopened its
Shanghai bureau today. The of
fice equipment had been turned
over to Jap Domei agency but was
recovered.
MacArthur Has List Of 47 Wanted Jap
War Criminals; Tojo Tries Suicide
-—
TOKYO, Sept. 12—(>P)— Amer.
ican occupation authorities tonight
pressed the roundup of forty
seven Jap war leaders and rene
gade Occidentals; as a gift of
blood from a Pennsylvania Ser
geant probably saved the life of
Tojo, principal architect of the
Pearl Harbor assault.
General MacArthur, extending
his list of “wanted” men to in
clude seven notorious Black Dra
gon society terrorists, has ordered
the dissolution of that jingoistic
secret organization, which Japs
claimed had been disbanded more
than a month ago.
While the roundup increased,
one of the most badly wanted, Lt.
Gen. Homma, who sanctioned the
murderous death march from Ba
taan, fled his islet home off the
northwest coast. Heinrich Georg
Stahmer, German ambassador,
held chiefly responsible for bring
ing about the Japan, Rome, Ber
lin Axis, was one of those caught.
However, Tojo, who attempted
suicide yesterday, admittedly to
escape trial as the main Jap war
criminal, but who missed his
heart with a bullet from a pistol
taken from a downed Ameriacn
flier, rallied strongly after the
transfusion of B type whole blood
and injections of penicillin.
Doctors who said he had better
than an even chance to live de
clared his condition now waa
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