Woodbury County

Pvt. Robert Drain

 


Stories of Jap Soldiers True, Sioux Cityan Says

Stories of Japanese cruelty are true, and no one need believe they are invented or exaggerated, according to Private Robert Drain, home on furlough and who returns to service next Sunday.

Fresh from the Guadalcanal fighting, he told employees of the Woodbury County Savings Bank at their annual Christmas dinner at the Jackson Hotel Tuesday night of some of his experiences.

As one illustration of the heathenish brutality of the Japs, he described how an American soldier, escaping in a rubber life boat after a Japanese naval attack, reached out a helping hand to a Japanese sailor in the ocean. After he had pulled the sailor in, the latter drew a revolver and tried to kill him. The Jap paid for that treachery with his own life.

Ed Sattler was toastmaster at the dinner.

Source: The Sioux City Journal, December 16, 1942