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Attempted murder charged scientist wants to work on executed remains Michael Field A scientist facing an attempted murder charge wants to use his skill in DNA to identify the remains of 17 New Zealanders executed by the Japanese in World War Two on Tarawa in what is now Kiribati. Their remains may have been found on Betio Islet, near where they were believed to be executed in 1942. The Otago Daily Times this morning reported police charged South Africa-based Professor Sean Davison in September, after he admitted he gave 85-year-old Patricia Davison, who was dying of cancer, a lethal dose of morphine before she died in October 2006. Davison said he expected to stay in Dunedin while the matter was being resolved, which could take another year, and that he wanted to offer his services to those trying to identify the bodies found in an up-to two metre pit in Kiribati. He said his laboratory at the University of the Western Cape used mitochondrial DNA analysis to identify the remains of anti-apartheid activists found in mass graves and, if there was viable DNA, he was confident it could help identify what was discovered on Tarawa. "Whether or not the remains can be identified depends very much on the condition of the skeletal material, but I would hope that their having been buried might give us the material we'd need," Davison said after he contacted the newspaper with his offer. "Our work in South Africa shows how important it is to be able to offer families closure, or to help eliminate the unknown, and I would gladly offer our services for free." A brief wartime investigation, after Tarawa was taken by the US, revealed the bodies had been thrown into a pit and then burned. Japanese military custom at the time required executed bodies to be destroyed by fire. New Zealand Defence Force spokesman Commander Philip Bradshaw yesterday Prof Davison's offer was "noted and appreciated" but that it was too early to to accept it. Medical records may also be used to help identify individual remains, leaving the prospect of DNA analysis some way off, Bradshaw confirmed. "We want to do everything right and not get people's hopes up. At this stage it's looking relatively positive, but we have been down this path before." The 17 men were coast watchers from the New Zealand Post Office and the New Zealand Army based on the islands of what was then the Gilbert Islands and is today Kiribati. The New Zealand High Commissioner in Kiribati, Rob Kaiwai, said the bodies were behind a priest’s house. He said they could also belong to Japanese, Korean or American soldiers. “We’ve got to a stage now where we’ve uncovered a number of bodies and that’s been two weeks of digging,” he said. “But we haven’t touched anything, we haven’t moved anything. We’re not forensic pathologists, we need an expert to come in and identify what nationality the people are that are in there and basically take it from there.” In the 1943 Battle of Tarawa 1200 Americans died along with 6000 Japanese soldiers and Korean labourers. Earlier this year the US Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command was on Betio recovering bodies believed to be American. They also found a Japanese mass grave. Two months ago, Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully laid a wreath at a monument to the executed men on Betio. But instead of a solemn moment, McCully arrived to find the monument covered with fish guts and human excrement. 16 November 2010
Michael Field TARAWA New Zealand's war dead suffered striking humiliation yesterday on hallowed ground of one of the 20th century's greatest battles. Foreign Minister Murray McCully, on a three nation week long Pacific trip, briefly called at Betio Islet on Tarawa, Kiribati, to lay a wreath at a memorial to 17 New Zealand Post Office and Army personal beheaded by the Japanese 70 years ago next month here. But instead of a solemn moment, Mr McCully arrived at a monument strained with fish guts and human excrement.
The New Zealanders, who were despatched to the then Gilbert Islands to act as coastwatchers to prevent German raiders operating in the Pacific, were largely abandoned after Japan entered the war. The Japanese executed them by beheaded them and later burnt No attempt has been made to find the bodies and the men have no memorial in New Zealand. They also left behind i-Kiribati children. Mr McCully said he would seek to repair the fact that the men were never acknowledged at home. "There is nothing at home for them, nothing for their families there," he said after laying a wreath. "We will certainly do something about it, I cannot say what, but they do need to be acknowledged." The seemingly casual attitude by New Zealand to finding its war dead on Tarawa is in stark contrast to continuing United States efforts to find their dead of the 1942 Battle of Tarawa. While Mr McCully was laying a wreath, a US Army unit was nearby carefully exploring for US war dead of up to 400 bodies of the 1200 Americans who died here over three days. "We know our boys are here and we will continue searching until we take them home, that was the deal when we all joined," US Marine Captain Ernest Todd Nordman said. They have found a number of remains, as well as a mass Japanese war grave. Around 6000 Japanese soldiers and Korean construction slaves died in the battle. The US team have marked the grave and advised the Japanese Government. Mr McCully returns to the Solomon Islands on Wednesday and will then fly to Christmas Atoll at the eastern end of Kiribati. After visiting Samoa he returns to Auckland on the weekend. 30 August 2010 Michael Field TARAWA They've a saying in the Pacific about how the flags of other nations block the sun. Various histories cloud skies too, especially on Betio. Just 116 hectares - about the size of Auckland Domain - Betio is the south western end of triangular Tarawa, capital atoll of the desperately poor Republic of Kiribati. In three days 6000 men were slaughtered, their bodies were shredded and scattered by every piece of weaponry available in the arsenals of the United States and Imperial Japan. A year earlier, a forgotten tragedy occurred, now marked with a shiny new but vandalised stainless steel monument - paid for by Australia - to 22 men beheaded by Japanese marines. Seventeen of them were volunteers - Post Office telegraphists and unarmed soldiers - who made a deal with the New Zealand Government to serve as coast watchers. There has never been any real attempt to find their remains. Foreign Minister Murray McCully laid a wreath in August at the monument. Five minutes after his official party left, kids had turned the wreath into a Frisbee. A short distance away, US Marine Corps Captain Ernest Todd Nordman stands beside a pit dug into the coral sand. Somewhere, close, there are up to 400 American bodies, each wrapped in a poncho and mistakenly left behind when the US returned to Tarawa to take their dead home. "I am a Marine; this is hallowed ground for the Marines," says Nordman, part of the Hawaii based US Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. Their diggings are squeezed in beside closely packed shanties. Dozens of slightly clothed children, cheerful, noisy and happy, gather behind the fence the captain put up to stop them all falling in. Small flocks of single women watch from a short distance away. Tarawa women, Robert Louis Stevenson once mused, are the most beautiful in the world. By general agreement, the object of admiration is US Army Staff Sergeant Jordy Anthony; richly tattooed and blessed with a wry smile at the ribbing Nordman and the others give him. Iraq war veteran Nordman, father of a seven-month-old daughter, smiles at the thought that his hallowed ground is home to the i-Kiribati people. When World War Two began in 1939, Tarawa was the administrative head of Britain's Gilbert Islands colony. By default it was New Zealand's security headache. After German naval raiders hit New Zealand shipping, including the liner Rangitane two days out of Auckland, a coast watching chain was created through the Pacific. The young single men found themselves alone among young, beautiful and friendly women. Children inevitably followed. They never saw a German raider, but the day after Pearl Harbour, Japan swept down the Gilberts. One coast watcher, John Jones, in his 90s and now living on the North Shore, became the first New Zealand POW in Japan. The Japanese left the other 17 coast-watchers in place and New Zealand did nothing to pull them out. In September 1942, the Japanese rounded them up. They were taken to Tarawa and locked up with five other European civilians. For reasons far from clear, on October 15, 1942, the Japanese beheaded all 22 of them. I-Kiribati eye-witnesses later suggested that the Japanese then burnt the bodies. Nothing of them has ever been found - no one even looked.
Nordman knows the story, knows that the 17 New Zealand families always hold out hopes something might be found some day. Last month they found remains; until they can be DNA tested he will not make a call on who they are. But they are almost certainly not New Zealanders. The US Marines seized Tarawa in a three day battle in November 1943. Nearly 1200 Americans were killed and 4800 Japanese and Koreans died. A week after the battle the Americans buried the dead; the Japanese into shell pits and the Americans lined up in trenches to be picked up in 1948 for return to the US. Somehow, Nordman says, they missed as many as 400 Americans. Early in August, with new evidence, the Americans returned for another look. Nordman said last week they found one of the Japanese mass graves. They covered it back over and the Japanese Government advised. The Honolulu facility is the biggest forensic lab in the world and it runs a structured and comprehensive programme to determine the identities of the men. So far they have found only small pieces; the Tarawa battlefield butchered men in a literal sense. "There was an ungodly amount of death on this island," Nordman said. "It was unbelievable battle" Nordman and civilian archaeologist Dr Greg Fox believe they know where the missing Americans; under a shack just ahead of the current dig. "There are still guys here, we take them home and give them back to the families," Nordman says. "Every Marine is given the same promise when they sign up; they will bring you home. It is important; it shows that you are not just a number. "I truly want to bring these guys home. The magnitude of what these men did, this is what makes the hair on my arm stand up." Nordman says he does not want to go to the funerals when the bodies, or their remains, eventually reach home. His role is to find them. "It's a very rewarding job, it one of the most honourable things you can do." As for the17 New Zealanders, Fox believes their bodies were destroyed at the time of the execution, and what ever remains there were destroyed in the bombardment of the US landings. Fox, who describes Betio as "real disturbed landscape", has extensively searched for the remains of 18 US Marines taken prisoner in the Gilberts and executed on Kwajalein Atoll, the day after the New Zealanders died. He found no trace. "The Japanese almost always cremated people after they executed them; it was custom." 1 September 2010
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