ST0RY0FH0RR0R HT NUEVSK TOLA BY WRITER Reporter Greeted inTown by Decomposed Bodies of Dead Victims VICTIMS SHOVED UNDER ICE OF EMUR RIVER Depraved -Red" Leader Causes Horrible Massacre of Japanese in City ri" .i K M 19 i ( i Niati Correspondent in tJio Par I isf.) nLiADIV08TQKi fby passenger and mall.) For two years Japan 'sowed I the wind" of outrage and murder In Russian Biberfa She reaped the whirlwind" In the massacre' at KlkolayeVsk. That once thriving seaport of lfi.'00 people was a shocking ruin when l rrw It first from-the Red Cross ship K.ri in aftir steaming 1000 miles rforth from Vladivostok the only ni wspaper man who has passed the Jap cordon. Blackened, storm-soaked remnants of the fire-swept town crowds of sick and starving refugees on the wharves "-and the de : purposed bodies of mur- erl .1 in' ii bobbing in the sl.iggish Amur river.' ,n ; DIM. REDS When the Japs and their tools, the " While" Russians, wurrendered j'ko-LayeVk j'ko-LayeVk Fjebi 10, the vhite3" went over bodily to Trepetzln's band of marauding Reds. The Japs signed an armistice They had full liberty to go about town There is no evidence that they were In ah Way molested or maltreated. This pence continued 11 days. What d to the break', no witness hi available avail-able to tell. The Japs are all dead; the Reds either dead of outlaws In tfie bills Whatever caused It, here Is the fact: A - a m of -March 12 In the dark of night, the Japs surrounded Tr p-etzin's p-etzin's house, throw oil upon It, set It afire, alW tossed grenades in the window-. The Intent was to destroy Trt-p-etsln and 11 his staff. Trepetsln escaped, wounded In the foot Ills chief aide was killed His consort Nina. ,wnssiiot hurt Fighting continued Intermittently in the streets for a week Then the remaining Japs surrendered and were jailed. I do not know the rules of war. Perhaps, after signing an armistice, it lx perrnissable to try to cremate the othV fellow HIS Ml VI II It TION But I can imagine how Trepetzin felt about It. And I know that his ''Justification'' for his own unspeakable unspeaka-ble rimes, is what the Japs did there, and at Ivaiibka, and a hundred other placi a H- says that in killing them, Wjiolesale, he treated the Japs precisely precise-ly as they had served thousands of Si berian misxians. He diil not kill them immediately after the frustrated cremation party. For weeks a sullen quiet brooded oei Nlkolayevsk. In April, word came that a large Jap force was on the way to recapture recap-ture NlkOlayevsk. Trepetzin prepared, methodically, for retreat The town Is 28 miles above th" mouth of the Amur, which empties into the sea of Okhotsk by two channels chan-nels Trepetzin sink 12 barges, loaded load-ed with stone, to block one channel The other he sowed with mines! i His strategy failed, however. The cunning Japs avoided the mine-strewn channel and found a new channel, cut by the current of the river, around the sunken barges ) Then Trepetzin executed vengeance upon his Jap prisoners, despite repeat -Sd pleafe that he spare them, from the Chinese consul anil the officers of certain cer-tain Chinese gunboats, neutrals, icebound ice-bound at Nlkolayevsk. TREPETZIN EXECUTES VI -GEAN4 1 Trepetsls marched the Japs half a mile from shore (the Amur is two miles wide at" this point) cut a hole In the ice, killed the prisoners, and chucked their bodies through the hole Nm one survived. I had gruesome personal evidence of this, as I leaned over the Erlvan'.s rail soon after we dropped anchor. Something came to th'e surface 2o feet i way. It was the bloated body of an unfortunate. That forenoon three bodies came up. Next day. seven. One morning, eleven. Then daily, five on the average. in all there were 83. coming up In a small area near the ship. e had unwittingly anchored at the scene of the butchery. The air be-i be-i ami so tainted the ship's anchorage was changed. After killing the Japs Trepetzin announced an-nounced tat Nina's Instigation, It is saldi that every "White" Russian who had aided the Japs -would be punished, first by seeing his entire family destroyed, de-stroyed, and then by dying himself. A reward was offered informers, An -one w ho had a spite against his neighbor neigh-bor had oply 1 report that neighbor M ontlnued on Page Two.) Story of Korror at j Mikolayevsk Told Continued I roiii Pko Oni I as a Jup sympathiser, Thl nolirhlnor and .ill ills family disappeared. Hundreds of Ilu?.slans thus met death durlnR th' last da s before Trep-i Trep-i etzinls rrtreat. His distorted i I was ! not alinl RMrdsr, however far ho took with him 3 OOP Russian civilians, at a time when his Inadequate faclli-i faclli-i tlos wors sorelv overburdended. TKi PETZI iPPLIES TORI II tincillv Trepetsfai applied the torch to the town, thus lumperini? Its re-OCCUpatiOn re-OCCUpatiOn h the Japs, who arrived June 1' So Trepotsln fled. Where he IS now, it is Impossible to tell. How many human beings he exe utad will never be known, exactly. Kirs: accounts ran as high as f000. but this Included all missing- Only 12 greeted the arriving J.-ips Thousand ' of refugees have reported since. From available facts. I estimate lh.- tonvns population. Just prior to the I massacre, at about 13,200 This In-1 In-1 r.luded 4200 Chinese. All the Chinese j were removed safely by the Chinese , gunboats to Mago. 80 miles up river -'except about 100 killed by stray bul-l)eta, bul-l)eta, The Japanese Official estimate of their nationals, soldier and civilian. , was slightly under 100,0. All died at- ! cept 15 or 16 rescued by the Chinese. I TOTAL Sl ALTIKS ABOIT .ISS.-i. The Jtusslan population was nbout 8000 , of nvhom some 5700 an ac- , counted for. either saved by the Chinese Chi-nese at Mago or sheltered in tho for- ' est. or already taken by Jap ships to Vladivostok Net result about 3 3 S " fatalities. Nq words of praise and admiration an fitly describe the steadfast hero- ism of the Chinese consul and the men , on the little Chinese gunboats. They I saved thousands not alone their own people. I Their reward has been internment I disease and slow death at the hands of the Japanese. Lucking provisions for thf llvinK. 'and medicine for the dying, they have, . for months now, been refused permission permis-sion to depart on their own gunboats. 'They were there on a lawful mission, I and belong to a friendly, neutral na-I na-I tlon. In violation of the laws of nation? and of humanity Japan virtually holds i them prisoners, but death releases i them one by one.