711.94114A/9–1544: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Switzerland (Harrison)
3197. Request the Swiss Government to have Gorgé deliver the following communication textually to the Japanese Government:
The United States Government has been informed of an order issued on February 11, 1944 to the Japanese armed forces in Siam by the Command of the 138th Infantry Regiment, 31st Division of the Japanese Imperial Army, to the effect that captured enemy air personnel are not to be treated as prisoners of war, that they are to be separated from other prisoners, that after being searched they are to be handed over to the gendarmerie, and that they are to be severely punished excepting those who can be put to some special use.
The United States Government protests against this violation of the internationally agreed rules of warfare which guarantee to all captured personnel of belligerent forces the rights of prisoners of [Page 1004] war. The United States Government insists that the Japanese Government fulfill its undertaking to apply the humane provisions of the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention to the treatment of captured personnel without exception. The United States Government calls upon the Japanese Government to rescind the order in question and to restore to any captured American airmen who may have been deprived of them the full rights to which as prisoners of war they are entitled. By the international obligations it has undertaken, the Japanese Government may not declare these rights abolished or suspended.