Captivity Pay

A curious vestige of the code of chivalry is the wartime treatment accorded captured officers by nations subscribing to the Geneva Convention. Last week, under this arrangement, General Juergen von Arnim and Italian Field Marshal Giovanni Messe were settling down in England to sit the war out in comfortable detention.

The ranking Axis commanders in the Tunisia debacle were quartered in "camps" -- actually country homes with spacious but well-guarded grounds. The tactful British planted them several miles apart; Messe and Arnim had differed sharply on strategy and were not speaking during the final days. Both are entitled to the stand ards of equivalent British officers living in mess. Thus they will fare better than Brit ish civilians, also better than Rudolf Hess, who is not a prisoner but an interned enemy alien.

Under the Geneva rules, captive officers are entitled to draw their pay. But in practice, to avoid transfers of large sums, the captor government pays only a nominal personal allowance. The British will pay Arnim $16 a week; the balance of his salary of about $150 a week will be credited to his account in Germany. Messe, who got a boost in rank and pay just be fore his capture, will draw about $30 a week. British officer prisoners in Germany and Italy also get cash allowances; after the war the nations are to reimburse each other for the sums advanced.

Majors, Field Marshals. Axis generals who surrendered to American troops in Tunisia will get fixed allowances of $40 a month each during their detention. U.S. practice calls for payment of $20 a month to warrant officers and lieutenants, $30 a month to captains, $40 to any rank from major to field marshal.

Privates and noncoms captured by the U.S. get a basic allowance of 10 -c- a day and can earn 80-c- a day by working at such jobs as fanning, road building, forestry and flood control. Unlike their officers, they can be required to work, although not at any task directly connected with military operations. Twenty-two prison camps scattered about the U.S. now hold 36,688 Axis captives--22,110 stiff-necked Germans; 14,516 resigned Italians; 62 crestfallen Japanese.

In the early months of the war Jap forces captured 18 U.S. general officers (Lieut. General Jonathan Wainwright, five major generals, twelve brigadiers) but almost nothing is known of their treatment and pay. Neutral observers who have seen prison camps in Japan and occupied China have reported that food was skimpy and not too good, that some recreation and self-government were permitted, that general housing and sanitary facilities were tolerable but far below the standards maintained for prisoners in Germany and Italy.

Japan announced that it would abide by the Geneva Convention (which it never signed) but so far has refused to permit representatives of the Swiss Government or Red Cross to visit the camp on Formosa where General Wainwright and many other Americans are interned. Unless the Japs decide to loosen up, the Army presumably will not learn until after the war how many (if any) yen and sen "Skinny" Wainwright and his comrades are getting.

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