Magazine


The Big Picture: Remembering VJ Day

by Conrad Astley
11/ 8/2005

MEMORIES of North West soldiers who survived the unspeakable cruelty of Japanese prisoner of war camps will form a moving exhibition at the Imperial War Museum North.

Opening this week to mark the 60th anniversary of Victory in Japan, VJ Day - Not Forgotten is an intimate collection of photographic portraits of those who lived through the war in the Far East.

The photographs are presented along with accounts of the camps told simply by survivors.

One former soldier recalls how two coffins came back from the secret police headquarters, containing the bodies of men he knew well. Although both men were over 6ft tall, their coffins were only 5ft 6in.

The collection was organised with help from the Manchester and Merseyside branches of the National Federation of Far Eastern Prisoners of War clubs and associations.

It is aimed at telling the stories of more than 190,000 British, Commonwealth, Dutch and US servicemen who became Japanese prisoners of war.

The cruelty they suffered became notorious and many were used as a labour force on building projects such as the Burma-Siam railway.

At the time, the Japanese government had signed but had never ratified the Geneva Convention and the nation's military code did not regard the surrender of fighting men as an acceptable option.

Many of the prisoners died because of the conditions, while others suffered for years with tropical diseases they had caught, or with the traumatic psychological effects of their experiences.

And while their fellow soldiers fighting in Europe were able to celebrate VE day when the war ended in May 1945, those in the Far East had to suffer for another three months.

Not Forgotten starts tomorrow (Saturday) and runs until January 2.


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