The Burma Campaign Society (BCS) was established in 2002 to promote understanding of Britain & Japan’s encounter during the Second World War.
To mark VJ80, BCS organised a visit to the UK by ten Japanese, aged from 12 to 78, whose fathers, grandfathers or great grandfathers once fought against the British. The purpose of their visit was to extend to the UK their work of “irei” – a Japanese word which means to console the spirits of the fallen; to pray for the repose of the souls of those who made the ultimate sacrifice in war.
On August 13, they laid a wreath at the Kohima Memorial beside York Minster. We were then delighted to welcome them at the Kohima Museum.
On August 15, the BCS group attended the national commemorative ceremony ‘Remembering VJ Day 80 Years On’ at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. They paid their respects & forged connections with surviving British veterans & descendants of the fallen in Burma.
At the Arboretum, the BCS members prayed for the repose of the souls of the war victims at the Burma memorial, Chindit memorial & Thai Burma railway memorial.
Participating in the VJ Day ceremony was emotional for everyone. They were initially apprehensive about attending the historic ceremony as citizens of the former foe. They did not know what to expect or how the British would treat them.
Takuya Imasato (47) said he wanted his child to experience how the war is interpreted & commemorated in Britain. He commented that: “I did not feel any bitterness or animosities toward us.”
Another of the Japanese descendants at the ceremony, Hiroaki Fujimori (64), said some of the British people there approached him and shook hands, hugged him or even kissed him on the cheek: “I felt an overwhelming sense of welcome & kindness.”
Colonel Yoshiaki Himeda (56), of the Japanese Self Defence Force, said the ceremony was quite different from what he was used to in Japan: “It is as if a symbolic wall of the foe or friend quickly dissolved when I, in JDF uniform, saluted the military personnel & veterans in uniforms or with medals. There was more of a silent recognition, we were both children of men who endured something terrible.”
Photo by Kyoko Murakami, reproduced with permission.
Chairperson of BCS Akiko Macdonald, who lives in the UK, said she was delighted with how the visit went. “Until now, I felt like I was alone, leading the society’s work of irei in the UK with the UK Burma veterans. My father survived, but in his post-war years, he suffered from survivor’s guilt & PTSD. In postwar Japan, if one returns home alive, he is not a war hero and is made to feel ashamed.”
Photo by Kyoko Murakami, reproduced with permission.
Many BCS members grew up with fragmented stories, whispered but rarely discussed openly in postwar Japan. Wartime service, especially in campaigns marked by atrocities, was long treated with silence. Families often avoided the topic, torn between pride in their relatives’ endurance & discomfort over Japan’s imperial ambitions.
Yoshiko Fujiwara (70) reflected “We cannot change what happened, but we can listen, remember, & share. If my father fought in the atrocious conditions of Burma, perhaps our task is to fight against forgetting & to pay respect to those sacrificed. Now, as his descendants, we feel it is our duty to tell the story – not to glorify, nor to be ashamed, but to understand & have dialogues.”
The images & text above are taken, with permission, from an article in The Conversation by Kyoko Murakami. The full article can be read here.