Kwai reunion – ‘Forget it'

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34045, 8 January 1976, Page 1

Kwai reunion - ‘Forget it'

A reunion of former i prisoners of the Japanese and their guards at the 1 site of the Taimen railway on the BurmaThailand border, as proI posed by former Japanese servicemen, has met a cool reception ; from several Christ-j . church former prisoners( i of war. . The national secretary of the Ex-prisoners of War! i Association (Mr D. C. C.i Bailey) said that he would , certainly not be interested' Hand doubted that any mem-' jbers of his organisation 1 ■ would be interested. ! At the end of his time as( (a prisoner, he said, he had (not held any hatred for the Japanese — rather a distaste ■for their methods, and some (sympathy for them because: of their limited code of behaviour. At their own reunions, the! prisoners remembered only! the better things that oc-l curred during captivity, and! a reunion proposed by former captors would prob-1 ably bring back memories! better forgotten. Their association had! passed remits asking the! Government to restrain Jap-! anese firms from taking up( (land or maiority holdings in (companies in New Zealand,! but accepted that the! ■ country must trade with! (Japan, Mr Btiley said. ■ Another former prisoner., (Mr L. C. Hurndell, said that as far as he was concerned, the past was past, and that.! Hike most of his fellows, he*

I would prefer to “leave it beIhind.'' ( The Japanese had suggested that they should meet former British and other prisoners on the Bridge over ■the River Kwai, the setting for a film that was famous, (but some former prisoners '(say, far from factual. i The Japanese said they (wanted to apologise for the .(deaths of an estimated 60,000 (prisoners during the building lof the railway, and to march arm-in-arm with their former (prisoners over the bridge, to ! build a new bridge of BritishJapanese friendship.