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 | | Tuesday, 26 May, 1998, 08:36 GMT 09:36 UK Survivors' long wait for compensation  Thousands of British soldiers and civilians died in Japanese camps during the war Around 13,000 British soldiers and 2,000 civilians died in Japanese wartime camps. Thousands more survived torture, humiliation, disease and starvation. The catalogue of misery suffered by British soldiers and civilians - many of them women - in PoW and labour camps became clear after their liberation by Allied troops in 1945. August 1945: Japan surrenders in the wake of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 1951: The Treaty of San Francisco is signed. Under it 50,000 British PoWs receive �76 each and civilian internees �48 from frozen Japanese assets. The figure is deliberately kept low because Japan's economy remains devastated. Under Article 26 British survivors are entitled to parity with those of other nations if they achieve more generous settlements from the Japanese. Between 1956 and 1967: As Japan's economy recovers camp survivors from several other countries, including the US, Philippines and Korea, receive compensation worth up to 50 times as much as the British received. Successive British governments refuse to take action to settle this anomaly.
1970s: Germany begins paying billions of Deutschmarks in compensation to victims of the Nazi tyranny. 1993: A group of camp survivors begin legal proceedings in Japan in a bid to secure compensation of �14,000 per ex-prisoner. 1995: Japan's Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama says sorry to Britain for Japan's wartime actions but his apology is not backed up by the government. January, 1998: During Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to Japan his opposite number Ryutaro Hashimoto apologises to Britain and increases the amount spent on exchange visits to Japan for the grandchildren of British PoWs. But his apology fails to satisfy many PoWs who insist he uses a key Japanese word "shazai".
May 1998: Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko arrive in Britain on a state visit. British PoWs have threatened a series of peaceful demonstrations to press their case for compensation. | | See also:  Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top UK stories now:  Links to more UK stories are at the foot of the page. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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