POWs Still Waiting!

[Old-Duffer]

Yesterday, I attended a very good seminar run by the RAF Historical Society at the Hendon RAF Museum. The topic was: Shot Down Behind Enemy Lines and it was a comprehensive review, inevitably centred on the last world war but with more recent experiences also exposed.

There were several ex-POWs - kreigies - present, some of whom commented about their experiences, although not via formal presentations.

What I did not know, was that POWs had deductions made to their pay to account for the cost of 'comforts' supposedly sent to them via Red Cross and others. As was pointed out, these 'comforts' were frequently not received and in any event there was no way to attribute the receipt of any of this stuff to an individual.

Since the war, the POWs have tried to get successive governments to understand this inequity and to compensate them for these unreasonable stoppages of pay. As one put it: 'I have two tea chests of correspondence on the subject'.

As the numbers of veterans dwindle and the state dishes out large quantities of dosh to all sorts of undeserving individuals/causes, isn't it time that the POWs received restitution?

Old Duffer

[just another jocky]

Sounds like yet another legacy policy completely inappropriate in modern society. Sadly, prevarication from politicians & the MoD alike appears the norm. :sad:

[Finnpog]

It is in the interests of the politcos to play the long game, and then when it suits their voter image to make a sweeping 'gesture' of granting it to the handful that are left.
Unfortunately they (the polis) have no honour nor integrity.

[FantomZorbin]

Sadly, this sort of thing isn't limited just to the POWs. The Government of the day (Wilson?) helped itself to the public donation fund after the Aberfan disaster. :mad:

[Genstabler]

My father had deductions taken from his pay to cover the costs of the comforts provided by the Japanese while he built a railway for them in Burma. He received a payment in reparation after the war from the Japanese which was generous enough for him to purchase a writing desk with. He eventually died a year before the British government agreed finally to pay more adequate compensation to FEPOWs. Makes you proud.

[kluge]

An old friend of mine in HK received a similar pittance from HMG five or so years ago.

His father survived internment in Japan and he was born in the Japanese POW camp in HK during WWII. All his family survived which was probably a miracle in itself.

Anyway the pittance received many years after his parents death was enough to purchase a small sailing boat - tiny thing and nothing flash.

He called it P.O.W and adorned it with a logo of a mushroom cloud.

His rationale being that he wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for Fat Boy and Little Man.

This chap is also the reason why the 'Royal' title remains in the HK Yacht Club name. The rest of the clubs in the territory as the 'running dogs of Jiang Zemin' rapidly ditched theirs back in 97 - ungrateful cowards.

[Chugalug2]

OD, I too attended the seminar yesterday at Hendon, and a humbling experience it was too. I once met a group of ex POWs held, like my Dad, by the Japanese for over 3 years. They were, like many then who had survived their ordeal (unlike my Dad), reluctant to talk much.
What they did say related to the Japanese Imperial Army and the Japanese Nation as a whole. To say they had nothing good to say about either is to understate it somewhat.
What they didn't mention was stoppages from pay for POW's which of course they suffered along with their European compatriots. A case of everything being relative I guess.
You will have noted that though there were a tiny number of successful escapes from HK, Burma, etc, there were none from Japan itself of course, for fairly obvious reasons. That is where this particular group were the guests of the Japanese Emperor, at Omini Camp, Fukuoka, Kyushu, doing for the Japanese what the Bevan Boys did for us. They too had an axe to grind, but again it's all rather relative isn't it?

[Old-Duffer]

As a follow up to my opening post, I wrote to my MP today and summarised the situation regarding POWs and stoppages.

I suggested that he might care to bring the matter to the attention of his Rt Hon Friend the Sec of S for Defence. I offered the opinion that if Mr Hammond stated that he would grasp the nettle and without further prevarication agree to give restitution for the earlier injustice, he would gain kudos with the country at large and the gratitude of the former POWs, dwindling band though they be.

I suggested further that the timing of such an announcement was fairly obvious, given that we are just over two weeks away from Remembrance Day.

O-D