Former Japanese prisoners and Eastburn author Douglas Firth says British Second World War widows should be paid compensation by the Japanese government.

Mr Firth, 76, of Grange View, Eastburn, made the statement after the royal visit of Japan's Emperor Akihito - son of wartime emperor Hirohito - to London and Cardiff this week. During his visit to Britain to receive the nation's highest honour of chivalry - the Order of the Garter - thousands of Japanese prison camp veterans turned their backs on the Emperor as he travelled down the Mall with the Queen in a carriage to Buckingham Palace for a state banquet.

They were waiting to hear a formal apology for the atrocities committed by the Japanese against British prisoners interned in the Far East during the Second World War, but it never came due to technicalities in the Japanese constitution. They were also demanding cash compensation of around £14,000 per survivor.

Mr Firth says: "I can understand how these people feel as I went through it myself but I've had time for reflection to get over my immediate anger and bitterness. I'll never forget it, though. A lot of people are still coming to terms with it.

"I think the Japanese government ought to hand out some sort of reparation to the widows of dead soldiers as well as give an apology because they are the ones who really suffered. Some lost their husbands early on."

As a young soldier in the Far East specialist unit 29CMTD (Combined Mechanical Transport Stores Depot), Private Firth spent nearly three years at one of the infamous 'hell' prison camps parallel to the River Kwai in northern Thailand where he helped build the Burma railway network.

He says: "In order to survive, you just had to accept, right from the word go, that you were nothing more than slave labour. It was hideous and barbaric and I just prayed to get through each day."

Along with his fellow prisoners, he suffered daily rifle butt beatings, punishments such as having a bayonet pointed at his head all night and regular face slappings.

The worst form of punishment, he says, was when they poured up to three-and-a-half gallons of water down men's throats and then jumped on them until they were on the brink of death.

His daily intake of food was three mugs of rice and watery stew. As many as 16 of his colleagues died every day.

Mr Firth calls it a "blessing' that he contracted cerebral malaria - the worst form of the disease - which was to give him a disability for life and a ticket out of the camp.

Jim Laurie, secretary of the Keighley branch of the Royal British Legion, says: "I had a friend who was at a Japanese prison camp and when he came back home he was more or less skin and bone. I think if it was myself I would feel the same way as these PoW veterans. Even now I never buy anything Japanese. It's good that they are protesting but I don't know if they will get anything out of it. An apology should definitely come from the Japanese government without any hesitation at all.'

Douglas Firth has published a book called The Spirit of the River Kwai about his experiences as a Japanese PoW. It is priced at $1.99 and is available at Reids Bookshop, Cavendish Street, Keighley, The Grapevine, Church Street, Keighley and at the Craven Herald, High Street, Skipton.

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