Forgiveness on the River Kwai

John Lampen reflects on a remarkable story

The opening of the film The Railway Man, based on Eric Lomax’s book, and the publication of Eric Cordingley’s Down to Bedrock: The Diary and Secret Notes of a Far East Prisoner of War Chaplain 1942–1945, will take many minds back, once more, to the prisoners who built the Burma-Thai Railway and their treatment by the Japanese army, which left wounds that seem to be unhealed even after seventy years.  Eric Lomax described how his experiences left a legacy of anger and nightmares and destroyed his marriage; and how a meeting late in life with Nagase Takashi, the interpreter who took part in his torture, brought compassion for his enemy’s years of subsequent guilt, which led to forgiveness. Before his book was published I already knew of Nagase from a dear Quaker friend, Bill Allchin, who had also worked on the railway as a prisoner and had met him. Bill sent me a little memoir by him, Crosses and Tigers.

As a prisoner of the Allies in the last days of the war, Nagase acted as interpreter to some of the Allied War Graves Commission, who were investigating Japanese war crimes and exhuming the bodies of Allied prisoners who died working on the Railway. The experience affected him profoundly, inducing a cardiac neurosis that persisted until, in 1963, he was able to visit the war cemetery in the area again.

He wrote later to Bill: ‘I have been to the war cemetery at Kanburi many times, and stood there to think over again and again. But nothing has come out except grief and sympathy. I should do something both for them [the dead] and the world and so I made up my mind.’

Meeting with enemies

His idea was for a reunion at the railway bridge over the River Kwai.

‘In 1976 I made a plan for a gathering of ex-prisoners and ex-Japanese officers and soldiers. I corresponded with ex-POWs and read books which ex-prisoners wrote about their experience. Hatred and resentment towards the Japanese are more fierce than the Japanese imagine… I hoped we would win reconciliation and forgive each other’s resentment. Meanwhile, some Japanese were bitter about facing trial for war crimes. They felt they had paid for what they did…

‘This plan was announced in the newspapers. It created a sensation in Thailand first. At that time a group of British ex-prisoners were visiting the River Kwai. According to the foreign news, they said “What are the Japanese getting at? We’ll throw them in the river when they turn up!” In Japan a newspaper ridiculed my plan with the tone of “I told you so”. However, a few months later ex-prisoners from the countries concerned sent me letters of inquiry, saying, “I am curious about your idea…” The British Far East Ex-Prisoners Association made a statement that they would “neglect” the plan. Little had I known the word “neglect” had such a strong impact. I also received four calls from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to try to persuade me to give up my plan…

‘I received a letter from an ex-prisoner, doctor William Allchin, a psychiatrist at Southampton University, saying that he would support my plan. Some twenty comrades, including the doctor, were planning to have a prayer meeting for reconciliation and friendship at Westminster Abbey at the identical time and date when the scheduled reunion would be held at the River Kwai.’

Twenty-three ex-prisoners and fifty-one Japanese met at the river. They first prayed for the repose of the dead at the War Cemetery, and then walked together over the bridge. Nagase wrote:

‘It was well worth coming all the way to the River Kwai for the reconciliation in defiance of friends’ and foes’ opposition. I shall never forget the soul-stirring experience. All the people threw enmity and hatred into the River Kwai. We shared the pleasure of the forgiveness just by seeing the smiles on each other’s faces.’

Westminster Abbey

The Westminster Abbey meeting of ex-prisoners took place on the same day, and paid a special tribute to Nagase for his initiative. Though ignored by the British press, it was filmed and later shown on Japanese television. Not long afterwards Nagase’s cardiac problems disappeared.

Bill Allchin later met him and other Japanese veterans at the bridge, and then went to Japan with them. In his own little book of reflections and memories, Let Your Peaceful Heart Speak, he wrote:

‘The River Kwai Reunion was a kind of postscript to a war-time horror story. To shake hands on the bridge, or afterwards in Japan itself, was to try to heal the memories, to understand the past and learn from it, but also to try to build for the future bridges across the gulfs that still divide human beings from each other. On the River Kwai and in the prison-camps we learned the lesson of survival by means of cooperation. By shaking hands we found that our former enemies were people like ourselves. We came close enough to know the human likeness and the quality of the suffering.’

In that last sentence he linked the suffering on the river with that at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which he had to face in Japan.

‘In the evening we came back to Hiroshima and were able to sit and talk with four outpatients, ambulant survivors of the holocaust so long ago. Again, it was a meeting shot through with emotion. Tears were shed and strong feelings expressed about those people still struggling with the long-term effects of that ordeal… For a European, from the heart of whose science and culture the bomb emerged and had been used, it was particularly horrible. I almost envied the Japanese, sad victims, but people with a legitimate grievance. And yet I never heard anyone say so in so many words.’

What really needs to be said

Today, we have become almost too accustomed to rituals which commemorate past sufferings, usually with some hope of assisting the processes of healing and reconciliation. But their problem is how to prevent pomp and ceremony from deafening us to what really needs to be said.

Bill’s most meaningful thoughts came not at a public event but as he looked at the soldiers’ and prisoners’ graves at Kanburi, the scene which prompted Nagase’s decision:

‘I looked at the graves again. They were so young then. Now we came back to them, ourselves having had thirty years more life. What could we report to them that we had done with it, and what would they hope to hear from us? Of old hatreds and antagonisms kept alive, or of our efforts to make the world a safer and a more peaceful place?’

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Comments

Thank you, John. It was very moving to read about the stories of those on both sides coming together face to face to attempt to put to rest their personal demons. It was personally affirming to hear about Bill Allchin’s account as I had known him some 30 years ago long before I had become a Quaker - I remember feeling I was in the presence of someone special.

By Wollross on 8th February 2014 - 21:54

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Belatedly, thank you.

By Freda on 27th June 2014 - 23:26

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