Far East prisoners of war is a term used in the United Kingdom to describe former British and Commonwealth prisoners of war held in the Far East during the Second World War. The term is also used as the initialism FEPOW, or as the abbreviation Far East POWs.
Since 2000, following a campaign led by the Royal British Legion, former Far East POWs are eligible for UK Government compensation for their suffering in POW and internment camps operated by the Japanese during the War. [1]
Compensation may be payable to any member of all British Groups imprisoned by the Japanese in the Second World War. It is therefore available to British civilians and merchant seamen as well as members of British and Commonwealth forces. An amendment of the scheme in 2002 extended compensation to former Gurkha soldiers.
An application may be made by either a former POW or their family or estate. A successful FEPOW applicant is entitled to an ex gratia payment of £10,000. The scheme is currently administered by the Veterans Agency.
The National Federation of Far East Prisoner of War Clubs and Associations (NFFCA) acts as an umbrella organisation for over 60 autonomous FEPOW Clubs and Associations in the UK.
The FEPOW Community has been set up to research loved ones who suffered under Japanese captivity during World War II. It does incorporate a free group, with its members helping each other in research. The Roll-of-Honour (Roll of Honour) has every death of service personnel and civilians mentioned in the site, most having a page of their own. The Far Eastern Heroes (Far Eastern Heroes) covers stories from the FEPOWs themselves, with a special page which promotes FEPOW Day as 15 August, the day Japan surrendered.
Children and Families of the Far East Prisoners of War (COFEPOW) was founded in 1997 by Carol Cooper in Norfolk after a chance reading of a newspaper article about the discovery of a diary of a soldier who had died working on the Burma Railway. It emerged that the soldier was her father. In 1999 it became a registered charity. Today it comprises a membership of children and siblings of those who died as POWs and campaigns to raise awareness, raises funds for the creation of memorials both in the UK and the Far East, and offers resources for research.
In 2005, it established the Far East Prisoners of War Memorial Building at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, England. Within the building an exhibition tells the story of those captured by the Japanese during the Second World War. In the same area of the Arboretum are memorials for those prisoners of war who suffered and died building the Burma and Sumatra Railways.
See Inside and explore the Museum here
Life in the POW camps was recorded at great risk to themselves by artists such as Jack Bridger Chalker, Philip Meninsky, Ashley George Old and Ronald Searle. Human hair was often used for brushes, plant juices and blood for paint, and toilet paper as the "canvas". Some of their works were used as evidence in the trials of Japanese war criminals.
The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine undertook a study of British Far East POW medical art subsequent to a FEPOW oral history. [2]
An exhibition 'Secret Art of Survival - Creativity and ingenuity of British Far East prisoners of war, 1942 - 1945' was held at Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool from 25 October 2019 - 20 June 2020. [3]
Our Lady & St Thomas of Canterbury in Wymondham, Norfolk, England was completed in 1952 on the initiative of Father Malcolm Cowin - former Roman Catholic Chaplain to the 2nd Cambridgeshire Regiment and who himself had spent 3½ years in Japanese POW camps. The site and a fund to build the church had been provided by Irish labourers and USAAF personnel in the area. While a prisoner he helped construct three chapels in different camps and determined that on his return to the UK he would build a church in memory of those who died in Japanese POW and internment camps.
It serves as a parish church for the local Roman Catholic community as well as a focal point for the wider FEPOW community. There is a FEPOW shrine and an annual FEPOW memorial service held on the nearest Sunday to 14 May, the anniversary of the relief of Rangoon.
St Peter and St Paul's Church, Wisbech contains a FEPOW memorial dedicated to those who lost their lives in the Far East. Designed by Brian Krill the memorial is in the style of a bamboo prisoner of war hut. An exhibition to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Singapore campaign was held February to April, 2022 in the nearby Wisbech & Fenland Museum. [4]
The Burma Railway, also known as the Siam–Burma Railway, Thai–Burma Railway and similar names, or as the Death Railway, is a 415 km (258 mi) railway between Ban Pong, Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, Burma. It was built from 1940 to 1943 by South East Asian civilians abducted and forced to work by the Japanese and a smaller group of captured Allied soldiers, to supply troops and weapons in the Burma campaign of World War II. It completed the rail link between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma. The name used by the Japanese Government was Tai–Men Rensetsu Tetsudō (泰緬連接鉄道), which means Thailand-Burma-Link-Railway.
Sutton Bridge is a village and civil parish in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated on the A17 road, 7 miles (11 km) north from Wisbech and 9 miles (14 km) west from King's Lynn. The village includes a commercial dock on the west bank of the River Nene over which spans a swing bridge, and the parish, two 19th-century lighthouses 3 miles (5 km) to the north from the village on the Nene.
Hellfire Pass is the name of a railway cutting on the former Burma Railway in Thailand which was built with forced labour during the Second World War. More than 250,000 Southeast Asian civilians and 12,000 Allied soldiers built the railway line, including Hellfire Pass. The pass is noted for the harsh conditions and heavy loss of life suffered by its labourers during construction. It was called Hellfire Pass because the sight of emaciated prisoners labouring by burning torchlight resembled a scene from Hell.
The Kanchanaburi War Cemetery is the main prisoner of war (POW) cemetery for victims of Japanese imprisonment while building the Burma Railway. It is on the main road, Saeng Chuto Road, through the town of Kanchanaburi, Thailand, adjacent to an older Chinese cemetery. The cemetery contains 6,982 graves of British, Australian and Dutch prisoners of war, of whom 6,858 have been identified.
Tydd St Giles is a village in Fenland, Cambridgeshire, England. It is the northernmost village in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, on the same latitude as Midlands towns such as Loughborough and Shrewsbury.
Batu Lintang camp at Kuching, Sarawak on the island of Borneo was a Japanese-run internment camp during the Second World War. It was unusual in that it housed both Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and civilian internees. The camp, which operated from March 1942 until the liberation of the camp in September 1945, was housed in buildings that were originally British Indian Army barracks. The original area was extended by the Japanese, until it covered about 50 acres. The camp population fluctuated, due to movement of prisoners between camps in Borneo, and as a result of the deaths of the prisoners. It had a maximum population of some 3,000 prisoners.
After World War II there were from 560,000 to 760,000 Japanese personnel in the Soviet Union and Mongolia interned to work in labor camps as POWs. Of them, it is estimated that between 60,000 and 347,000 died in captivity.
Ashley George Old was an artist best known for documenting the lives of prisoners of war forced to construct the Thailand-Burma Railway.
Jack Bridger Chalker, was a British artist and teacher best known for his work recording the lives of the prisoners of war building the Burma Railway during World War II.
Keiko Holmes (恵子・ホームズ) is a Japanese coordinator for a charity named Agape, which helps to promote reconciliation between Japan and her former World War II prisoners of war (POWs). She lectures at universities and schools, and was awarded the O.B.E.
Major Arthur Moon was an Australian army doctor who saved the lives of dozens of Far East prisoners of war as the Thailand-Burma Railway was being constructed during World War II.
The Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery is a prisoner of war cemetery for victims of Japanese imprisonment who died building the Death Railway in Burma. It is at the Burmese end of the Second World War railway construction, in Thanbyuzayat, 65 kilometres south of Mawlamyine (Moulmein). Thanbyuzayat is considered the terminus of the Death Railway, and is where it connected with the Burmese main line.
The Muarakalaban–Muaro–Pekanbaru railway is an inactive railway section in Sumatra, Indonesia. It was a railway project of two parties in two different times, Staatsspoorwegen ter Sumatra's Westkust in the Dutch East Indies era and Rikuyu Sokyuku of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War.
Fergus Gordon Anckorn was a British soldier who, as starting as the conjurer Wizardus at age 18, was the longest-serving member of the Magic Circle.
The Burma Railway Memorial is a memorial near Mornington Crescent tube station, in Camden High Street, London, to the thousands of British civilian and military prisoners of war in the Far East who died of disease, starvation or maltreatment while building the Burma Railway during the Second World War.
Suez Maru was a Japanese passenger and cargo steamship that was built in 1919, used as a hell ship, and sunk in 1943. The submarine USS Bonefish sank her when she was carrying 548 Allied prisoners of war (PoWs). Many drowned, but many others were shot by the Japanese.
Ernest Warwick (1918-2009) was a British author, prisoner of war and survivor of the Burma to Siam death railway.
Chungkai War Cemetery, also known as Chung Kai War Cemetery, is a war cemetery in Tha Ma Kham near Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Established in the 1950s, the cemetery hosts the graves of 1,426 British and 313 Dutch prisoners of war who died during World War II. It was originally a prisoner of war camp on the Burma Railway.
Camp Nong Pladuk was a Japanese prisoner of war transit camp during World War II. It was located about five kilometres from the main railway station of Ban Pong near a junction station on the Southern Line to Bangkok. Nong Pladuk served as the starting point of the Burma Railroad. Numerous British, Dutch, and allied troops passed through Nong Pladuk to construct the railroad. Nowadays, it serves as a rail road maintenance and repair facility.