Issue 49 (February 2014, Volume 9, Number 1)

In this first issue of 2014, we focus on Japan’s wartime Thai- Burma Railway which has recently been in the spotlight following the release of the internationally acclaimed movie The Railway Man. The film is based on Eric Lomax’s moving book of the same name and our review by Susan Meehan explores both versions of this emotive tale. On a positive note, this regrettable chapter in UK-Japan relations clearly demonstrates that bitter former foes can successfully be reconciled and build a strong and enduring relationship. In some respects this is one of the key messages of the film, through forgiveness and the proper acknowledging of a painful past, a strong and mutually beneficial future can be created.

We look at the historical background to the movie with an analysis by Sir Hugh Cortazzi and Professor Ian Nish of Yoshihiko Futamatsu’s Across the Three Pagodas Pass: The Story of the Thai-Burma Railway, which was translated by Ewart Escritt.

We also review Ronald Searle’s immensely powerful visual record of his gruesome life as a prisoner-of-war building the so called ‘Death Railway’ in To The Kwai – And Back. Sir Hugh Cortazzi looks at a stimulating collection of scholarly essays on war-related themes entitled Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in the Modern World which is edited by the eminent historian John Dower.

Looking at this issue’s theme from a completely different perspective Mike Sullivan reviews a fictional work that masterfully intermingles a range of issues which arose from the conflict for Japanese who were living in the USA when World War II broke out.