After US apology, Mitsubishi to say sorry to British former PoWs

THE son of a British former prisoner of war has welcomed reports that Mitsubishi intends to apologise to British captives for their treatment on its sites during the Second World War.

Mitsubishi Materials director Yukio Okamoto said yesterday that the company “has to apologise” to former prisoners of all nationalities, after a landmark apology to American PoWs took place on Sunday.

“If there is such an opportunity, we will do the same apology,” he said. “What other companies will do, we don’t know … ours is one of those who tortured PoWs most, so we have to apologise.”

Mr Okamoto said that the company could also apologise to Dutch and Australian PoWs, and reach an amicable solution, including compensation, with Chinese forced labourers.

“I personally sympathise a great deal with Chinese forced labourers,” added Mr Okamoto. “I think we will have to apologise ... [and] they are demanding reparation, and that is in a court, so this will be a solution with money.”

Mr Okamoto was among company officials who bowed before surviving US PoWs and family members on Sunday in Los Angeles and apologised for the 900 Americans forced to work in Mitsubishi mines and factories.

Mr Gibson and the families of other British PoWs told The Daily Telegraph that their loved ones should receive similar apologies. Mitsubishi appears to have heeded their requests.

“I definitely think the apology should not just apply to the American PoWs”, said Mr Gibson, whose father, James, was a private in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who was captured at the Battle of Slim River in Malaya in January 1942.

“These men cannot be held personally responsible because they are the grandchildren of the company officials of that time, but I would be delighted if they could make a similar apology to British PoWs and their families.”

Mr Gibson said he believed an appropriate place for any apology would be the National Memorial Arboretum, near Lichfield in Staffordshire, or the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, where hundreds of former Far East PoWs received treatment for illnesses they contracted during their incarceration.

“There are many who will say that this apology has come 70 years too late – and it has come 30 years too late for my own father – but it still means everything to a lot of people”, Mr Gibson said. “I believe my father would have accepted their apology as well.”

‘There are many who will say that this apology has come 70 years too late – but it still means everything’