Families of 1943 Suez Maru massacre victims demand apology

THE families of hundreds of Allied prisoners of war massacred by the Japanese have urged Rishi Sunak to apologise for the British Government’s past failures to prosecute those responsible.

Relatives of those machine-gunned by their Japanese captors when the Suez Maru transport ship was torpedoed by the US Navy have written a letter to Mr Sunak, urging the British Government not to forget “those who gave so much for our freedom”.

Britain’s post-war government secretly decided not to press ahead with war crime prosecutions against Japanese commanders who had ordered the Suez Maru massacre, and others like them, during the Second World War.

The letter to the Prime Minister was hand-delivered by Jacqueline Frith – a researcher and author whose great-uncle Jack was among those killed – along with a petition.

It stated: “Our families have waited 80 years for the British Government to acknowledge that the decision not to prosecute in the case of the Suez Maru massacre of our loved ones was not taken ‘in good faith’ but rather was an act of political cowardice, second to the cold-blooded murder of defenceless prisoners of war in the sea, in 1943.

“For decades, the decision not to prosecute was concealed, as were all the facts of the Suez Maru case from our families.”

Following her visit to Downing Street last week, Ms Frith lobbied the Japanese Embassy for its own government also to issue an apology to those machine-gunned to death in the Pacific.

Ms Frith was met outside the embassy by an official who appeared moved when she explained why she was there. She told The Sunday Telegraph: “He looked me in the eye and said, ‘I am so sorry.’ It was a moment I cannot overstate in its meaningfulness to me. I had the feeling at the Japanese Embassy that they were more sympathetic and more willing to apologise than the British Government, which is staggering.”

Ms Frith suspects the British Government is reluctant to apologise to the Suez Maru families for fear of offending the Japanese government and jeopardising future trade deals. She said the Suez Maru families have not yet received a response from either Mr Sunak or the Japanese Embassy.

The Suez Maru was transporting 550 British, Dutch, Irish and New Zealand PoWs from a prison camp on the Indonesian island of Ambo to Java on Nov 29 1943 when it was intercepted by the American submarine USS Bonefish.

The submarine fired four torpedoes, killing most of the 300 PoWs packed beneath decks.