News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: UK Ex-POWs Prevail

Date: November 08, 2000

"POUNDS 10,000 FOR POWS

Blair pays tribute to heroes of Japanese torture camps

SURVIVORS of Second World War Japanese death camps will be given pounds 10,000 compensation, the Government said yesterday.

After the Commons announcement, Tony Blair paid tribute to the men who endured horrendous suffering as prisoners of war in the Far East.

All 16,700 survivors or their widows will each get pounds 10,000, costing a total of around pounds 165million.

Until now, their only compensation had been a derisory pounds 76 a head.

Mr Blair met a small group of survivors at London's National Army Museum. He told them: "We are at last putting right a long-standing injustice.

"It is very hard for someone of my generation to understand just what suffering people went through.

"This is just one small but significant way in which we can say to you thank you for your courage and thank you for what you did. I know I am standing here in a free country and my children are growing up in a free country because of what you did for us."

More than 50,000 servicemen were reported captured by the Japanese. More than 12,000, were killed or died in captivity. Among the ex-servicemen who met the PM yesterday was Arthur Titherington, 79, chairman of the Japanese Labour Camp Survivors Association.

He was captured when Singapore fell and spent six months in the notorious Changi PoW camp and then three years in another camp in Taiwan.

He said: "I am very pleased about the compensation, particularly because widows have been included.

"The suffering went on long after the men came back - some were in a terrible state."

But he angrily attacked Japan for failing to apologise for its actions."