To mark 80 years since the end of the second world war, a group of ten Japanese people whose fathers and grandfathers once fought against the British travelled to the UK to mark victory over Japan day (VJ day). The story of their ancestors is one that is often forgotten. These men fought during the Burma campaign between 1942 and 1945 – one of the most brutal but often overlooked episodes of the war.
The Burma Campaign Society’s (BCS) Japan branch hope to shed light on this episode by fusing personal memory with national histories. Their efforts are not only about remembering Japan’s past, but also about confronting the complex legacy of their families’ roles in it.
The Burma campaign was a gruelling battle between the Japanese imperial army and Allied forces, predominantly British, Indian, Chinese and American troops. Fought in then Burma, now Myanmar, it was marked by some of the toughest conditions of the war, fighting through disease-ridden jungles, during torrential monsoons across near-impossible terrain. For the men who fought there, it was a struggle for survival in one of the most hostile battlefields of the war.
