Japan to host former US prisoners of war

TOKYO, July 31 AFP - Six US veterans who survived Japanese captivity in one of World War II’s most notorious episodes will be invited with their families to stay in Japan in September, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The six are survivors of the 1942 “Bataan death march,” in which 70,000 Allied prisoners of war were forced to march to camps in the Philippines, and will be hosted by the Japanese government, Mainichi Shimbun reported.

The exact death toll is unknown, but some historians say thousands of Allied PoWs died during the forcible march, many of them succumbing to physical abuse. The six US veterans and their families will be hosted for eight days in September under “a Japan-US programme to promote mutual understanding,” the newspaper reported, the first such invitation extended to former American PoWs.

Similar programmes in Japan have previously hosted former PoWs from the Netherlands and Britain, in programmes aimed at improving relations.