Latest news with #LisbonMaruMemorialAssociation
BBC News
5 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Memories of two survivors of Japanese PoW boat
The families of two men who survived the sinking of a Japanese prisoner of war ship during World War Two have told their stories to mark 80 years since VJ were 1,800 prisoners aboard Lisbon Maru when it sank in the South China Sea on 2 October 1942, including Sgt Cyril Mace from Shipston-on-Stour in Warwickshire and Naval Reserve Thomas Jones from Wargrave in Mace spent months in a Chinese fishing community before being recaptured but Mr Jones was recaptured soon after the sinking and spent the rest of the war in a Japanese prisoner of war grandson, Anthony Jones, runs the Lisbon Maru Memorial Association, which tells the stories of those onboard the ship. More than 200 people died in captivity in Japanese Jones, who lives in Solihull, said his grandfather was tortured in Osaka before his eventual release at the end of the said: "I remember my nan saying that VE day was a celebration for the country. "She was in London, working as a children's nurse at the time and everyone was celebrating in the streets. But for her there was no celebration because the love of her life was still a prisoner of war." Of the 1,800 British servicemen aboard Lisbon Maru, 828 Barbara Harris, the daughter of Sgt Mace, said: "Somehow dad got into a current and drifted out and he was in the water then for about two days."She said he was then "picked up by a Chinese fisherman on a different island and he was there for three months because they kept him hidden".He was eventually recaptured after the Japanese threatened the Chinese with execution for sheltering him and he was sent to a camp in the war be became a village postman in Warwickshire and passed on to his family one of his most prized possessions - his had used it to strap himself to the debris of the Lisbon Maru and Ms Harris said it almost certainly saved his was said to have had a "very laidback" personality and she said: "Dad always said you have to have faith, you have to have faith in life." Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Star
21-05-2025
- General
- The Star
Descendants of Lisbon Maru survivors, Chinese fishermen honor heroic WWII rescue
HANGZHOU, May 21 (Xinhua) -- Eighteen descendants of rescued British prisoners of war (POWs) during the Lisbon Maru incident joined descendants of Chinese fishermen at a commemorative ceremony Tuesday on an east China island, where local fishermen saved 384 British soldiers from drowning under Japanese gunfire in 1942. The gathering, the first to include foreign representatives since a memorial was erected last year, was held on Qingbang island, a small islet off China's Zhoushan Islands in the eastern Zhejiang Province, where a 1-tonne monument made of naval bronze commemorates the heroic rescue 83 years ago. "This memorial stands as a bridge -- between past and present, between China and the UK, between sorrow and solidarity," said Anthony Jones, grandson of survivor Thomas Theodore Jones and chairman of the Lisbon Maru Memorial Association. "We honor all, both the dead and the living, who kept their memory alive." In October 1942, the Lisbon Maru, a cargo vessel requisitioned by the Japanese army to transport more than 1,800 British POWs from Hong Kong to Japan, was torpedoed off the Zhoushan Islands by a U.S. submarine after failing to display mandated POW transport markings. As the vessel sank, fishermen of Dongji braved machine-gun fire to pluck drowning British POWs from the sea and managed to rescue 384 of them. "Our forefathers used to say 'to ignore those in peril would disgrace the sea' and their actions exemplified selflessness and boundless compassion," noted Wu Buwei, whose grandfather, Wu Qisheng, participated in the heroic rescue. "As their descendants, we take immense pride in their legacy." The 4.5-meter-long memorial, bearing the inscription "Love knows no boundary; Friendship transcends time" in both Chinese and English alongside a detailed account of the event, depicts interlocked arms emerging from turbulent waves -- a design inspired by rescuers' accounts of them hauling POWs from the water by their wrists. Qu Xiaoshi of the China Academy of Art, the memorial's designer, revealed that the design underwent over 40 revisions before a village elder's recollection of "life-or-death grips" crystallized the concept. "Though the Lisbon Maru sank, the bond it forged never will," Wu said before the flower-laden memorial, where photographs stood in silent rows. "As a descendant of the Dongji fishermen, we'll guard this truth like our ancestors guarded lives -- embracing peace and friendship as the ocean embraces all boats."
