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.
On Friday August 15, the BCS group attended the national commemorative ceremony, Remembering VJ Day 80 Years On, at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. The group, aged from 12 to 78, paid their respects and forged connections with surviving British veterans and descendants of the fallen in Burma. Their work is personal: each member can trace their lineage to soldiers who served, and in some cases died, in Burma. The purpose of their visit is to extend to the UK their work of “irei” – a Japanese word which means to console the spirits of the fallen; to pray for the repose of their souls for those who made the ultimate sacrifice in war.
Two years ago, BCS members held “irei-sai”, memorial services, in Tokyo and other locations in Japan, inviting British veterans and family members to join with Japanese and dignitaries from former allied countries.
In the special VJ Day 80th anniversary ceremony this year, BCS members prayed on British soil for the repose of the souls of the victims. They did so at the memorials and monuments including the Burma memorial, Chindit memorial and Thai Burma railway memorial.
Participating in the VJ Day ceremony was emotional for all concerned. BCS members were initially apprehensive about attending the historic ceremony as citizens of the former foe. They did not know what to expect or how the British would treat them.
Takuya Imasato (47) said he wanted his child to experience how the war is interpreted and commemorated in Britain. He commented that: “I did not feel any bitterness or animosities toward us.”
Another of the Japanese descendants at the ceremony, Hiroaki Fujimori (64), said some of the British people there approached him and shook hands, hugged him or even kissed him on the cheek: “I felt an overwhelming send of welcome and kindness.”
Colonel Yoshiaki Himeda (56), of the Japanese Self Defence Force, said the ceremony was quite different from what he was used to in Japan: “I was so surprised to experience a ceremony that was inclusive, acknowledging the diversity of Britain.” He continued, “It is as if a symbolic wall of the foe or friend quickly dissolved when I, in JDF uniform, saluted the military personnel and veterans in uniforms or with medals. There was more of a silent recognition, we were both children of men who endured something terrible.”
The chairperson of BCS, Akiko Macdonald (74), who lives in the UK, said she was delighted with how the visit went. “Until now, I felt like I was alone, leading the society’s work of irei in the UK with the UK Burma veterans. My father survived, but in his post-war years, he suffered from the survivor’s guilt and PTSD like those who repatriated to Japan. In postwar Japan, if one returns home alive, he is not a war hero and is made to feel ashamed.”
Intercultural dialogue
Many BCS members grew up with fragmented stories, often whispered about, but rarely discussed openly in postwar Japan. Wartime service, especially in campaigns marked by atrocities, was long treated with silence. Families often avoided the topic, torn between pride in their relatives’ endurance and discomfort over Japan’s imperial ambitions.
Showing me a photograph of her father, who, in his later years, trained to be a Burmese Buddhist monk, Yoshiko Fujiwara (70) reflected on the meaning of her irei work. She told me: “I accompanied my father, who worked tirelessly to achieve reconciliation and the reconstruction of Myanmar, helped build memorials and kept a detailed record of my father’s involvement in the battles. I felt duty-bound to succeed in his legacy of irei and to share the facts and personal memories.”
“We cannot change what happened, but we can listen, remember, and share. If my father fought in the atrocious conditions of Burma, perhaps our task is to fight against forgetting and to pay respect to those sacrificed for us,” Fujiwara explained. She told me his loss was huge for her family and that they knew little about what he experienced during his campaign. “Now, as his descendants, we feel it is our duty to tell the story – not to glorify, nor to be ashamed, but to understand and have dialogues.”
Bob White, the curator of the Kohima Museum in York told me how Burma is rarely mentioned in history books, which tend to focus on larger battles in the pacific. “My father, a British Burma veteran, spoke very little about his own experience in Burma. What makes these descendants’ work so valuable is that they bring in personal testimony – letters, diaries, memories passed down – that humanise an otherwise forgotten front,” he explained.
BCS’s irei journey remains committed to its mission. Yoshihiro Sekiba (75), whose father fought as an army doctor in Burma, wants to set up a scheme for a UK-Japan student exchange. BCS chair Akiko Macdonald is hoping to build on this historic attendance at the VJ Day commemoration in the UK, creating an archival learning centre in Japan that will allow descendants worldwide to upload family documents and testimonies related to the campaign. The aim is to make the Burma Campaign not just a footnote in history books, but a living, shared memory.
As the world marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, the voices of descendants of those who fought are reminders that conflict echoes across generations. It’s not distant history, but exists as stories that continue to shape identity, reconciliation, and the fragile pursuit of peace.
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Kyoko Murakami, PhD works for the University of Westminster. She is affiliated with the Burma Campaign Society.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
