A HEREFORDSHIRE man paid tribute to his grandfather when he attended a unique commemoration at the site of a former Prisoner of War camp in Japan.

The Revs Nick and Julie Read were among 12 relatives of former prisoners who visited Fukuoka No 2, in Nagasaki, as part of the commemoration hosted by the Prisoner of War Research network.

Mr Read’s grandfather, Petty Officer Thomas Humphrey, was one of those who was held captive at the camp for three years before an atomic bomb was dropped on the city and the war ended shortly after.

Mr Humphrey had been serving on HMS Exeter – part of a combined American, British, Dutch and Australian command task force sent to the Java Sea to defend the Dutch East Indies – when the ship was sunk by Japanese heavy cruisers in March 1942.

Along with just under 600 surviving crew, Mr Humphrey was rescued by a Japanese destroyer after four hours in the water. 153 people were to die in captivity in the next three and a half years.

Initially interned at a Dutch school in Makassar – from which he stole an exercise book that would become his handwritten diary as a prisoner of war – Mr Humphrey was then moved to Fukuoka No 2 camp on the island of Koyagi Shima. It was then an island in Nagasaki Bay, though it has since joined the mainland.

Prisoners were made to do hard labour in the Kawanami shipyards and Mr Humphrey's diary, written in pencil, recorded life in the camp. On two occasions it was confiscated by the Japanese and the diary entries ceased, but it was eventually stolen back some months later.

Mr Humphrey recorded the events when an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and noted that days later, the prisoners were told a new kind of bomb had been used and the war was over.

Mr Humphrey was repatriated and returned to his wife and children in Padstow, Cornwall, where his son grew up. In the 1980s the diary was donated to the Imperial War Museum but the entries were typed up so the family could retain a copy. Mr Humphrey died in 1998 aged 91.

The diary was later taken to Japan by British traveller and author, Guy Stanley, and formed part of the inspiration for the Japanese-based ‘POW Research Network’ to persuade Nagasaki City Council to erect a memorial on the site of the camp, which is now a junior high school.

That commemoration took place in September on the same date that a US Navy landing craft arrived to liberate prisoners from the camp exactly 70 years earlier. The names of 73 prisoners who died at the camp – mainly through malnutrition or industrial accidents in the shipyard – are recorded on a memorial.

Mr Read laid a wreath on behalf of Dilwyn Branch of the Royal British Legion, to which he is chaplain.

“We wanted to go in memory of grandfather, but also to support the Japanese who have worked to bring this commemoration to fruition,” said Mr Read, who added that the event was ‘memorable and emotional’.

A second memorial was also unveiled to the crew of an American B-29 which crashed dropping essential supplies of food to the prisoners. Family members of the only survivor, out of 15 crew, were able to attend.

Dignitaries at the event included representatives of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Governor and Mayor of Nagasaki and representatives from the UK, American, Dutch and Australian embassies.

They were joined by members of the PoW research Network, the Tokyo Secretary of the Royal British Legion, Stanley Guy, and the family members who had travelled to attend.