SLN’s Graham Ogilvy to lecture on Scottish prisoners of the Japanese in WW2
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Graham Ogilvy, managing editor of Scottish Legal News, is to give an illustrated talk in Edinburgh on the treatment of an estimated 15,000 Scots who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War Two.
Around 30 per cent of British prisoners of the Japanese died in captivity compared to around just four per cent of those captured by the Germans. The survivors were not compensated by the British government until the year 2000 when an ex-gratia payment of £10,000 was grudgingly made to the dwindling group in recognition of the “unique circumstances of their captivity”.
Mr Ogilvy was editor and ghost writer on two of the most important POW memoirs in recent years – The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart, which was became a Sunday Times Number 1 bestseller, and Tomorrow You Die by Andy Coogan. A member of Mr Ogilvy’s family was also murdered by the Japanese while working as a slave labourer on the notorious ‘Death Railway’.
He said: “Scots were captured across South East Asia and were subjected to appalling treatment – they were starved and worked to death, routinely tortured and beaten and frequently prisoners were executed. Japan signed but failed to ratify the Geneva Convention. In addition, the returning prisoners were basically neglected and forgotten as an embarrassing reminder of the British Empire’s greatest military disaster.”
The talk will take place at the Royal Scots Club in Edinburgh this coming Monday, the 29th, at 7.00pm.
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