ZHOUSHAN, May 21 (Xinhua) — Twenty descendants of British POWs aboard the Lisbon Maru gathered in Zhoushan of east China’s Zhejiang Province for a commemorative ceremony honoring a exceptional act of braveness from Tuesday to Wednesday.
After the flowers have been laid, kin of British troopers and native fishermen’s descendants took up shovels. Together, they planted a boxwood sapling, a gesture meant to represent a friendship that has outlived warfare and distance.
In October 1942, the Lisbon Maru, a cargo vessel requisitioned by the Japanese military to move greater than 1,800 British POWs from Hong Kong to Japan, was torpedoed off the Zhoushan Islands by a U.S. submarine after failing to show mandated POW transport markings.
Local Chinese fishermen, regardless of Japanese troopers firing into the water, made 65 journeys in 46 small wood sampans to rescue 384 British POWs from the sinking ship.