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Japanese POW card translation


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My Great Uncle was a Japanese POW during WW2. I have just located his POW card but I'm after some assistance if anyone can tell me where he was captured or the camp he was sent to?

Also, does anyone know why the date of capture would appear to show 19.3.15?

Would appreciate any help...

 

Eric Burke POW.JPG

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According to Find My Past Transcript it shows the POW Camp is Malaya PoW camp.

First name(s)

William Eric

Last name

Burke

Year

1944

Birth year

1923

Nationality

British

Residence

Doncaster

Residence couty

Yorkshire

Residence coutry

England

Rank

Private

Regiment

-

Prison camp oship

Malaya PoW camp

Country of imprisonment

Malaya

Conflict

World War 2

Archive reference

WO 345/8

Document details

War Office: Japanese Index Cards of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees, Second World War, 1942-1945

Record set

Prisoners of War 1715-1945

Category

Military, armed forces & conflict

Subcategory

Regimental & service records

Collections from

 

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Just out of interest, although the Gregorian calendar was introduced in Japan from 1873, there is also a native Japanese date system where years are based on the reigns of emperors and designated as one of twelve animals (e.g. dragon, monkey, rooster, etc.) The months and days are based on a lunar calendar, consisting of 12 months of either 29 or 30 days, each split into a 'week' of 6 days. Japanese dates in script are always written right to left, so is read YY/MM/DD.

This date system would have been in common use during WWII and probably answers the question over why the dates on the PoW admission card seem odd (with the exception of your Great Uncle's d.o.b. of 1923).
So, his date of capture was 19/3/15, or the 15th day of the 3rd month of the year 'Showa' 19 (year of the monkey). This would correspond to the western date of 15 March 1944. His admission to camp was on the 27th day of that same month and year.

Interestingly, they kept his d.o.b. as the Gregorian date of 1923, probably as they could not have worked out that 1923 was actually 'Taisho' 12 (year of the pig)?

Does that help with working out the actual dates? It seems to match the year of 1944 shown on the transcript.

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