Japan to apologise to Australian PoW

Last Updated: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 07:36:00 +1100

A 96-year-old Australian woman has flown to Japan to receive a face-to-face apology from the Japanese Government for the way she and other nurses were treated during World War Two.

Lorna Johnston, who's lived in New Zealand for the past 60 years, was held as a prisoner of war for three years from 1942.

She is the only survivor of a group of 76 Australian PoW nurses in the region at the time.

Mrs Johnston told Radio Australia's Pacific Beat she was found by General MacArthur.

General MacArthur was the chief-of-staff in the US army during the 1930s and played a prominant role in the Pacific battles during WWII.

"And when he passed us by he asked the interpreter in the jeep who we were, and the interpreter said 'they said they are foreign women and they were working the paddy fields all through the war," she said.

"And he didn't quite like that answer so he came back for himself to see if he could find us and that's how we were found and that was about a week after the end of the war".

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