Background
Frank Evans was born in 1917 in Llanwnnen, Lampeter in Wales.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Thomas Evans
Edit ProfileCareer
He published his memoirs in Welsh and English in the 1980s. As a result of the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941, he was captured by the Japanese Army and interned at the Sham Shui Po and Argyle Street Prisoner Of War camps in Hong Kong and later transferred to the Oeyama Prisoner Of War Camp, Iwataki Town, Yoza-gun, Kyoto Prefecture where he was forced to work in the open-pit nickel mine in Kaya and the smelting factory in Iwataki together with nearly 700 Prisoner Of War"s from countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the United States of America. The Prisoner Of War"s were released from the camp in September 1945 after the defeat of Japan in the Pacific War and Frank Evans returned to Wales in November. Nearly ten per cent of the Prisoner Of War"s in the Oeyama camp had died of malnutrition, hard labour and torture when the war was over.
He privately published his memoirs in Welsh in 1981 and later in English in 1985 with the title Evans visited the former Oeyama Prisoner Of War camp site for the first time since the end of World World War II in 1984 and had a memorial for his comrades erected at the former nickel mine site with cooperation from the Town of Kaya (now a part of Town of Yosano) and Nippon Yakin Company Limited.
This visit and the 1985 visit by Mayor Takuichi Hosoi of Kaya to Aberystwyth enabled the two municipalities to establish exchange programs for their respective high school students and citizens. Evans died in Aberystwyth in 1996.
The English version of Evans" memoirs,, is known as one of the important accounts of Prisoner Of War"s experience in Hong Kong and Japan. lieutenant is also quite unique as it combines his memories from World World War II and the process of post-war reconciliation between his former enemies and himself as a result of his 1984 visit to Japan.
lieutenant is quoted in Long Night"s Journey into Day by Doctor Charles G. Roland (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001) and in We shall Suffer There by Tony Banham (Hong Kong University Press, March 2009).
lieutenant is also quoted in an English language textbook in Japan for senior high school students by the Kairyudo Press and in Amerika Kokka Hangyaku-zai (A Case of Treason in the (Post-War) United States of America) in Japanese by Tetsuro Shimojima (Kodansha Press, Tokyo, 1993). The book deals with Tomoya Kawakita who was convicted of treason after World World War II for his acts against United States Prisoner Of War"s as an interpreter at the Oeyama nickel mine.
Membership
He was dispatched to the Crown Colony of Hong Kong as a member of the British Army (Royal Army Pay Corps) in 1941.
