Descendants of Lisbon Maru survivors, Chinese fishermen honor heroic WWII rescue

HANGZHOU, May 21 (Xinhua) -- Eighteen descendants of rescued British prisoners of war (POWs) during the Lisbon Maru incident joined descendants of Chinese fishermen at a commemorative ceremony Tuesday on an east China island, where local fishermen saved 384 British soldiers from drowning under Japanese gunfire in 1942.

The gathering, the first to include foreign representatives since a memorial was erected last year, was held on Qingbang island, a small islet off China's Zhoushan Islands in the eastern Zhejiang Province, where a 1-tonne monument made of naval bronze commemorates the heroic rescue 83 years ago.

"This memorial stands as a bridge -- between past and present, between China and the UK, between sorrow and solidarity," said Anthony Jones, grandson of survivor Thomas Theodore Jones and chairman of the Lisbon Maru Memorial Association. "We honor all, both the dead and the living, who kept their memory alive."

In October 1942, the Lisbon Maru, a cargo vessel requisitioned by the Japanese army to transport more than 1,800 British POWs from Hong Kong to Japan, was torpedoed off the Zhoushan Islands by a U.S. submarine after failing to display mandated POW transport markings. As the vessel sank, fishermen of Dongji braved machine-gun fire to pluck drowning British POWs from the sea and managed to rescue 384 of them.

"Our forefathers used to say 'to ignore those in peril would disgrace the sea' and their actions exemplified selflessness and boundless compassion," noted Wu Buwei, whose grandfather, Wu Qisheng, participated in the heroic rescue. "As their descendants, we take immense pride in their legacy."

The 4.5-meter-long memorial, bearing the inscription "Love knows no boundary; Friendship transcends time" in both Chinese and English alongside a detailed account of the event, depicts interlocked arms emerging from turbulent waves -- a design inspired by rescuers' accounts of them hauling POWs from the water by their wrists.

Qu Xiaoshi of the China Academy of Art, the memorial's designer, revealed that the design underwent over 40 revisions before a village elder's recollection of "life-or-death grips" crystallized the concept.

"Though the Lisbon Maru sank, the bond it forged never will," Wu said before the flower-laden memorial, where photographs stood in silent rows. "As a descendant of the Dongji fishermen, we'll guard this truth like our ancestors guarded lives -- embracing peace and friendship as the ocean embraces all boats." ■