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Just off national highway 311 in the mountains inland from Kumano city in the south of Mie Prefecture stands a small memorial to 16 British soldiers who died working in the local Kishu copper mine during World War II.

The men were among 300 prisoners of war captured in Singapore, who were brought to the area after first being forced to labor for the Japanese military on the Thai-Burma Railway and also in China. They called themselves the "Iruka Boys" after the area where their POW camp (a converted school) was located.

The lives of the POW's was better than the harsh treatment they had suffered in Thailand. They worked alongside Japanese miners and were well treated by the local people.

However, 16 of them were not to return home. The people of Iruka constructed a simple grave for the men complete with a copper cross.
Their story became known to Japanese Christian woman Keiko Holmes, who was married to a British man and originally came from the area.

She worked to establish the first Pilgrimage of Reconciliation to Japan in 1992 when former Iruka Boys returned on a visit to Japan. Since then over 500 FEPOW's (Far East Prisoners of War) have returned to Japan to be free of the "bondage of sorrow and bitterness" caused by their wartime experiences.

In 2002 a memorial service attended by the British Ambassador and 24 of the Iruka Boys was held. An English oak was planted beside a Japanese cherry tree, but unfortunately visiting this we...