For the first time since the end of the war, Australian Joseph Coombs stepped onto Japanese soil, bringing back bitter memories of his days as a prisoner of war forced to work for the mining company run by Prime Minister Taro Aso's family in Fukuoka Prefecture.
Coombs, 88, and James McAnulty, the son of late POW and Aso Mining Co. worker Patrick McAnulty, arrived Sunday in Tokyo hoping to meet the prime minister and receive an apology for the hardships they endured.
"We'd like an apology for the brutal treatment and the conditions we had to work under," Coombs told The Japan Times in an exclusive interview Thursday. "The memory will always be there, but an apology will help ease some of the pain that we experienced."