Takashi Nagase was a Japanese military interpreter during World War II.
12 Facts About Takashi Nagase
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Takashi Nagase worked for the Kempeitai at the construction of the Burma Railway in Thailand, and spent most of his later life as an activist for post-war reconciliation and against Japanese militarism.
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Takashi Nagase made over a hundred visits to Thailand, and from the 1970s, arranged several meetings between former Allied prisoners of wars and their Japanese captors, in efforts to promote peace and understanding.
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Takashi Nagase was born in 1918 in Kurashiki, Okayama, Japan and learned English at an American Methodist college in Tokyo.
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Takashi Nagase joined the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, and became an interpreter for the Kempeitai at the construction of the Burma Railway, known for its brutal conditions leading to the deaths of over 12,000 Allied prisoners of war and 90,000 Asian labourers or romusha.
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Takashi Nagase was involved in the interrogation and torture of many Allied POWs.
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Takashi Nagase was first introduced to the British public in the documentary made by ex-POW John Coast about the realities of life on the Thai-Burma Railway, which was first broadcast in the UK on BBC2 on 15 March 1969.
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Takashi Nagase acted as both interpreter for the two other soldiers and interviewee.
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Takashi Nagase was noted for his reconciliation with former British Army officer Eric Lomax, whom he interrogated and tortured at a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in 1942.
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Takashi Nagase wrote a book on his own experiences during and after the war entitled Crosses and Tigers, and financed a Buddhist temple at the bridge to atone for his actions during the war.
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Takashi Nagase made more than 100 missions of atonement to the River Kwai in Thailand.
12.
Takashi Nagase is portrayed by Randall Duk Kim in the 1996 BBC TV film Prisoners in Time, based on the story of Eric Lomax, who is played by John Hurt, with Rowena Cooper as his wife, Patti.