LOL Damn Metric!!! Thanks Jeff. here is an other article with more detail.
Best of friends: British survivor of Japanese prison camp and the guard who took pity on him
By
Luke Salkeld
Last updated at 8:36 PM on 17th February 2009
John Baxter on the day he was liberated from a POW camp near Nagasaki, Japan. The pensioner is still in contact with a Japanese labour camp guard
Held for three years as a prisoner in the Second World War, John Baxter could be forgiven for bearing a grudge against his Japanese captors.
He was starved and beaten over two years spent captive in Java before being transferred to a hard labour camp in Kyushu, Japan.
He was given a 50 per cent chance of survival when he was finally released, having suffered from malaria, dysentery and diphtheria.
But at the camp he met Hyato Hirano, a guard employed to enforce the harsh working conditions, and the men have now struck up an unlikely friendship.
Mr Hirano risked being beaten by his fellow guards by offering starving prisoners food and water, and when Mr Baxter returned to Japan in 1995 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of VJ day he tracked down his former captor.
The pair have kept in touch ever since, and yesterday Mr Baxter opened a card sent by Mr Hirano to celebrate the retired plumber's 90th birthday tomorrow.
It reads: 'Many happy returns. I am currently spending my days in and out of hospital, but I am well otherwise. I wish you the best of health.'
Mr Baxter, a grandfather from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, said: 'I have absolutely no resentment about the Japanese of today.
'In fact, I think they are a good indication of everything human nature should be. They are respectful, polite and always willing to stop and talk to you.'
He went on: 'I was not as badly treated as some in my camp. There are those who finished the war with hideous deformities and mental issues they will never resolve.
'There are men who I know still hate all the Japanese and won't so much as discuss them, let alone travel to meet them.
'For me, I have moved on. There's absolutely no point in dwelling on the past. You have to move on and understand we were living in very different times.'
Reunited: Mr Baxter and his former prison guard Hayato Hirano met in Japan in 1995 and are still in regular contact with one another
Mr Baxter was a 22-year- old apprentice plumber when he was drafted into the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in 1941. A year later he was part of a 3,000-strong contingent who were rounded up by the Japanese.
Then an acting corporal, Mr Baxter was held in a disease-infested camp on the Indonesian island of Java for two years.
He was then transferred to the island of Kyushu, Japan, where he spent a year working in a coal mine until VJ Day.
He returned to the UK and in 1948 married his wife Lillian. They had three children, and she died of cancer in 1982 at the age of 62.
Reflecting on his time as a PoW, Mr Baxter says he never even expected to reach retirement.
He added: 'To make 90 is incredible for me and I genuinely never thought I'd see the day. After the war I was told I'd be lucky to make a few months because of the after- effects of malaria, dysentery, diphtheria and a host of tropical diseases.
'It means a lot to be handed a birthday card from Hyato for my 90th and it's a very emotional time.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-pity-him.html
Guard sends card to WWII prisoner
Mr Baxter weighed just over seven-and-a-half stone when released
We weren't exactly close friends but we somehow kept in touch 
