Gnr. Charles Cullinane Meechan
British Army Royal Artillery
from:Stevenston, Scotland
My grandfather, Charles C. Meechan, was captured by the Japanese in February 1942. He spent 3 1/2 years as a POW in Japan. He told me that he survived because he was underground, working in a mine, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. He returned to Scotland a changed man.
He told me of how he had been on a Japanese ship which was subsequently bombed by the allies. While floating in the sea he was rescued, but unfortunately it was by the Japanese. I'm not sure where he was taken at first, only that his last months in captivity were near Nagasaki. There are other stories that my grandfather told me about the cruelty and viciousness of the Japanese soldiers. No wonder that he refused to ever eat rice again or purchase anything made in Japan. He carried a hatred for the Japanese to his grave in 1986.
