The compassionate captor: The story of Dr Mitsufuji and private Gus Bell

In 1943, in a Prisoner of War (POW) camp in Java, its commandant, Dr Yasuteru Mitsufuji, saved the life of an Australian soldier, Private Gordon 'Gus' Bell. It became a war story that Gus was comfortable to share with his family and was clearly an important memory. While he dismissed reconciliation reunions between prisoners and guards he said that he would like to see Dr Mitsufuji again. Attempts to find him began in 1989 and continued after Gus passed away in 2001. In 2016, after an unsuccessful search of Japanese Government records, the Embassy of Japan in Canberra contacted the POW Research Network Japan, a non-government organisation established in 2002 to promote peace by educating Japanese about Japan's actions in World War II. By chance a network member had translated a book by a Dutch internee who wrote of the kindness of her camp commandant, Dr Mitsufuji. Although Dr Mitsufuji had passed away in 1995 the translator had met his wife Masako Mitsufuji. With the Network's assistance, letters and photos were exchanged between the two families. In April 2018 I travelled to Mrs Mitsufuji's home in Fukuyama, Japan, to share Gus's story with her, and in hope of better understanding her husband, a man who retained his humanity at a time when so many of his compatriots lost theirs.