Over 12 000 British soldiers died in Japanese captivity during the second world war. In “Not Forgotten” the survivors recount what remains for them of those experiences after five decades. They begin with their return home. “I came back weighing six and a half stone. They told me I was probably sterile [he had been at Hiroshima] and pronounced me fit.” They were told to get on with their lives and they did. Many said little to their families of what they had endured but, as one put it, “as the years went by I started to think back and ask was that really a nightmare I went through?” As they got older, some found that …