The documentary "The Lisbon Maru Sinks" is screened in the UK: salvaging that history that should not be forgotten

From August 15, London time, the documentary "Lisbon Pill Sinks", filmed and produced by a film company in Zhejiang for 7 years, was screened in London, Bournemouth, Edinburgh and other places in the United Kingdom.

On August 15, in London, England, viewers watched the documentary "Lisbon Maru Sinks". Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Ying

"Lisbon Maru Sinks" tells the story of the World War II shipwreck "Lisbon Maru". At the end of 1941, thousands of British soldiers were forced to surrender after 17 days of fighting with the Japanese in Hong Kong. In September 1942, when the Japanese army requisitioned the "Lisbon Maru" passenger and cargo ship to escort 1,816 British prisoners of war back to Japan, passing through the waters near Zhoushan Dongji Island, the US submarine misjudged it as a warship and fired torpedoes, and the "Lisbon Maru" was hit. The Japanese locked up the British prisoners of war in the bilge, sealed the hatch with wooden strips and canvas, and the British prisoners broke the cabin to save themselves. 255 Zhoushan fishermen on nearby islands risked their lives to rescue 384 British soldiers by paddle sampans, including 10 fishermen alone.

In September last year, the archives of the Zhejiang Provincial Archives "Zhoushan fishermen's rescue of British prisoners of war on the 'Lisbon Maru'" were opened for the first time, the earliest of which was a letter dated April 12, 1948 from the British ambassador to China requesting the Foreign Office of the National Government to investigate the details of the rescue. The two rosters of ambulance personnel in the file detail the personal information of the fishermen involved in the rescue, as well as the number and number of rescues.

Fang Li, director of "Lisbon Maru Sinks", told The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) that nearly 400 descendants of British prisoners of war rushed to the London screening scene from the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong, China. He said that he was glad that the film let these people who should see it the most, "Many people are very grateful to us, and at the reception after the screening, my face was almost swollen." ”

"This film truly restores the cruelty of war, the cold blood of the aggressors and the heroic feats of Zhoushan fishermen to save people, and this precious historical record is the epitome of the deep friendship between the Chinese and British peoples." Chinese Ambassador to the UK Zheng Zeguang said in his speech at a special screening event in London that one of the important revelations of the "Lisbon Maru" incident is that peace is hard-won, life is the most precious, and we should remember this history, enhance understanding, cooperation and friendship, and jointly safeguard world peace.

He revealed that in order to commemorate the rescue of the Lisbon Maru, a memorial has been built in Zhoushan, a monument has been erected in Staffordshire, and China is still actively preparing to build a memorial, "Let us jointly inherit the memory of the 'Lisbon Maru' incident and turn this commemoration into a new friendship bond connecting the Chinese and British people." ”

In 2014, Fang Li's "After the Meeting" was filmed on Dongji Island, Zhoushan, where he accidentally learned about the sinking of the Lisbon Maru while communicating with fishermen, and found out that British scholar Tony Banham had written a book called "The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru: Britain's Forgotten Wartime Tragedy." In the summer of 2016, Fang Li and his team, who had worked in the field of earth science and marine science for 41 years, made the first exploration in the sea area where the incident occurred, drew a sonar map of the wreck's location, and then exhibited it at an exhibition in Germany. The following year, Fang Li's team, CCTV and Zhejiang Satellite TV staff went to Zhoushan and confirmed the existence of the wreck through underwater robots. At that time, three people who witnessed the wreck were Dennis Morley, a member of the Royal Scottish Regiment, William Beningfield of the First Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment, and Lin Agen, a fisherman from East Pole Island. By 2021, three elderly people passed away one after another.

In October 2017, the Fangli team contacted Ms. Amanda Christian in the UK, whose grandfather was on the Lisbon Maru. Amanda sent her grandfather's military uniform photo, the Red Cross War Department to her grandmother's death notice, "Dad when he was 7 years old, grandpa was gone, he has been telling this story all his life, saying that grandpa is gone, I don't know where." ”

At the same time, Fang Li befriended Brian Finch, a retired British major, and invited him to be a filming consultant, "Many of his former troops died on the Lisbon Maru, and he was familiar with the story and promised to contact the descendants of the prisoners of war for us." ”

In 2018, Fangli's team traveled to the UK to interview living prisoner Dennis Morley and several families of prisoners of war. However, there were more than 1,800 prisoners of war on board, and the team only had a list of a dozen people in hand. So they visited The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian to negotiate advertisements looking for families of prisoners of war. The BBC once invited Fang Li to the program, and the host asked: You are from China, what are you coming to the UK to advertise to find British prisoners of war? Fang Li replied: "There is a group of young people in your country who are the same age as my son who are buried at the bottom of our country, and they have been forgotten like this, and I want to salvage this true and cruel story." ”

In the end, the team found more than 380 families of prisoners of war, visited nearly 100 British towns and cities, interviewed more than 120 people, and traveled to Canada, the United States, Japan and other places to interview American submariners and descendants of Japanese captains.

Fang Li told The Paper that "Lisbon Maru Sinks" has three highlights. First, this is the story of more than 1,800 families facing the cruel fate of war, and the heartbreaking stories of more than 800 families who died will remind people not to forget the human disasters caused by war. Second, to reveal the atrocities of the Japanese army, the British prisoners of war had enough time to escape when the ship sank, but the Japanese nailed the cabin to death, and carried out massacres when the British prisoners of war broke out of the cabin, "The atrocities against humanity should not be forgotten." "Third, the Chinese fishermen rescued British soldiers out of a humanitarian spirit, and these acts should be remembered.

"The whole world knows 'Titanic' because the movie 'Titanic' salvaged the story. "Lisbon Maru Sinks" is not a commercial film, the cost is much greater than the possible benefits, I only hope that through it, more people will know this history. He said.