Letter: Left out of the Singapore files

Sir: Further to the article on the recent release of files prior to, and during the war against the Japanese, I would like to make one or two observations on the interviews by Marianne Macdonald, in particular with Harold Payne.

Mr Payne states that he 'does not think that post-mortems on war matters serve any purpose whatsoever'. I wonder what he considers is the purpose of history? In our schools, and the various military staff colleges, history is the stuff of education. If errors of judgement are going to be hidden away, how are we to know the truth of the past? Are we supposed to go on committing the same mistakes over and over simply because 'decisions made at the time cannot be altered'?

Furthermore, I do not accept that my incarceration was brought about by 'just a chapter of accidents'. As a former prisoner I have spent a great deal of my time, and money, trying to find out why. I know where to apportion blame for what happened after I was a prisoner, I now want to know who was responsible for making the decisions that assisted in taking away from me three and a half years of my life at just 20 years of age. Equally important, who was instrumental in making the decisions that destroyed completely many other lives, and not only by death?

Winston Churchill thought it necessary to cause those decisions to be hidden from public view until well after he was dead. Like the post-mortems held on the bodies of the dead in order to uncover facts, I also want to know how and why.

Yours sincerely,

ARTHUR TITHERINGTON

Witney, Oxfordshire

26 January