Nile Voyagers

The outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941 was followed immediately by the internment of ‘enemy aliens’ in the belligerent countries. Efforts to repatriate these civilians to their home countries, mediated by the Red Cross, began almost immediately. In the case of the British Empire and Japan, this led to the Anglo-Japanese Civilian Exchange (英日留民交流) of July 1942. The exchange involved around 1800 people on both sides, the majority of them from territories in Southeast Asia and Australasia under either Japanese or British control at the outbreak of hostilities, and took place in the neutral port of Lourenço Marques, Portuguese East Africa (now Maputo in Mozambique). The vessel chartered by the UK government to take the relatively small England-based contingent of Japanese and Thai repatriates to the exchange site was ‘El Nil’—’The Nile’. There were plans for a second exchange, but these came to nothing due to disagreements over the status of some of the internees. As a result, thousands of civilians from all sides remained interned in belligerent countries until the end of the war.

This series uses the stories of some of the Japanese repatriates on board El Nil to tell the contrasting stories of distinct groups of Japanese residents in the UK in the interwar years—itinerant seaman (‘Room and Board’), silk merchants (‘Silk’), poultry experts (‘Lightning Hands’). and diplomats, bankers, and artists (‘Darling of the Gods’).

Recommended Reading:

Rowena Ward (2016). Repatriating the Japanese from New Caledonia, 1941-46. The Journal of Pacific History, 51(4), 392–408. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26157713.

Rowena Ward (2015). The Asia-Pacific War and the failed Second Anglo-Japanese Civilian Exchange, 1942-45. Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 13 (11), 1-9. https://hdl.handle.net/10779/uow.27709587.v1.

Marie Conte-Helm, ‘Japan and the North East of England: from 1862 to the present day’, The Athlone Press, 1989.

Keiko Itoh, ‘The Japanese Community in Pre-War Britain’, Routledge, 2001.

Image: Ashashyou, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The Nile Voyagers

The following list is compiled from UK and Japanese records. The official list of repatriates in Japanese records [1] includes embassy officials and Japanese people resident in England but largely excludes Japanese merchant seamen who were not resident in the UK but simply unlucky enough to be onshore in the UK, or serving on British-registered ships heading to the UK, on 8 December 1941. The UK records [2] simply record the men interned prior to repatriation, a list that includes the merchant sailors missing from the Japanese records, but excludes embassy officials and the two men in the Japanese party who were repatriated alongside their husbands—Sachiko, Lady Kano and Hilda May Takashima. Not recorded here are the names of the 30+ Thai nationals who were also repatriated onboard El Nil, including at least two women. They consisted of the Thai minister to London, Phra Manuvedya Vimolnard, two other legation officials, and around 23 other civilians, the majority of whom were students studying in the UK [3].

In the following, a name in Japanese characters denotes a name on the Japanese list; its absence denotes a name on the British list only. Thanks go to Dr Yui Otagaki for the translations.

[1] 情報局 編『政府公表集 : 対外関係』昭和１７年度,情報局,昭和17-18. 国立国会図書館デジタルコレクション https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1440257/1/23 (参照 2025-01-18).

[2] World War II Alien Internees, 1939-1945’, accessed at ancestry.co.uk, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., on 11 November 2024.

[3] https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/the-free-thai-movement-and-the-soe/, accessed 9 March 2025.

大使館 Embassy

臨時代理大使参事 Chargés d'affaires ad interim counsellor: 上村伸一 Shinichi Kamimura

一等書記官 First secretary: 山田芳太郎 Hotaro (or Yoshitaro) Yamada

三等書記官 Third secretary: 松井明 Akira Matsui

南務書記官 South secretary: 加藤喜太郎 Kitaro (or Yoshitaro) Kato

理事官 Attache: 衣川水門 Suimon Kinugawa (or Kinukawa)

外交官補 Attache (Ambassador assistant): 爪生復男 Matao Tsumefu (this is possibly 瓜生復男 Matao Uryu)

外交官補 Attache (Ambassador assistant): 卜部敏男 Toshio Urabe

外交官補 Attache (Ambassador assistant):小島太作 Taisaku Kojima

外交官補 Attache (Ambassador assistant): 番徹夫 Tetsuo Ban

兼領事館補（倫敦總領事代理）Consular Assistant (Consulate General London)

外交官補 Attache (Ambassador assistant): 星文七Bunshichi Hoshi

外交官補 Attache (Ambassador assistant): 山中俊夫Toshio Yamanaka

外交官補 Attache (Ambassador assistant): 佐藤量壽 Ryojyu Sato

電信官 Attache (Telegraph officer): 野元三子雄 Mikoo Nomoto

書記生 Embassy clerk: 鈴木齋Itsuki (or Hitoshi) Suzuki

書記生 Embassy clerk: 林知彦 Tomohiko Hayashi

陸軍武官室 Army Attaché’s Office

武官 Military Attaché: 辰巳少将 Major General Tatsumi (This is 辰巳栄一 Eiichi Tatsumi.)

補佐官 Aide: 中村中佐 Lieutenant Colonel Nakamura

補佐官 Aide: 杉谷大佐 Colonel Sugitani (or Sugiya)

補佐官 Aide: 小山少佐 Major Koyama

辰巳少将随員 Major General Tatsumi’s Attaché: 恒川市一 Ichikazu Tsunekawa

(豫備少尉) Army reserve

現地雇 Local employee: 岡田 Okada

現地雇 Local employee: 橋本 Hashimoto

現地雇 Local employee: 山本 Yamamoto

現地雇 Local employee: 西川 Nishikawa (this is Koichi Nishikawa 西川浩一)

三井物産會社 Mitsui & Co., Ltd.

松本季三志 Kisashi Matsumoto

加藤泰一 Yasukazu Kato

守谷千秋 Chiaki Moriya (or Moritani)

鳥居繁太郎 Shigetaro Torii

柏木萬平 Manpei Kashiwagi

浅野物産會社 Asano Bussan (Asano Products Com.)

福澤谷蔵 Tanizo Fukuzawa

堀(越?)商会 Hirokoshi Company.

加地幸一 Koichi Kaji

古澤信雄 Nobuo Furusawa

追加船員 Additional Passengers

三上源次郎 Genjiro Mikami, merchant seaman, UK resident

永田三樹造 Mikizo Nagata, merchant seaman, UK resident

二宮武治 Takeji (or Takeharu) Ninomiya, merchant seaman

小川安之 Yasuyuki Ogawa, merchant seaman, UK resident

岡本四郎吉 Shirokichi Okamoto, merchant seaman

山本鐵太郎 Tetsutaro Yamamoto, merchant seaman

Thomi Aomori, merchant seaman, UK resident

Sadao Fuji, merchant seaman

Kinosuke Kikuchi, merchant seaman, UK resident

Byung Mook Lee, merchant seaman (Korean)

Kaoru Matsumoto, UK resident, occupation unknown

Yasutaku Mori, merchant seaman

Rinichi Norikiyo, merchant seaman

Sadaichi Sato, merchant seaman

Kiyomasa Terado, merchant seaman

Kazumoti Yoshimoto, UK resident, occupation unknown.

倫敦總領事館兼務 Consulate General, London

電信書記生 Attache clerk: 岩崎健彌 Kenya Iwasaki

電信書記生 Attache clerk: 上原房雄 Fusao Uehara

館務補助員 Embassy assistant: 富樫正雄 Masao Togashi

在外研究員 Visiting researcher: 加藤匡夫 Kunio Kato

名誉官補 Attache emeritus: 松本馨 Kaoru Matsumoto

リバプール領事館 Liverpool Consulate

領事 Consul: 鈴木七郎 Shichiro Suzuki

書記生 Embassy clerk: 河野滿 Mituru (or Michiru) Kono

同盟通信社 Dōmei News Agency

長谷川才次 Saiji Hasegawa

皆藤幸蔵 Kozo (or Yukizo) Kaitou

朝日新聞社 Asahi Newspaper

福井文雄 Fumio Fukui

大阪毎日新聞社 Mainichi Newspaper Osaka

工藤信一郎 Shinichiro Kudo

海軍武官室 Naval Attaché’s Office

武官代理 Naval Attaché: 朝田少佐 Major Asada (朝田肆六 Shiroku Asada?)

補佐官 Assistant: 濱崎中佐 Lieutenant Hamazaki

造兵監督官 Ordnance officer

海軍書記 Navy secretary: 甲光久 Hisashi Komitsu

臨時書記 Interim secretary: 田中末太郎 Suetaro Tanaka

横濱正金銀行 Yokohama Specie Bank

加納久朗 Hisaakira Kano (Viscount Kano)

加納幸子 Sachiko Kano (Lady Kano)

石黑九五 Kyugo Ishiguro

中山義一 Yoshikazu Nakayama

大坪守人 Morito Otsubo

岩田良策 Ryosaku Iwata

岡田國彦 Kunihiko Okada

多田勇 Isamu Tada

林享三 Ryozo Hayashi

矢田誠 Makoto Yada

高島一貫 Katsura Takashima

高島ヘルダ・メイ Helda (Hilda) May Takashima, English-born wife of Katsura Takashima

其他 Others

大塚一郎 Ichiro Otsuka, chick sexer

ゼンナミタツヨシ Tatsuyoshi Zennami, chick sexer

金キリュウ Kiryu Kin, chick sexer (Korean)

高垣義一 Yoshikazu Takagaki, chick sexerr

牧野良雄 Yoshio Makino (Yoshio Markino, the artist, who was living at the embassy at the time)