Oxford historian Bernard Wasserstein has uncovered shocking revelations that British police and businessmen collaborated with the Japanese enemy during the Second World War.

The treachery uncovered by Dr Wasserstein, a fellow of St Cross College, will cause anger among veterans of Japanese labour camps.

The widely-respected historian claims that a British mining company assisted the Japanese war effort and that British police officers agreed to work for 18 months after Shanghai was occupied in December 1941.

Official records even reveal instances where British police officers helped the Japanese arrest Chinese nationals accused of resistance. Some British officers were commended by the Japanese police chief for efficient service while others were even promoted.

The claims are made in Dr Wasserstein's new book entitled Secret Shanghai, which paints a strikingly different portrait of Britain's role in the conflict than the traditional boys' own version of the war effort.

The book explores new archive material and shows how British nationals were prepared to collaborate with the enemy. At the same time, allied armies were at war and thousands of captured civilians were being tortured and murdered by the Japanese. Shanghai was occupied by the Japanese during the Chinese-Japanese War of 1937 to 1945. The Japanese were responsible for brutality and slaughter, killing Chinese troops who tried to surrender. Women were raped and cities burned. Foreigners, including many British, gathered in international safety zones and tried to help the Chinese. Many were imprisoned in prisoner of war camps.

The revelations have angered veterans' campaigners, including former Witney mayor Arthur Titherington, who said: "They were traitors, of that there is no doubt, We were betrayed.

"There has to have been some Government involvement in this. Some of these people were commissioned officers, others were high-ranking industrial bosses. One wonders why there was no Government comment after the war. Why did they cover it up?

"It seems very strange the way that British governments have cow-towed to the Japanese immediately after the war and ever since. I find it impossible to penetrate the wall of silence."

"We are still all these years later fighting for compensation and only gradually are new pieces of evidence coming out into the open."

Mr Titherington is chairman of the Japanese Labour Camp Survivors' Association. He spent four years in PoW camps and is fighting a claim through courts in Tokyo for £13,000 compensation for surviving prisoners and their widows.

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