Mark Rylance Learns How His Grandfather Survived During WWII

- [Narrator] Almost two and a half thousand internees died in the Hong Kong prisoner of war camps before the war finally came to an end in August, 1945.

Like my grandfather, Leo Lando was one of the lucky ones who survived.

- Did he have an account of things that took place when the Japanese surrendered?

- Yes, this is very Leo.

Here it is.

- 16th of August, Thursday 1945.

Officially the Japanese are still in charge, though the newspaper came in, Japan signed acceptance to unconditional surrender on the 15th.

The fat pig Tokunaga has not made an appearances yet.

And then he writes, I left camp, our people were very angry indeed, and wanted to arrest me.

- Yes, the British.

- Should have a permit to leave our camp, Bull to you.

(laughing) Camp command, officer, whoever you are.

- And he storms out and they can't catch him.

- Bull.

(laughing) - Now, Leo had this autograph book and he went on his friends and asked them all to sign it.

- This is an amazing little book.

Oh, look at that.

Wishing you the best of luck.

Sincerely yours, Osman Skinner.

- [Narrator] In later, August, 1945 after being interned for almost four years, my grandfather and the surviving POW's were finally allowed to walk out of Sham Shui PO and into the city.

(sad music) Today, apart from the old street sign, nothing remains of the camp.

Now a bustling market area, except to park where some trees have been planted around a small Memorial.

(sad music) - It's got a beauty to it, to me.

You know, it's one of the greener places that we've come upon in this busy city.

It's very, very enamored of the Earth's ability to regenerate.

I just think of what it would feel like to him to be here again.

(sad music) Though, the suffering isn't so apparent in his life.

It was inside him, that affected his children and affected his grandchildren.

But I suppose we are a bit of the sweetness that he felt came from his endurance.

How much the ghosts of those 6,000 men who were in this dreadful camp gods and prisoners must have sometimes wandered and longed for grandchildren and for a long life to be free of this stressful situation that they all suffered from.