Eric Sutherland Lomax (30 May 1919 – 8 October 2012)[1] was a British Army officer who was sent to a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in 1942.

He left the Royal High School, Edinburgh, aged 16, after entering a civil service competition and obtaining employment at the Post Office.

[5] In 1939, aged 20, Lomax joined the Royal Corps of Signals before World War II broke out.

[6] In 1943 he and five other prisoners were tortured by the Kempeitai and convicted of "anti-Japanese activities" after a clandestine radio was found in the camp.

On 12 September 1946, it was gazetted that he had been mentioned in despatches "in recognition of gallant and distinguished services while [a Prisoner] of War".

[2] Unable to adjust to civilian life, Lomax joined the Colonial Service and was posted to the Gold Coast (now Ghana) until 1955.

His later life included reconciliation with one of his former torturers, interpreter Takashi Nagase of Kurashiki, Japan.

[13] In 1980, Lomax met British-born Canadian nurse Patricia "Patti" Wallace who was 17 years his junior.

John McCarthy, a journalist who was held hostage for five years in Lebanon, described Lomax's book as "an extraordinary story of torture and reconciliation."