Eric Lomax was tortured by the Japanese.

Waterboarding was the only torture he blocked out.

"He directed the full flow of the now-gushing pipe onto my nostrils and mouth.… Water poured down my windpipe and throat and filled my lungs and stomach. The torrent was unimaginably choking. This is the sensation of drowning, on dry land, on a hot dry afternoon. Your humanity bursts from within you as you gag and choke. I tried very hard to will unconsciousness but no relief came."

The beating and the interrogation continued. "I had nothing to say: I was beyond invention. So they turned on the tap again, and again there was that nausea of rising water from inside my bodily cavity."

Eric Lomax met his torturer five decades later.

Nagase remembered Lomax, too. "They poured water into his mouth. I saw his stomach swelling up. I almost lost my presence of mind. With the prisoner screaming and crying 'Mother! Mother!' I muttered to myself, 'Mother, do you know what is happening to your son now?' I still cannot stop shuddering every time I recall that horrible scene."