The Highest Honour

During World War II, a team of Australian soldiers from Z Special Unit, including Ivan Lyon and Robert Page, successfully lead an expedition to destroy ships in Singapore harbour, Operation Jaywick. An attempt to duplicate this success, Operation Rimau, ends in disaster, with the team either killed or captured. These soldiers are interrogated by the Japanese in Singapore, with Page forming a friendship with Minoru Tamiya. Eventually all the Australians are convicted of war crimes and executed. ==Cast==

• John Howard as Capt. Robert Page • Atsuo Nakamura as Minoru Tamiya • Stuart Wilson as Lt. Col. Ivan Lyon • Steve Bisley as A.B. W.G. Falls • Michael Aitkens as Major R.M. Ingleton • George Mallaby as Lt. Cmdr. Don Davidson • Tony Bonner as Lt. W.G. Carey • John Ley as Lt. A.I. Sargent • Harold Hopkins as Cpl. C.M. Stewart • Gary Waddell as Cpl. R.B. Fletcher • Slim DeGrey as Leading Stoker J.P. McDowell • Alan Cassell as Lt. Ted Carse • Mark Hembrow as Able Seaman F.W. Marsh • Vincent Ball as Lt. Cmdr. Hubert Marsham • Craig Ballard as Lt. B. Raymond • James Belton as Lt. H.R. Ross • Warren Coleman as Leading Seaman K.P. Cain • Diane Craig as Mrs. Page • George Duff as Cpl. A.G. Campbell • Tim Elston as Sgt. D.P. Gooley • Takuya Fujioka as Matsumoto • Ken Goodlet as Bill Reynolds • John Griffiths as Sgt. C.B. Cameron • Riki Harada as Sgt. Imai • Michael Harrs as Lt Cpl. J.T. Hardy • Noel Hodda as Able Seaman M.M. Berryman • Andrew Inglis as Able Seaman A.M. Jones • Kin'ya Kitaōji as Tachibana • Hôsei Komatsu as Yabe • Hitomi Kuroki as Nurse Keiko Tsumura • Veronica Lang as Mrs. Lyon • Hu Yin Mong as Lu Ran Shi • Yû Numazaki as Capt. Nomura • Neil Redfern as WO2 A. Warren • Jiro Sakagami as Kimura • Taro Shigaki as Hayakawa • Trevor Sommers as Sub. Lt. J.G. Riggs • Mizuho Suzuki as Maj. Gen. Kawamura • Jonathan Sweet as Cpl. A. Crilley • Hajime Tawara as Sgt. Maj. Omori ==Production==

Producers John McCallum and Lee Robinson had previously made a film about Z Special Unit, Attack Force Z (1981). Robinson said he was approached to make the film by a member of the Australian embassy in Tokyo in 1980. He says the official asked him if he was interested in making a movie about Jaywick and Rimau with a Japanese company. Robinson says he spent a year researching the story in Japanese and Australian archives. ==Release==

The film was never released theatrically in Australia but did screen as a TV mini-series in 1989. It did obtain a theatrical release in the US and UK and McCallum says the film sold widely to television. It was also known as Heroes of the Krait and Minami Jujisei. The widow of Bob Page and survivors of Z Force were furious with the film, claiming it was far too complimentary to the Japanese. Robinson admitted the film was "50 percent fiction" and that "there is no doubt that the whole picture is designed as an apology, but with facts as dramatic as these, why play around with it? What gives the film the impact is the constant reminder that this is true." Robinson admitted there was an occasion when the Japanese producers wanted the prison set to have pillows and sheets on the bed to make them look nicer, but he refused. A scene where a Japanese officer comes to Australia ten years after the war to make peace with one of the widows, Roma Greemish, was cut at the request of Ms Greemish. In 1982 Thomas Keneally was reported as working on a script for another film based on Operation Rimau called Rimau for the South Australian Film Corporation to be made for $1 million, but no film eventuated. ==References==