MIKE Clarke’s father went through untold suffering as a POW at the hands of the Japanese in the Second World War.

In the run-up to the 70th anniversary of his father Donovan’s liberation, the Islip man has backed a campaign to increase awareness for the thousands whose lives were changed forever.

Children of the Far East POWs, a national charity, has called upon people to pull together any mementoes to keep the legacy of their bravery alive.

Mr Clarke, co-ordinator of the charity’s Oxfordshire branch, said: “I’m collecting as much as possible and have made contact with others in my father’s regiment.

“It’s about making people aware of what they went through so they are not forgotten.”

The retired BMW senior manager only learned the extent of his father’s experience when he discovered a tape recording after his death in 2000.

Donovan Clarke worked on a farm in Islip just outside Oxford and then joined his uncle in delivering coal before he was called up to join the war effort in 1940.

He joined the 135th Hertfordshire Yeomanry as a quad driver before their ship to India was diverted to Singapore to fight the Japanese.

Captured in February 1942, he spent the rest of the war in various camps undertaking forced labour.

More than 140,000 Allied troops were taken prisoner in camps in Burma, Borneo, Singapore and other Japanese-occupied countries with 27.1 per cent dying.

The construction of the Burma-Thailand Death Railway killed 6,904 British personnel, but Mr Clarke survived it.

The 68-year-old said: “The prisoners were dying of starvation, cholera, beriberi and dysentery. It was a very rough time.

“When they were captured they were marched 18 miles and were made to go past stakes with heads of those beheaded on them.

“At one point he thought he was dying and all he wanted was to be back in Islip churchyard.”

Mr Clarke Snr returned to the UK in November 1945 and married Sybil Mallett in March 1946.

The couple had two children, Mike and Greta, and life returned somewhat to normal, with Donovan working as a builder in Islip before retiring to become an artist.

But the children could see that their father had been through horrific trauma.

Greta Palmer, 65, who now lives in Gloucester, said: “I remember when I was very young he was sitting in the chair shaking uncontrollably and mother told me to leave him alone and that he would be alright.

“On the medical side of things he had dreadful scars on his legs and tropical ulcers.”

Mr Clarke said the horror of his father’s experiences during the Second World War remained unspoken until he died in 2000.

He said: “It was a difficult situation. It was never talked about and the subject was changed when it was.

“At the end of his life he wanted to talk to me about it but I wouldn’t let him – I’m sure my mother tried to protect him so I wouldn’t let him say.”

He added: “He was very religious and gentle, he said he could forgive what the Japanese did to him but he could never ever forgive what they did to his friends.

“They were brutalised and starved to death. My father was lucky he made it back, so many didn’t.”