A GLUSBURN man has written a book about his father's experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war.

David Birks, 67, of Walker Close, has published Into the Hands of Nippon, which chronicles the diary entries of his father, Hubert Birks, who spent three years as a POW during the Second World War.

The 200-page book includes 65 illustrations by Hubert's friend, Robert Gamble, which were drawn while they detained in various POW camps from March 11, 1942, to September 7, 1945.

"The first 15 months of the diary were very detailed, but then he seemed to run out of steam," said David, a retired geography teacher and deputy head who worked at South Craven School for 40 years.

"He finished his accounts by using a black pen to write on scraps of paper and on the backs of cigarette packets."

"I wanted to publish the book to honour my father's memory and his colleagues. It's also the 70th anniversary of the ending of World War Two next year."

Hubert, from Sheffield, served in the RAF and was taken prisoner on the island of Java, and despite having a "great adventure" trying to get away from the Japanese, David said he was eventually captured and put in a POW camp at Semplak.

After five months, Hubert was transferred to another Java camp at Makasura. He was there five months before he was taken by ship to Changi, Singapore, where he stayed for two-and-a-half years.

During the final part of the war, he was in Kranji, Singapore, where he remained until shortly after the end of the war.

David said: "Major Hutchins of the RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps) parachuted in and diagnosed my father with dysentery and beriberi.

"They were able to get him to a civilian hospital to have proper treatment. My father was 6ft 2ins but he only weighed six stone at the time - a lot of his colleagues were in a similar state."

After the war, David said his father settled in Sheffield and lived to the age of 62, dying in 1973.