A ROYAL Air Force (RAF) veteran from Petersfield has flown to Singapore to find out how a serviceman from the town died as a prisoner during the Second World War.
Ernest Finn died on January 3, 1945, seven months before fighting in the Far East ended, and was buried at Kranji Military Cemetery.
He was one of 13 RAF prisoners of war (POWs) who died that day in the notorious Japanese-run prison camp at Changi.
His parents, John Henry and Emily Finn, ran Finlays newsagent just off The Square and never knew how Ernest, then aged 28, died.
Petersfield Royal British Legion secretary David Lloyd, an RAF serviceman for almost 25 years, is in Singapore until May 4.
David (76), of Highfield Road, said: “I will be placing a Poppy Cross on his grave, and visiting the Singapore National Archive, where I hope to learn more. I have visited his grave before with a former major in the Singapore Defence Force, Kuan Joo, and I really hope to solve the mystery of his death.”
Ernest died around the time the American air force bombed a huge naval complex on the island, and there are reports of POWs being killed in retaliation.
When the Japanese invaded in February 1942, Ernest was with an Anti Aircraft Co-operation Unit (AACU) attached to 100 Squadron at RAF Tengah but despite a spirited defence, the island was over-run in days.
Records show 100 Squadron was “decimated” in the fighting but report that many members of the AACU unit were evacuated to India.
Ernest was left behind in the chaotic, desperate and short lived, battle for the island, and was taken prisoner when the British surrendered.