THE 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day this Friday should remind us that the Second World War did not end with Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945; the war in the Far East was to continue for another four months.

One of thousands of British soldiers who never came back from that theatre of war was Maurice Spafford, whose mother and father ran the Belle Vue pub on Manningham Lane. Thomas Spafford, he was a mason by trade, and his wife Martha were popular figures judging by the turn-out at Thomas's funeral.

Their son Maurice married Edith Robson and went to live in Huddersfield. The day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, they bombed the RAF airfields at Singapore on the Malay Peninsula. Then, on December 10, they torpedoed and sank two British battleships, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse.

Japanese military success was based on speed, ingenuity and brutality.

Maurice Spafford, a bombadier with the 122 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, had arrived in Singapore on March 3, 1941. He was among the 100,000 British military personnel who surrendered on February 15, 1942. He survived for just over three years until1945.

Maurice Spafford's death, among so many others, might have disappeared into oblivion but for chance. While researching a family tree retired couple Chris and Pam Barber, who live near Holmfirth, discovered that Maurice was a distant relation.

It so happens that from January to March every year the Barbers like to pack their traps and go exploring in South East Asia, staying in hotels and guest houses. This year they went to the military cemetery at Labuan in Borneo, coincidentally on the 70th anniversary of Maurice Spafford's death, where Pam knelt beside his headstone - one among 4,000, half of them without a name.

Pam said: "The awful thing was looking at the ages on the headstones. Most of those lads were in their twenties. We just felt we were taking a bit of Yorkshire to Maurice. We were there to say thank you. He's not forgotten."

This much the Barbers found out about Maurice Spafford's fate as a Prisoner-of-War.

Chris said: "Initially he was sent to the notorious Changi prison but then was transferred to worse conditions in Kuching, Sarawak, north Borneo.

"It must have been a terrible incarceration for these men, hot, steamy, with seemingly merciless captors. The Japanese issued a 'kill all prisoners' order at the end of the war in Borneo. About 2,500 Australians were marched to their death on the infamous Sandakan to Ranau death march. Six escaped to the jungle to ensure that this atrocity was recorded and the perpetrators brought to justice.

"Maurice died supposedly of pneumonia on March 15, 1945 and is buried in grave sb12. I think more than 120 from Maurice's regiment - known as the forgotten regiment - died in South East Asia while POWs."

Maurice Spafford has a half-brother who lives in Devon.