A GLUSBURN resident 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 book includes 65 illustrations by Hubert’s friend, Robert Gamble, which were drawn while they were detained in 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 Second World War ending next year.”

Hubert, of Sheffield, served in the RAF and was taken prisoner on the island of Java. 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 camp at Makasura. He was there five months before he was shipped to Changi, Singapore, where he was for two-and-a-half years.

He was in Kranji, Singapore, during the final part 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 2in but only weighed six stone.”

After the war, Hubert settled in Sheffield. He died in 1973, at 62.