In the opening days of 1942 a convoy set sail from Bridlington intended for West Africa to support the Free French Forces against those of the Vichy Government which supported the Axis. On board was my father, P/O (later F/O) C E Head, RAFVR, an Intelligence Officer with 266 Wing.

While at sea the Free French had resolved their problem and so the convoy proceeded to Cape Town and was then ordered to the Far East. They disembarked at Batavia in March 1942 and within days they were all POWs as they had no means to halt the sweep of the Japanese and the momentum leading to the fall of nearly all South East Asia.

My father was a man of great creativity and initiative - he had been a brilliant journalist and was one of the new breed of Account Executives in the fledgling Advertising Agency industry. Together with another officer, Leo D Collier, they made up credible Press passes with impressive-looking authorisations and a lot of sealing wax. They then posed as Spanish (neutral) journalists and broke out to find some way out of Java. Regrettably they failed, there were no boats and there was nowhere to go so they simply walked back into the compound and their captors had never missed them in the confusion of the time.

In April of 1943 those who were considered fit enough were transported from Java to the island of Haruku, a tiny constituent of the Central Moluccas, just east of Ambon and south of Ceram and can only be located on a map with a powerful magnifying glass.

My father died on 25th September 1943 at 06.00 (Japanese time), officially of bacillary dysentery and neutritis centralis (a condition occurring through beriberi).

This official report on his death barely conceals the brutality, deprivation and inhumanity leading to it, nor the degradation of the manner of his death.

The events of Haruku have been graphically described by Don Peacock in 'The Emperor's Guest' (Oleander Press 1989). Don Peacock is a journalist who kept a secret shorthand account of his time in captivity and the treatment meted out to the POWs by their Japanese guards.

From Java they were transported by sea with about 1,000 men crammed into each ship, in accommodation allocated at the rate of 410 men per 40-50 sq ft of space, for the voyage between April-May 1943.

The Japanese sent 2,075 men to Haruku, to slice down two humps in the coral spine of the island and fill the valley between them with the spoil to make an airfield for the Japanese Air Force to strike at Australia. Only 750 survived from this total of 2,075, a death rate of 63% between May 1943 and their liberation in August 1945.

Apart from the official notification from the Air Ministry that my father was a POW we had no word from him throughout the whole time of his captivity, nor did he ever receive any of the restricted postcards we were allowed to send once a month.

Two days after VJ Day, during our preparations to have him back, we learned that he had died two years earlier.

During my tour of duty with 1st Singapore Regiment RA I had hoped to make the trip to Haruku to visit his grave. However, relations between Britain and Indonesia at that time made such a venture impossible. In the meantime the Commonwealth War Graves Commission had recovered the remains of those who had died from camp sites in the surrounding islands for a War Cemetery on Ambon and the Cemetery was officially completed in 1968. That it took 23 years shows the magnitude of the task.

In correspondence with Don Peacock, it was learned that the Royal British Legion organises pilgrimages to the War Cemeteries. Contact was made in April 1990, the trip signed up and on 7 November 1990, 70 of us assembled at Heathrow for the dawn flight to Singapore where parties would split up for visits to Changi in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Taiping, Labuan and Ambon.

Our party of nine to the furthest site, Ambon, included three widows - including a courageous lady of 81 - and a POW survivor from HMS Exeter. His feelings must have been very mixed during the transit at Macassar (now Ujung Pandang) where he and his shipmates were forced to build an airstrip and perimeter road, now replaced by a relatively modern little Indonesian airport. Our party also included the Royal British Legion representative and a Consultant Physician, also a Major RAMC with a Field Ambulance (TAVR).

The flight to Singapore was a far cry from the early days of Air Trooping which took four days. On this occasion there was no Malay Bombardier to meet us, complete with jungle greens and slouch hat with a 15 cwt truck to Jardine Steps for the RASC launch at Blakang Mati. Instead it was an air conditioned coach which whisked us to a modern hotel in downtown Singapore to be greeted by refreshing cold drinks and porter service to the rooms.

Changi Airport had also changed over the last 35 years and the soon-to-be-opened Airtropolis terminal marked a quantum leap into modern air travel. The Singapore skyline also seemed to be from another planet when viewed through eyes which last saw it from the upper deck of RMS Asturias bound for home in 1955.

We arrived in Ambon on 10th November after stopovers in Singapore and Bali (and transit landings in Jakarta and Ujung Pandang) in good time for the Remembrance Day Service which, this year, took place on the proper day of 11th November.

We had the opportunity of private visits to the Cemetery that day and to prepare ourselves for the emotional act of remembrance for our lost relatives.

The War Cemetery, located on the main road from Ambon to Galala, is on rising ground overlooking Ambon Bay, on the site of a former camp for British, Australian and Netherlands POWs. The grounds are immaculately tended and are a tribute to the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The coarse grass is positively manicured and flowers abound. In each of the four corners stands a flamboyant tree, arranged so that throughout the whole year one of them is in flower.

The Cemetery has 2,137 graves, over half Australian and a collective grave for American airmen who were killed, with seven Australian airmen, in July 1945. The Ambon Memorial, at the foot of the Cemetery, commemorates 460 Australian soldiers and airmen who died in the region of the Celebes and Molucca Islands and have no known grave.

The graves, arranged in groups, are marked by bronze plaques which gleam in the sunshine and show no trace of growth.

Sadly the 'Ubique' tradition of the Royal Artillery Regiment can be seen starkly in Ambon and 63 Gunner graves were identified from members of 6 HAA Regt, 77 HAA Regt and 21 LAA Regt together with a large number of members of the Royal Australian Artillery.

On Remembrance Day, in the cool of the late afternoon, we assembled at the Cemetery for the act of remembrance. The service was conducted by a Netherlands Roman Catholic priest, Father J van de Made, and a choir was provided by a local Protestant church with the choristers all in matching sarongs and bajus. The Last Post and Reveille were sounded by an Amboinese trumpeter.

The occasion left an indelible memory of a simple tribute to the fallen, on a remote tropicalisland by the light of the setting sun. Clear English voices sang 'O God our help in ages past' and 'O valiant heart', while the choir gave us 'Onward Christian soldiers' in Indonesian, 'The Lord's Prayer' in English and an Indonesian psalm, all accompanied by light Melanesian swaying movements. The sheer simplicity and beauty made a most powerful and lasting impression. On leaving the Cemetery the choir lined the path with a local chant to see us on our way.

Amboinese choir at the Cross of Sacrifice, Ambon War Cemetery, Remembrance Day 1990

Earlier in the morning there was an opportunity to visit the island of Haruku, where the POW camp was located. With invaluable help from the representative of the British Embassy, an hour's drive to a fishing village and then half an hour in a boat with an outboard motor gave passage. The welcoming committee was a group of naked children gambolling in the shallow water, a touching innocence on a shore with such an evil and sinister past.

No traces are left of the camp and memories were so short that nobody had any knowledge of what had been. Enquiries about British servicemen led to a 17th Century Portuguese cannon half-buried in the sand by the surprisingly preserved remains of an old stone fort. That was the only connection with the military they could produce.

Haruku now is an idyllic scene - the villagers live in solid houses and have electricity. Being a Sunday they were not at work and there was the sight and sound of relaxed people while the cloves dried in the sun and the sound of a hymn coming from the little Christian church - words in Indonesian, music by J S Bach.

We then returned home with a two day break in Bali for the sights and a day's break in Singapore which allowed a personal and nostalgic visit to Blakang Mati (aka Sentosa).

No praise is high enough for the organisation of the trip by the Royal British Legion which catered for and anticipated every need with practised efficiency. Every tribute must also be paid to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which keeps these cemeteries as a fitting tribute to those who died in service.

The Ambon War Cemetery stands as a monument to the victims of man's inhumanity to man, just as potent as the holocaust in Europe. These honourable men did not die in combat but as a result of a deliberate policy of brutality, an act which has never been atoned by regret, remorse or reparation.

We will remember them.