KEN Young was just two when his father Sergeant Walter Young said farewell to his family at their home in Rose Hill in 1939.

The family were never reunited as Walter was killed in the captivity of the Japanese in the Second World War on an island off the South Pacific Ocean.

Mr Young’s body was one of 438 found in a pit when Allied troops regained the island previously used to build a Japanese air strip.

Nearly 70 years since the end of the war in the Far East the father-of-two said he has a new lead as to what happened to his father.

The father-of-two, who has lived in the area all his life, said it was important to keep raising awareness ahead of the 70th anniversary of VJ Day.

In the last few months Oxford’s Children of the Far East Prisoners of War has been working to improve recognition in conjunction with the Oxford Mail.

The branch has seen several new members join, including the son of another of the 517 who never made it off Ballalae.

Mr Young, 79, said: “VJ Day has become slightly neglected, everyone knows about what happened in Normandy and Germany as it’s closer to home.

“The remarkable thing for me is as we come up to celebrate 70 years I have just got a new lead with what happened to my father.

“I will contact him and see what he knows, I’m still looking for information and looking forward to finding out more.”

Oxford University confirmed Christ Church will be flying the Union Flag to mark the end of the Far East conflict and the University has sent a note to all its colleges requesting they consider taking similar action.

Sergeant Young was part of the 35th Regiment of the Royal Artillery captured in Singapore by the Japanese in February 1942.

The former builder spent 245 days in Chiangi Prison before being selected as one of 600 men to board a Japanese “Hell Ship”.

The ship stopped off on an island off the Java Sea and 83 men deemed too ill or wounded to be of use as a result of cramped conditions with barely any food, were left behind – just 18 would survive.

The 517 left sailed on to Ballalae where they would help build an airstrip for Japanese planes.

Once Australian and American troops began bombing the island, the Japanese retreated and not one of the 517 men survived beyond June 1943.

Mr Young said: “I don’t know whether he was machine-gunned down, killed by an Allied bomb or even died of malnutrition.

“He gave the Japanese the wrong home address, he gave them his mother’s who lived 10 doors down from us.

“He did it on purpose so that my grandmother would take it down to the house and my mother would have someone with her when she found out.

“Even though he was in so much distress he still thought of us.”

The retired removals and storage business owner visited Ballalae in 2003 with members of COFEPOW.

He said: “The island was beautiful, it was like paradise, it was the last view of world he would have seen and there’s some comfort in that.”