Japanese prisoner of war camp survivor Leslie Newport has died, aged 78.

Mr Newport, of Swinburne Road, Cowley, Oxford, was missing, presumed killed in action, for 15 months during 1942 and 1943.

In fact, the RAF medical orderly had been captured twice by the Japanese - first in Singapore and, after escaping, in Java - and was put in the Tanjong Priok PoW camp.

In a moving, yet fascinating, article in the Oxford Mail's sister paper The Oxford Times in 1979, Mr Newport recalled his time in the camp beneath a photograph of him holding his treasured PoW badge and number, 81.

Mr Newport wrote: "Our camp was host to 6,000 - of all nationalities and some civilians, including many old tea planters. Many of these I prepared for burial, the blanket they were wrapped in being brought back for future use.

He added: "Dogs did not live long if they strayed into our camp. What a grand meal, if only we had salt to put on it! Cats were easy to catch - so sweet, white-fleshed. We boiled the animals in oil drums and hid the meat in the soup mixture given to us."

Mr Newport weighed only five-and-a-half stone when he arrived home after being liberated on September 16, 1945. His daughter, Joyce, who was six months old when he left was then six. His wife, Francis Winifred, had thought he was dead until his voice and rank were heard on a Japanese propaganda broadcast. The couple had a son after the war, Leslie, whom Mr Newport described as "his little miracle" because all Japanese PoWs were thought to have been made sterile by their ordeals.

Leslie Newport Jnr, of Howard Street, Oxford, said: "I will always be proud of what my father did and went through."

Mr Newport Snr, a full-time worker for the British Red Cross before the war, worked at the Leyland plant in Oxford for 28 years afterwards before being forced into early retirement at the age of 59, when he was diagnosed as having Japanese PoW syndrome.

Mr Newport wrote in his Oxford Times article: "If the Japanese had ever discovered that I had escaped from Singapore I would not have survived. They deserve praise for the progress they have made since their defeat, and I forgive them for they knew not what they did."

In his retirement, Mr Newport took a keen interest in motorcycle racing, and bought a Triumph Speedtwin 500cc motorbike.

He died on July 8 after a long illness. He leaves a wife, two children, eight grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.