A MALAYSIAN councillor paid a special visit to the Royal Artillery Barracks, Larkhill, last Friday.

Catherin Chau, from Sandakan Municipal Council, Malaysia visited the Church of St Alban at the Royal Artillery Barracks, Larkhill.

Mrs Chau was in Wiltshire to visit the memorial in the garrison church dedicated to the British and Australian servicemen including 400 Gunners who died as Japanese prisoners of war. They were taken prisoner after the fall of Singapore in 1942.

During the Second World War, over 2,400 Allied prisoners were held in Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia. In 1945 the POWs were sent on three separate marches of 164 miles through dense jungle to the POW Camp at Ranau. These marches are known today as The Death Marches. The total death rate for the POWs was 99.75 per cent; only six Australians survived. Death was from a myriad of causes; malnutrition, disease, beatings, torture and execution.

Each year on 15 August, the people of Sandakan, together with the relatives of the Australian and British POWs, gather at the Sandakan Memorial Park to remember those who died so brutally at the hands of the Japanese.