A MAN captured by the Japanese and kept as a Prisoner of War for three years says he was “lucky, really”.

Roy Massey, 91, was forced into hard labour and lost many of his squadron colleagues while being held by the enemy during World War Two.

But he survived beatings, tropical diseases and other hardships to return to England, exhausted yet alive, after the Atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

Wimborne resident Mr Massey clearly remembers Victory for Japan day in August 1945.

They woke up and the Japanese soldiers had completely disappeared, he said.

Mr Massey said: “It was fantastic.

“I think what saved my life, really, and that of a lot of other prisoners, was the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. If there had been a land invasion, if troops had come into Singapore, the Japanese would have killed us all. I am sure of that.”

Lord Mountbatten had dropped leaflets into the camp promising that he would kill 10 Japanese people for every British person he found dead.

Mr Massey was on a tea plantation in Britaria in 1941 when the Dutch surrendered and around 40 -50 of his Squadron had to give themselves up by marching into a village where the Japanese lay in wait.

“We were not scared, really. It was wartime. Things like that happen,” says Mr Massey, who was then 21.

They were thrown into a civilian prison, Boei Glodock, before being shipped to Singapore in a cargo hold.

Conditions on board were “dreadful”, Mr Massey said, and they were taken to a barracks, where he contracted diphtheria.

One of many too ill to travel, he stayed in Singapore at Changai prison and was made to clear away the jungle around an aerodrome to make way for runways.

The workers were poorly fed and commonly picked up dysentery, happy feet or malaria.

They were beaten if they didn’t bow, and were “knocked about”.

One of Mr Massey’s friends from back home in Leeds died out on the railway.

Mr Massey, who later became a policeman, said: “The worst thing was the food – it was almost a starvation diet.

“They often threatened to shoot us but whether they would have done, we don’t know. It was hard work, made worse by the lack of food.”

News of the Allied victory came through on a camp radio set, and the next thing they knew, army and medical officers parachuted in. Many POWs were too ill to travel but Mr Massey was on the first boat out. He spent six weeks in rehabilitation before catching a train back to his parents alone.

They had exchanged just one card each during the war. His girlfriend Audrey, whom he later married, was also waiting.

“I felt as if I had never been away,” he said.

The great-grandfather added: “I was lucky, really. I am not a war hero or anything like that.

“I was taken prisoner, which thousands of others were. If I had gone somewhere else I may not have lived.

“Your life to me is planned out. What happened is in the past. I have no hatred against the Japanese, they were good fighters.”

He has returned to Japan three times since, and revisited the Changai prison. All that remains is one wall.