FAR Eastern prisoners of war were reunited at Liverpool's School of Tropical medicine to record their experiences for a unique education project. Yesterday, seven men who endured years of hard labour in prison camps in Asia came together at the centre which helped many of them back to health.

They were met by A-Level students from Pensby High School for Girls who interviewed and filmed their memories for a new website dedicated to the effects of captivity and the medical and social problems faced by ex-FEPoW and their families.

The unique project is being headed by the School of Tropical Medicine who have helped treat more than 2,000 ex-FEPoW who returned home with infectious diseases.

Waterloo's Charles Elston, who spent almost four years in a Thailand prison camp at the age of 24, said: "I think it's important that our stories are on public record and that the work of the school is recognised.

"At the start of my captivity I suffered from dysentery and lost weight, falling to less than six stone, then I caught malaria just before we were freed and send back home.

"It would come and go in cycles and was a most extreme feeling of being boiling hot but freezing cold inside. I watched many people die of disease." Omega Replica Watches

Ex-FEPoW Maurice Naylor, who worked on the bridge over the River Kwai in Thailand, said: "We were a small group of prisoners who had to carry long pieces of heavy timber.

"We weren't strong, had no footwear and had to slide around in the monsoon slipping and sliding up the banks in mud, and you were hit if you didn't do it right.

"Some people fell into despair and gave up hope, we were sick, starved and hadn't had contact with the outside world.

"At one point, 10 people a day were dying and I watched people die a hideous death from infectious disease.

"There were men who had to watch their friends die then burn them to stop the bacterial disease spreading. Breitling Replica Watches That was the most frightening time, the period of 1943 when disease was rife."

Many of the prisoners were treated in the field by doctors trained at the Liverpool school while others have had many years of treatment in the city.

Professor Geoff Gill, FEPoW education project leader at the Tropical School of Medicine, said: "Malaria and dysentery were the most common problems PoWs came back with, but the Strongyloides worm was a major problem that lasted in prisoners over many years.

"Starting with an irritating rash and diarrhoea, the problem was that, when the PoWs were treated for other conditions such as asthma, the drugs would make the worm reproduce, resulting in death.

"This worm accounted for around 20% of infectious diseases and was prevalent in Burma and soil in the jungles, but at the time we knew very little about it, so treating the PoWs allowed us to learn more and more."

He added: "There are two great things about this project, one that we have learnt a large amount from the far eastern experience and secondly that postcard printing many of our soldiers at war today come back with identical problems.

"People fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq come back with the same health problems. It's still happening so the lessons we have learned still apply to modern treatment and will do in th
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