Letters and love preserve legacy of Uncle Alan

Alan Edwards joined up thinking the war would be over in six months and he and his pals would return to farming, but he never came home

"It's our role as nieces and nephews to remember Uncle Alan, who went to war and never came back," said Heidi Harris.

Suffolk soldier Alan Edwards was liberated from a Japanese prisoner of war (POW) camp abroad at the end of World War Two, but died aged 24 in November 1945.

His great-niece, Mrs Harris, 44, from Haughley, near Stowmarket, said the family treasured his last letters, and those of Army friends who visited him in hospital in India.

Among his visitors was Wally Marshall, who met and married Pte Edwards' sister Vera, after he was demobbed.

Wally Marshall (above) met Pte Edwards' sister Vera on a post-war visit to his parents - and married her in 1948

Mrs Harris began digging into Pte Edwards' story more than five years ago, keen to establish a definitive record for his many nieces and nephews.

"His letters were in a real jumble, so we sorted them out and put them in order and my husband Chris looked into Alan's service record," she said.

Pte Edwards was one of 10 children from a farming family at West Row, near Mildenhall.

He joined 5th Battalion The Suffolk Regiment, a territorial division which was captured in February 1942 at the fall of Singapore by the Japanese army.

Mrs Harris, who is descended from his brother Don, said: "The family story is he was 14st (89kg) when he joined up - and 4st (25kg) when he was liberated in 1945."

The conditions the Japanese army inflicted upon the POWs have since become a by-word for brutality and cruelty.

The 4th and 5th battalions of the Suffolk Regiment were about 2,000 strong when they disembarked at Singapore in 1942, and more than a third of them had died by the end of the war.

Millions of civilians also died in the South East Asian countries the army occupied.

The family has always spoken about the uncle who did not return from war, but especially on VJ Day, said Heidi Harris

The small cache of letters included two cheery ones the private sent from aboard the troop ship to Singapore; a few brief lines during his time in captivity; and correspondence from the hospital which looked after him in Bangalore, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.

In September, Matron Williams warned Pte Edwards' parents he was "seriously ill with a progressive pulmonary tuberculosis plus malnutrition".

By October, he was well enough to write home, saying: "I was so pleased today as my old mate Marshall from Barton Mills came and visit me, so it were damn good to see someone you know."

Later letters were written on his behalf by friends and he continued to deteriorate, dying on 17 November.

Pte Edwards' last handwritten letter in November 1945 reveals his faltering script

Alan Marshall's father Wally was "my old mate Marshall", who had got permission from his commanding officer to travel 600 miles (966km) across India to visit Pte Edwards.

Wally wrote to the family at the time and after he was demobbed, he visited Pte Edwards' mother and father and met his sister, Vera, whom he later married in 1948.

"[My] Dad didn't know Mum [Vera] until he went down to the farm to speak to Grandpa and Grandma [Pte Edwards' parents] about Uncle Alan, and we're fairly sure that's how they met up," said Alan Marshall, 71, a free-range egg farmer from Worlington, who was named in memory of his uncle.

A comment by Alan Marshall (with his late sister Janet Newell) on VJ Day 2020 prompted Mrs Harris to do research on Pte Edwards and share it with the family

"The irony was he [uncle Alan] was a farm worker, so he didn't have to sign-up, because farm work was a reserved occupation [from 1940]," he continued.

"My Dad [Wally] used to say, 'We got drunk in Mildenhall one night, thought it'd all be over in six months and we'll be back on the farm' - so they joined-up."

Wally was saved from capture at Singapore by a bout of tonsillitis, which confined him to the troop ship.

This year saw commemorations to mark the 80th anniversary of Victory in Japan Day (15 August) and the end of World War Two, but Pte Edwards' family have been marking it every year since 1945.

Mrs Harris said: "The family had all this hope that the war's over and Alan's free and on his way home, and he never to got to the end of that journey.

"He did not get to have a family of his own to keep his memory alive - so it's up to us to do it."

Pte Edwards is buried at the Madras War Cemetery in Chennai, looked after by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission