Former prisoner of war, 103, ‘honoured’ to lead comrades
A BLIND 103-year-old former prisoner of war will be the oldest veteran to march at the Cenotaph on Sunday as the nation marks the centenary of Armistice.
Former Army sergeant Ron Freer, representing the charity Blind Veterans UK, will lead more than 100 comrades who also lost their sight.
He said it was a “huge honour” and that the Remembrance commemorations held a “special significance” for him as he remembers his own father’s death in battle on September 4, 1918.
The former postmaster, who lives in Kent, paid his respects at his father’s graveside earlier this year when he travelled to the Dernancourt Communal Cemetery in France with his family to lay a wreath.
Mr Freer was captured in the Second World War while serving in Hong Kong with the Royal Artillery. In late 1941, the Japanese attacked the colony, and after 18 days of fighting, his garrison was forced to surrender.
The malnutrition he endured at the camp during the four-year ordeal left him blind.
Mr Freer said: “Each man was given a scoop of rice but many were unable to eat it and looking at the portion of rice, one could see mice droppings and insects. Disease soon broke out, resulting in many deaths.”
In 1943 he was among 2,000 prisoners taken by ship to Japan when diphtheria broke out. His life was saved by the actions of two doctors.
Mr Freer said: “Lying in the hut with all the others suffering, I heard a voice say, ‘Turn over sergeant’, I was then injected with something and the voice said, ‘You are very lucky’.
“I knew then that it was our medical officer. He later told me that a Japanese civilian doctor had smuggled in six phials of anti-diphtheria toxin so the two of them had saved my life.”
After the war, he and his wife, Joan, opened a post office, buying the property with the help of Blind Veterans UK.