Can you imagine what it must be like to be marched out to face a firing squad, say goodbye to your closest friend who is standing next to you and then have the squad shoulder their rifles and march away having not fired a shot?  What are the odds on that happening during a war situation?  The mind boggles at the odds of this happening but this did happen to Charles Rodaway who served in the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment during World War II.

POW camps in Japan

He joined the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and was posted to Shanghai in 1934.  He undertook guard duties in Shanghai before  being transferred to Singapore in 1938.  At the fall of Singapore in 1942, he was captured by the Japanese and put to work as a labourer in the Kawasaki shipyards, near Tokyo.  In 1944, he and a friend attempted to escape…