VJ Day: Neighbours share memories of war and of a lost uncle

Brian Buick’s uncle Joseph McCandless was captured on the island of Java in 1942 and held in a prisoner of war camp in Borneo, where he died in 1945.

“I was probably too young at that stage to really comprehend an awful lot about Uncle Joe,” he said.

“It was only when I got older that I realised how tough and sad, really, that his life and his death ultimately had been.”

Joseph McCandless joined the RAF in 1938, and was posted to Singapore in 1941.

Japan captured Singapore in 1942, landing a major blow to the British war effort.

“Joe managed to escape to the island of Java, but the Japanese also invaded Java,” Brian Buick recalled.