DURING the World Wars, many local servicemen would be made prisoners of war in camps all over the world.

Many attempts were made to escape, including Fred Burrows of Bunbury.

One of six brothers to serve during World War Two, he would play a part in the famous "Wooden Horse" incident, when on October 29, 1943, three British POW's would escape from the so-called "escape-proof" camp Stalag Luft III.

Other local POW's succeeded in making it home.

William Stockton of Crewe was captured at Dunkirk, but managed to escape and via Spain returned to Britain to serve himself as a guard in a British prisoner of war camp.

Private Thomas Slinn of the 7th Green Howards of 38, Shepherd Street, Crewe, was captured at Mersa Matruh on June 15, 1942, and interred in the Ospedale Militaire Busette Camp in Tripoli.

He made his escape, via Switzerland. However not all local POW's stories had a happy ending and there are entries in the Borough's Roll of Honour stating that many men died in the camps, during both world wars.

One of the most emotive POW stories to emerge from WW2 concerned the construction of the notorious Burma-Siam Railway or "Death Railway" as it was later called.

It was built by British, Australian, Dutch and American POW's and forced labour from Malaya, Siam and Burma, and was the greatest engineering project of the war.

It was built with the minimum of mechanical equipment in some of the most inhospitable disease-ridden terrain in the world, with the POW's and labour force suffering starvation and disease and subjected to brutal beatings from their Japanese and Korean guards.

Work started on the railway in late September 1942, with two labour forces organised to start at either end of the 424km line, one at Ban Pong in Siam and the other at Thanbyuzayat in Burma.

Incredibly the work was completed in December 1943, operating for 21 months, before it was crippled by Allied bombs.

One of the many atrocities to occur during construction, was at "Hellfire Pass".

Four hundred Australian and 200 British POW's were given the job of blasting the railway's longest and deepest cutting through a towering rocky spur at Konyu.

The emancipated prisoners, many suffering from cholera, dysentery and malaria, worked for 18 hours a day, in monsoon conditions, to clear a passage through the rock.

A total of 69 men were beaten to death by their guards, with many more dying from disease during this one incident alone.

During the whole of the construction and maintenance period of the Burma-Siam Railway, 80,000 of the 200,000 Asian labourers died and of the 61,000 Allied POW's, 16,000 lost their lives of which 6,500 (out of a total of 30,000) were British, many of which had been captured at Singapore in 1942.

The bodies of the Allied prisoners were eventually transferred from camp burial grounds and solitary sites along the stretch of the railway, into three cemeteries.

Chungkai and Kanchanaburi cemeteries were used for the southern line victims, with the northern sector using the cemetery at Thanbyuzayat.

At least four of the British casualties were men from the Crewe and Nantwich area, including Gunner Alec Davenport, who died of cholera on November 17, 1943.

He was the son of Harry and Ann Davenport of 36, Prince Edward Street, Nantwich and worked in the town at Harvey's Tannery prior to enlisting.

Gunner Wesley Large was another local casualty, formerly of 123, Broughton Road, Coppenhall and the LMS Railway Sheds at Crewe.

Their photographs are to be commemorated along with over 650 more local war-related images in the new book "Crewe And Nantwich At War - A Visual Memory", which is to be published and in the shops in November.

Please note the closing date for submission of photographs is the end of June, so if you do have any local war-related images from the war years, especially local men and women in uniform from the Boer, Crimean and Zulu Wars etc. and WWI and WWII then please contact the authors.

The response so far has been fantastic and photographs have been sent from as far as the USA, Belgium, Spain and Australia.

Photos can be collected, copied and safely returned or sent via email.

Contact Mark Potts on 01270 560015 (mark@markpotts.wanadoo.co.uk) or alternatively Tony Marks on 01270 216108 (tony@ramones.fsnet.co.uk) for submission details.

Please help us preserve the military heritage of our proud Borough, this may be the last opportunity to do so.