KL654 Task Team

For several years various groups have endeavoured to have our government to create search and recovery teams, to go back to places around the world where British service men and women were killed in the defence of our country. There are in excess of 20400 of these in Malaya Singapore and Thailand alone, who have no known grave. Many of them even today could be found and given a burial according to their rights and religion. One such is the Liberator KL654. This wreck has been reported to the British MOD on several occasions without much success, finally a party from the British embassy in Malaya sent representatives, who after just one day at the site, concluded that there were no human remains and refused to assist. Our Malaysian researchers found several personal items plus human remains. Unfortunately this did not satisfy our MOD. In view of this I advertised for volunteers who would pay their own expenses to travel to Malaysia and remain on site for about two weeks to create a full search for remains and to secure the site against looters.

Our volunteers will begin their travels on the 27^th July. The government have refused to assist, we are therefore asking for donations to assist in the cost which is so far coming from the volunteers own accounts.

There are 20480 missing service men in Malaya and Thailand alone, and it is our intention to try to recover whatever possible and to bring a satisfactory close to the life of as many as possible

We are offering a free copy of any of the following books in return for your donations please state which from

Please make cheques to NESA Task Force Account only. To NESA 61 Charles Street Stockport SK1 3JR

Fight to bring home lost heroes

VETERANS are planning a `do it ourselves' campaign to bring home the remains of RAF Second World War fliers. They are angry that a B-24 Liberator bomber, which crashed days after the end of the war in the Far East, still lies deep in the Malaysian jungle. No attempt has been made to recover the bodies of the crew of eight men. The plane crashed in dense jungle and despite pleas to the Ministry of Defence, politicians and even Prince Charles, nothing has been done. Arthur Lane, 88, of Stockport, who survived the horrors of Japanese prisoner of war camps and worked on the infamous Death Railway, is leading the campaign, backed by veterans and surviving relatives. He said: "We owe it to these men to remove the remains if possible, and accord them a Christian burial. "They deserve nothing less. What has happened shows quite shameful indifference to their sacrifice and we have been fobbed off for years." Ann Coffey, Labour MP for Stockport, has told Mr Lane she is aware `how passionately you care about bringing back the remains of soldiers and planes from the Far East'. Liberator KL654 was based in the Cocos Islands and crashed in August 1945 in what was then central Malaya. It is believed wreckage was first found in the 1950s and reported to the authorities, but nothing happened, then rediscovered in 1970 and examined in 2007 and 2008. The pilot was Flt Lt John Selwyn Watts, 24, of Crofton, Yorkshire. His seven crewmen ranged in age from the flight-sergeant `father' of the crew at 31 to a 20-year-old flying officer. Now, 10 volunteers are being sought to go to the site, at a cost of £2,000 each, and there are hopes an airline will help to sponsor the trip. Mr Lane said: "We want to put right an injustice." Ms Coffey's office added: "Ann is of course sympathetic to the families. "However, this is not a project likely to be funded by the MoD or, as far as I can see, from any other source." The MoD did not respond to requests for a statement.