When I lived in Peterborough from 1977 to 1982 we got to know the custodian of Longthorpe Tower, a mediaeval monument on the edge of the city in the care of the Property Services Agency (formerly Ministry of Works). The name of the custodian was David F. Moffat and he often told me stories about his time in a Japanese POW camp. He told me that he was the soldier on the left with the moustache in the iconic photograph invariably used to illustrate accounts of the surrender of Singapore, which shows a few British soldiers in shorts with their hands raised in front of Japanese soldiers with levelled rifles with bayonets. Although I never had any reason to doubt the truth of this, I have been unable to verify it. I see that a couple of pages on Wikipedia display that photo but it bears a caption referring to the soldiers being in the Suffolk Regiment. I find that on the Forces War Records website a gunner called David F. Moffat, who was in the 125th Anti-Tank regiment and who was captured on 15 February 1942 -- the date of the surrender of Singapore -- and who, I confirmed from another website, spent the next three years in Japanese prisoner of war camps. I think if highly likely that the man I knew is the David F Moffat listed as belonging to the 125th and that he is the soldier in the surrender photo, and that possibly the captions are wrong. I lost touch with him during the 1980s and sadly he died in 1997. I there anypone who knew him or knows how I can trace a relative of can verify this this story ? I would like to memorialise him by identifying this well known and iconic figure.
Hello Im sure our POW experts will be along to add MOFFAT DAVID F. GNR. 125TH ANTI-TANK REG'T. R.A. (TC) (KI) (KU) Never Forgotten :: The Story of the Taiwan POW Camps and the men who were intered in them. Also see below to gain further info https://www.cofepow.org.uk/list-of-fepows a link for the official route for services records Get a copy of military service records - GOV.UK
Are you sure it was 1997 he died?? - I have found a possible but hes 1993 England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007 Name: David Ferguson Moffat Death Age: 74 Birth Date: 11 May 1919 Registration Date: Nov 1993 Registration district: Peterborough Inferred County: Cambridgeshire Register Number: C17G District and Subdistrict: 3351C Entry Number: 181 TD
Hi Sharon Thank you for the information and clarification, I hope the original poster picks up your post. I assume then that the one I found is in fact your grandfather TD
Hi I am another Grandaughter. Sharon is correct of course!. The photograph looks very much like my Grandad and my Uncle David, his son.
And I’m another Grandaughter! I’ve sent these transcriptions over to my father David Ferguson-Moffat who I know will be pleased to hear from you Longthorpe
Well, looks like a family reunion, but I'm afraid Longthorpe only made that one posting back in 2017. Sometimes people post and expect an email alert when there's a reply, but we don't have that system. It also seems as if they are no longer in Peterborough, so I don't know of any way to trace them. Still, I hope it's an interesting snippet of your grandfathers life. Many PoW's never fully recovered from the mental and physical suffering they endured, but he seems to have found that talking about it helped.