A PLAQUE in honour of Oxfordshire's Far East Prisoners of War (FEPoWs) is now back on display after four decades of absence.

Family members of FEPoWs stood alongside churchgoers at St Michael at the North Gate yesterday for a re-dedication service.

The event was led by the Very Rev Bob Wilkes and was timed to coincide with today's 71st anniversary of VJ Day, when Japan surrendered in the Second World War.

The plaque, which had originally been placed by an oak tree in South Park in 1973, reads: "This plaque was planted... in the hope it will flourish and become a living monument to the memory of comrades who died in captivity from starvation and brutality at the hands of their Japanese captors."

Just weeks after its first dedication it was vandalised and dropped into the bushes before being picked up and taken home for safe keeping by Tommy Bowen, who had served in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in the Second World War. He was held captive by the Japanese in Chiangi prison between 1942 and 1945.

After spending 42 years in a cupboard at the Cowley home of Mr Bowen, who died in 1993, the plaque was found by his son John Bowen last summer.

Its re-dedication yesterday, which included an emotional recital of the Ode of Remembrance, took place on what would also have been Tommy Bowen's birthday.

Trish Fergusson, of national charity Children of Far East Prisoners of War, who along with husband Ian played a key role in organising the installation of the plaque, said: "My father was a prisoner and for people in Oxfordshire it's nice to have something dedicated to hem.

"It's taken a year near enough to get everything sorted. We went to the parochial council and the Diocesan advisory committee, then in June we were told it could be put in."

Richard Matthews, 65, a retired history teacher, travelled down from Hanborough to attend the event in memory of his father Len.

He said: "My father was in the first group of soldiers shipped from Singapore up to the railway. He never spoke a word about it.

"He died when I was a teenager, because of what happened to him - he was very ill. They were the forgotten army, and the prisoners were forgotten men."

The plaque now has a permanent home at the church in Cornmarket Street, where it has been fixed underneath the church's Burma Star and VJ Day 70th anniversary wreath, and next to two Books of Remembrance.