One of the oldest surviving members of the Oxfordshire Yeomanry, Ben Pritchett, has died aged 93.
Mr Pritchett was the oldest veteran present when the unit celebrated its 200th anniversary in June 1998.
Born in 1912 and brought up in Cherwell Street, St Clements, he was educated at St Aldate's School. In 1927, at the age of 15, he volunteered for the Yeomanry's Regimental Riding School, in St Thomas's, adding a couple of years to his age to get in.
Having joined the 399 (Oxford) Battery, he arrived in Singapore in January 1942, and hurriedly moved up into Malaya as Sergeant Major with the 250/251 (Banbury) Battery -- of which only a handful came back. Mr Pritchett was one of the lucky ones, although in his later years he did his best to forget the time he spent fighting the Japanese, the fall of Singapore, and the deprivations he suffered working on the infamous Bangkok -- Rangoon Railway running beside the River Kwai.
He returned to Thailand in May 1981 with the Far East Prisoners of War Association, visiting the Kranji cemetery where a monument stands to 23,000 POWs who have no known grave.
Mr Pritchett, a former works superintendent at Morris Motors, married twice, and is survived by two sons.
Col Tim May, one of the founder members of the Oxfordshire Yeomanry Trust, said: "With the passing of Ben Pritchett, we mourn a comrade who, perhaps more than anyone shaped and maintained the regimental ethic of the Oxfordshire Yeomanry from the time he joined in 1927 until well after his retirement from active service."
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