Oxford lecturer Chris Foley travelled 12,500 miles to the Solomon Islands to help erect a war memorial to his grandfather who died there as a PoW during the Second World War.

Mr Foley was among a party of relatives, which included his uncle Bill Boswell, of Cowley, who travelled to the tiny island of Ballalae in the South Pacific.

Mr Foley, who lives in Witney, said: "The story started over 60 years ago after the fall of Singapore when 517 officers and men of the Royal Artillery, prisoners of war of the Japanese, arrived on the island, one of the Solomon Islands, to help construct an airstrip. None of those men survived beyond June 1943. They died from disease, Allied bombing, malnutrition or were killed by the Japanese.

"The airstrip, which the men died building, is still in use today for requested domestic flights by Solomon Air. There was nothing on the island to commemorate the fact that British soldiers had died there and we became determined this should be remedied," said Mr Foley, who teaches at Oxford College.

With the help of the Children of Far East Prisoners of War Association, and undeterred by a civil war in the area, Mr Foley, Mr Boswell, and Ken Young from Cowley, who lost his father, set off to the Solomon Islands for three weeks in July.

They were given a warm welcome by islanders who helped construct a war memorial with a plaque donated by the Royal Artillery Association.

Mr Foley said: "They also took us into the jungle where there were many Japanese planes still sitting where they had been left 60 years ago."