Godfrey’s time in the army was different to the rest of the Filey casualties, as the majority was spent in captivity.  He had joined the 5^th battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment when he was conscripted, and had been sent to fight in the Far East and India against the Japanese, a cruel and determined enemy who preferred to use guerrilla tactics as opposed to out and out confrontations in the hot Burmese jungles.

          Many British troops succumbed to the sporadic attacks, and many more were captured and made prisoners of the Japanese.  Godfrey was one of these troops, and after his capture was sent to the Kanchanaburi prisoner of war camp in Thailand.  The treatment of these captured men was inhumane and broke virtually every law laid down by the Geneva Convention, the guidelines for the treatments of captured servicemen, but the Japanese continued nevertheless. 

          Most of the men lived in squalid conditions that were totally disease ridden and for the majority of the time lived off a small bowl of rice a day along with badly infected and unhygienic water supplies.  As if this wasn’t bad enough, many were forced to build the infamous Burma railway which cost 13,000 Allied personnel’s lives, along with a further 80,000 of the local populous’ lives.  Godfrey was one of these men and although it isn’t known whether he died from illness, starvation or being forced to work fourteen hour days without rest or food it is highly likely that it was a combination of all three.  The railway was 424 kilometres long and construction was between October 1942 and December 1943.