Lanarkshire POWs meet aftter 70 years

They couldn't have dreamed that the Vera Lynn classic would become so personally fitting when they last saw each other, thousands of miles away from home, back in 1942.

This is because the chances of Kirkfieldbank's Tom Hannah and Glasgow's Andy Coogan just surviving, never mind meeting again, were very slim indeed.

Both men survived Britain's biggest single military defeat of the war only to find themselves in the forced labour and prison camps where an unbelievable 12,500 fellow British servicemen died.

Each man thought the other had died in the prison camps...until Tom, now 90-years-old and settled into retirement in Lesmahagow, was recently

interviewed by the Lanarkshire Yeomanry Group and discovered that his 93-year-old friend was still alive.

So it was a highly emotional meeting for both of them on Sunday when they were reunited again.

Said Tom: "To meet Andy again after all this time was unbelievable. So many of our old mates had died as POWs that I had given up any hope of ever seeing him again."

For more information on this story, pick up a copy of this week's Carluke and Lanark Gazette which is in the shops now.