A DECORATED war veteran from Worcester fears he will be branded a liar after a Dutch memorial committee refused to acknowledge his military service.

Eighty-eight-year-old Fred Seiker - who comes from Holland - "went through hell" during three years in Japanese PoW camps after being captured in Java in 1942.

He was forced to work on the infamous Burma-Siam railway, which claimed the lives of 18,000 labourers.

A former engineer with the Dutch Merchant Navy, he wrote about his experiences in his book Lest We Forgot - Life as a Japanese Prisoner of War, which has sold all over the world.

He was contacted by Rick Drijsen - the chairman of the Dutch organisation Comite Herdenking Birma-Spoorweg - about promoting his book in Holland.

But when he received a fax from Mr Drijsen claiming they could not find any evidence of him ever being a soldier or a PoW, and withdrawing all contact, he was furious.

Mr Seiker, of Raven Drive, St Peter's, has now sought legal advice.

He said if Mr Drijsen had contacted him for a check, he could have proved that he was telling the truth.

"I can't understand how they made the mistake," said Mr Seiker. "To be accused of a thing like this is hard to put in to words because it is such an insult.

"It is so ridiculous that it is almost funny. If this gets around then people will think that I am a liar."

The Evening News has seen photographs of Mr Seiker in military uniform, 1946 travel documents proving he was transported from Burma to Holland at the end of the war and the Mobilisation War Cross medal awarded to him by a Dutch military attach in April 2001.

Mr Seiker even recounts his experiences in a documentary PoW, Japan's Prisoners of War, to be broadcast to mark the anniversary of VJ Day.

During his incarceration he suffered bouts of malaria, beriberi and dysentery.

The documentary will be shown on the History Channel on Wednesday, August 15, at 8.30pm.