EIGHT survivors of the sinking of HMS Exeter in the Second World War joined in the annual HMS Exeter/Macassar reunion at Exeter Cathedral.

The eight were Bill Francis, Tom King, Johnny King, Steve Cairns, Bill Guy, Joe Asher, Bill Welch and George Gaskell.

Their reunion marked the 68th anniversary of the day HMS Exeter, along with her escorts HMS Encounter and USS Pope, were sunk by the Japanese fleet in the Second Battle of the Java Sea.

Approximately 50 men died when the ship sunk. The balance of the crew, some 600 men, were rescued from the water by the Japanese vessels and placed in a prison camp at Macassar on Sulawesi in the Indonesian archipelago.

During the next three- and-a-half years, 150 of these men died due to disease and malnutrition.

A reunion has been held every year since 1948, when a window in the cathedral was dedicated to the ship.

There are estimated to be around 20 to 30 survivors still alive, although they are well into their 80s and 90s. As well as the eight survivors fit enough to attend this year's reunion, which is held on the weekend closest to the anniversary of the sinking, one guest came all the way from the South Pacific.

Hellen White, the daughter of a Royal Marine, made the 10,000-mile trip from Papua New Guinea to be there for the big day.

HMS Exeter was part of a combined Dutch, American, Australian and British force sent to meet a large Japanese invasion convoy at the east end of Java and Surabaja.

In the fight that followed, the Allies suffered from both a lack of modern warships and of training to act together as a coherent unit.

The Japanese immediately used torpedoes, sinking a destroyer. Their accurate gunfire caused major damage to HMS Exeter.

The Allies began to withdraw to cover the crippled Exeter, but were continually harried by Japanese long-range gunfire and torpedo attacks.

The final grim phase of this battle was played out on February 28, as the damaged Exeter and two destroyers tried to exit Surabaja to the north and make a run for it. They were surrounded by various groups of patrolling Japanese cruisers and destroyers and sunk on March 1.

The survivors were picked up and landed on Macassar.

Survivor Tom King, a Royal Marines' bandsman, recalled: "Many books have been written by Far Eastern PoWs, telling of the hardships endured. These included inadequate food and negligible medical supplies to combat the maladies which fell upon us, like dysentery, malaria and beriberi. There were beatings by ferocious guards and incessant hard physical labour. For us, the survivors of the sea battle, there were no personal possessions other than the few clothes we were wearing at the time, in my case, a pair of underpants, a shirt and shorts.

"Some of the crew were picked up by a Japanese destroyer on the same day, but the majority, me included, spent a night and half the next day huddled on carley floats and balsa rafts before the Japanese sent a ship to collect us. Eventually, we, the crews of the Exeter, Encounter and Pope, found ourselves in Macassar, on the Celebes Islands.

"Throughout the remaining months of 1943, we struggled to survive on our daily meagre rations of boiled rice and 'greens' (mainly edible leaves similar to watercress). This was supplemented by whatever we could scrounge while out of camp on working parties, such as unripe mangoes, bananas and bits of coconut.

"Many succumbed, like Harry 'Knocker' Bance who died in the camp sick bay after falling into a coma. We were then nine in Macassar, determined to see it through to the end and to freedom. But in 1945, only a few short months before victory over the Japanese, two more of our number passed on.

"Every November, on Remembrance Sunday, and on August 15 (VJ Day), as I stand at the Cenotaph in Whitehall during the two minutes' silence, I recite their names in my head, and remember those other crew members of HMS Exeter who never returned."