A British soldier in World War II, he was captured by the Japanese army and interned in a POW camp. He once spent six months in the cooler for stealing a tin of corned beef.
Because he had first-hand experience of Japanese POW camps, he was paid an extra £5.00 per week by David Lean to act as a consultant on The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).
It was his idea that the marching POWs whistle "The Colonel Bogey March" in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).