ROYAL Navy veteran Geoff Stott was the guest of honour at a memorial service to mark the 75th anniversary of the sinking of the famous warship HMS Exeter.

The heavy cruiser was sunk in the Java Sea on March 1, 1942, after being trapped by a Japanese fleet.

The 94-year-old who is from Bolton and now lives at Broughton House, in Salford, for ex-servicemen and women, was among the surviving crew and spent three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.

He had volunteered to join the Royal Navy in 1939 at the age of 15.

Mr Stott laid a wreath at a ceremony held at Broughton House to commemorate the sinking of HMS Exeter and the servicemen who died.

Guests included members of his family alongside Karen Garrido, the ceremonial Mayor of Salford, representatives from Help for Heroes, Walking with the Wounded, the Defence Medical Welfare Service, the 207 (Manchester) Field Hospital, trustees and supporters of Broughton House.

Ty Platten, chief executive of Broughton House, said: “We came together to remember Geoff’s bravery and that of many others who lost their lives on HMS Exeter and subsequently in one of most notorious Japanese prisoner of war camps near Nagasaki. It’s important the public understands that the world would be a very different place were it not for him and others like him.”

HMS Exeter was one of the most famous warships of the Second World War. She is best-known for her role in the Battle of the River Plate off Uruguay when she hunted down the pride of the German navy, the Admiral Graf Spee.