IT WAS billed as one of the publishing sensations of the year: the true story of a gallant young Englishman who joined the US Army and suffered terrible torments in Vietnam.

Tom Abraham’s account of how he was captured by the Vietcong and pushed into a bamboo cage half submerged in a rat-infested lake suggested that he could be the inspiration for the Oscar-winning film The Deer Hunter.

In his book, The Cage, published last month, Abraham recounts how he escaped and returned to England with a chestful of medals, including the Silver Star, then married, had children and built a successful business career.

More than 30 years later, according to the blurb on the back cover, “a trivial encounter with the police began a catastrophic chain of events. He lost everything — his family, his home, his self-respect. It became all too obvious that the psychological and emotional wounds he received in Vietnam were still festering.”

It was fascinating stuff. It earned Abraham an advance in excess of £100,000 and his publisher, Bantam, sold the serial rights to the Daily Mail for a five-figure sum. Radio listeners heard Abraham break down and sob as he told Michael Buerk of his ordeal on Radio 4’s The Choice yesterday.

Veterans’ groups in America, however, say that his story is not true. According to the US Department of Defence, he was never captured, there were no Vietcong tormentors, there was no bamboo cage and no dramatic escape.

Although Abraham undoubtedly served in Vietnam, and was decorated for his service during the war, there are question marks over the central episode in his book. Veterans’ groups are furious about the publication of The Cage.

“Many genuine ex-PoWs have contacted us about Mr Abraham’s book, all of whom are telling us that he is a phoney,” said Mary Schantag, a spokeswoman for the Missouri-based PoW Network.

Mrs Schantag’s group has unmasked more than 700 fake PoWs from Vietnam. “We have never had to issue a retraction or apology since we were founded 13 years ago,” she said.

“Every single prisoner of war from Vietnam was thoroughly documented and debriefed after their ordeal. Abraham does not appear on any record of PoWs or those reported as missing in action during the entire war. I think Abraham is a sick man. His story is a sham. If I met him, what I would say to him you could not put in print.”

At the end of the Vietnam War, the Pentagon issued a definitive list of all personnel, both American and foreign, who were known to have been either reported missing in action or taken as prisoners of war. Abraham’s name does not appear on it.

Only 28 personnel managed to escape from the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese during the entire war, and Vietnam veterans find it inconceivable that Abraham was an unknown 29th.

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