Sybil Le Fleur and her younger sister Blanche, who grew up together in Rangoon, were forced apart in December 1941 when the Japanese invaded Burma.

In the chaos, they fled in opposite directions and didnot hear from each other again until last year, when Sybil's daughter-in-law took a course on genealogy. She found a message from Blanche seeking information about her sister on the Planet Burma website.

Within days, the sisters had spoken over telephone. They had an "indescribably" reunited in Kolkata last October.

Derek Fly, 56, Sybil's son has told their story in a book called Torn Apart, which is to be featured next month at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

88-year-old Sybil told The Daily Telegraph from her home in Huntley, Aberdeenshire yesterday that she had settled in Britain with her husband after escaping from Burma.

She now knows that her sister spent over three years under Japanese occupation before fleeing to India.

She said: "The last time I saw Blanche she was preparing to take her baby son to the park. We saw the Japanese planes overhead, but we thought they were British. Then the bombs started falling, the sirens went and before we knew it the Second World War had arrived in Rangoon.

"Blanche and I fled in opposite directions. I couldn't go back. I spent four months in refugee camps in Burma before I secured safe passage to India. I eventually came back to Aberdeenshire with my husband, a Scottish soldier."

The first thing Blanche, 86, said to her sister was "What happened to you? Why didn't you get home?"