John Nichol: This is the reality of being a PoW, fear of the unknown, the pain of torture

As the search goes on for the two missing British soldiers and American prisoners of war are paraded on Iraqi television, the reality of war is once again flung in our faces. For all of our hi-tech laser-guided bombs and sophisticated cruise missiles, these brutal images show how things can still go horribly wrong.

So how does the military prepare its personnel for capture? Although it would obviously be foolish to go into details, all servicemen and women undergo training for capture. Nevertheless, no training can truly prepare you for the brutality and sheer terror of finding yourself in enemy hands.

My pilot and I were captured by the Iraqis in 1991 after we were shot down in our Tornado over the desert. After being dragged blindfolded to Baghdad, they tried to get information out of us. The Geneva Convention states that prisoners of war are not obliged to answer any questions except number, rank, name, date of birth. The Iraqis had no regard for the Geneva Convention and questioned us using extreme violence.

Over the following three days, the interrogation took many forms. It started with sleep deprivation and stress positions and swiftly degenerated into violent and brutal treatment. The worst part is not so much the pain as the fear and expectation of what was to come. Pain hurts, but there is a strange comfort in it because you know where you stand. The hard part comes when you're left alone in darkness to listen to others being tortured and to contemplate your immediate future.

Throughout the ordeal you have to rely on your own strength of character. But the reality is that control is not in your hands. You go from being a confident, highly equipped, professional fighter to a terrified, lonely, simple human being at the mercy of the enemy.

And the enemy was victorious. I can only say that I felt a sense of extreme failure at having given in to their interrogation. Yet the ludicrous part was that they did not know what they wanted to find out. They would ask stupid questions about the weight of the Tornado or how fast it could fly; information any child with a copy of an aircraft magazine would know.

On the third day of my interrogation I was lying on a concrete floor blindfolded and handcuffed. An Iraqi officer kicked me awake and told me I had a simple choice. I was to go on television and make a broadcast or I would be taken outside and executed. It was a stark choice, but there was only one possible response.

I was forced in front of the cameras by my captors. I was determined to sit straight and proud. I repeated the Iraqis' words to the letter, hoping that the dreadful grammar and stilted delivery would show that I was under duress. My face was seen all around the world, just like the pictures of those American soldiers now.

These images are a double-edged sword. The Iraqis try to use them as a propaganda tool to rouse their own troops and it is potentially demoralising for the Western public – but at least the family of the captured soldier knows that their loved one is still alive. My family drew strange comfort from the fact that, even though I was in Iraqi hands, they knew I had survived the missile attack on my Tornado.

But things got worse for my family. The pictures were broadcast on the third day of war and my family had no more details for five weeks until my release. They had to endure rumours about my fate, even one that I had been killed and my body found. It was a tragic, mind-numbingly terrible time.

The following weeks were punctuated by fear, isolation, boredom and beatings. The Iraqis sometimes threatened to kill me and I nearly died in the Allied bombardment – but at least I was alive. One of the cruellest aspects of a soldier being taken prisoner is that for most of the time after capture, the family simply don't know what's happened. We must pray that the distress of those families in that awful position today is as short as possible and that their loved ones return safely.

John Nichol is a former RAF navigator. He is now an author and military analyst for ITV News. 'The Last Escape' is published by Penguin, price £20.