Posted to the Fleet Air Arm at the end of 1943, he sailed with HMS Illustrious, which operated Vought F4U Corsair, for the Indian Ocean.
In early 1944 he had a period of leave in New Zealand and when en route for Ceylon, to rejoin Illustrious, the ship on which he was travelling was attacked and sunk by a Japanese heavy cruiser.
Taken aboard the enemy vessel, he and other survivors were harshly treated, tied up and kept on the deck, exposed to the sun, and only given seawater to drink.
[2] A major case involved the mass execution and cremation of 155 wounded Australian and Indian soldiers in Malaya, in what is known as the Parit Sulong Massacre.
[1] Godwin collected affidavits from three Japanese soldiers which supported the Australian position that Nishimura ordered the POWs be executed.
[1] James MacKay's 1996 book Betrayal in High Places brought into question the impartiality in which Australian investigations into war crimes were carried out.
Ian Ward, an Australian journalist subsequently used MacKay's work to raise concerns that Godwin had falsified evidence in the trial of Nishimura.