Download or read book Cyril Wild written by James Bradley and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book From Shanghai to the Burma Railway written by Rory Laird and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Laird’s previously unpublished record of his wartime experience as a Japanese prisoner of war ranks among the most graphic of this shocking and deservedly popular genre. Captured after fighting in the Malayan Campaign he was incarcerated in Changi before being drafted as slave labour with ‘F’ Force on the notorious Burma Railway. He was one of only 400 out of 1600 to survive Songkurai No 2 Camp, despite disease and terrible hardship. His moving memoir begins with a rare description of ex-patriate life in 1930’s Shanghai with the Sino-Japanese war raging around the European cantonments. An additional dimension to his story is the developing relationship between the author and Bobbie Coupar Patrick to whom he became engaged shortly before the fall of Singapore. Bobbie’s letters graphically described her dramatic escape to Australia and work for Force 136. They were reunited in Colombo, Ceylon and their son has been instrumental in compiling this exceptional record. Three appendices round off this superb book including the official report on the hardships and losses suffered by ‘F’ Force.
Download or read book Singapore At War written by Romen Bose and published by Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd. This book was released on 2012-06-15 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together for the first time three of Romen Bose’s major historical works – Secrets of the Battlebox, The End of the War, and Kranji – in a panoramic account of Singapore’s experience in WWII. Sealed off and forgotten until the late 1990s, the Battlebox beneath Fort Canning served as the British Command HQ during the war. What actually happened in this underground nerve centre of the Malayan Campaign? Drawing on top-secret documents only recently opened to research, the author investigates the workings of the Battlebox and the fascinating role it played. Having lost their “impregnable fortress” of Singapore, the British were diverted to the European theatre of war. How then, when the Japanese surrendered, did they prepare to return to their erstwhile colonies? This book goes behind the scenes to investigate the circumstances, events, and unforgettable cast of characters that led up to liberation. Finally, the book considers those who fought and died in the war, and their ways in which they have been remembered in post-war Singapore, with Kranji cemetery and memorial as the centrepiece of the efforts. Singapore At War contains new findings which have come to light since the publication of the individual books, giving an unprecedented breadth and depth of perspective to this historical account.
Download or read book Medical Officers on the Infamous Burma Railway written by and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2022-02-24 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1944, a compilation of medical reports from the main prisoner of war work camps along the infamous Thailand-Burma railway was submitted to General Arimura Tsunemichi, commander of the Japanese Prisoner of War Administration. The authors stated that the reports were neither complaints nor protests, but merely statements of fact. The prisoners received only one reply – that all copies of the documents must be destroyed. As one officer later recalled, ‘Of course, this was not done’ and copies of these reports survived, stored away in dusty files, for future generations to learn the truth. Work on the railway began in June 1942, the Japanese using mainly forced civilian labour as well as some 12,000 British and Commonwealth PoWs. Such is well-known. So are the stories of ill-treatment and brutality, many of which have been published. The vast majority of these accounts, however, were written after the war, colored by the sufferings the men had endured. The reports presented here are quite unique, for they were written by the medical officers in the camps as the events they describe were unfolding before their eyes. The health and well-being of the PoWs was the medical officers’ primary concern, and these reports enable us to learn exactly how the men were treated, fed and cared for in unprecedented detail. There are no exaggerated tales or false memories here, merely facts, shocking and disturbing though they may be. We learn how the medical officers organised their hospitals and dealt with the terrible diseases, beatings and malnutrition the men endured. As the compilers of the reports state, 45 per cent of the men under their care died in the course of just twelve months. But equally, we find that the prisoners did have a voice and had the facilities, and the courage, to write and submit such reports to the Japanese, perhaps contradicting some of the long-held beliefs about conditions in the camps. Through the words of the Medical Officers themselves, some of the detail of what really happened on the Death Railway, for good or ill, is revealed here.
Download or read book Yamashita s Ghost written by Allan A. Ryan and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I don't blame my executioners. I will pray God bless them. " So said General Tomoyuki Yamashita, Japan's most accomplished military commander, as he stood on the scaffold in Manila in 1946. His stoic dignity typified the man his U.S. Army defense lawyers had come to deeply respect in the first war crimes trial of World War II. Moments later, he was dead. But had justice been served? Allan A. Ryan reopens the case against Yamashita to illuminate crucial questions and controversies that have surrounded his trial and conviction, but also to deepen our understanding of broader contemporary issues-especially the limits of command accountability. The atrocities of 1944 and 1945 in the Philippines-rape, murder, torture, beheadings, and starvation, the victims often women and children-were horrific. They were committed by Japanese troops as General Douglas MacArthur's army tried to recapture the islands. Yamashita commanded Japan's dispersed and besieged Philippine forces in that final year of the war. But the prosecution conceded that he had neither ordered nor committed these crimes. MacArthur charged him, instead, with the crime-if it was one-of having "failed to control" his troops, and convened a military commission of five American generals, none of them trained in the law. It was the first prosecution in history of a military commander on such a charge. In a turbulent and disturbing trial marked by disregard of the Army's own rules, the generals delivered the verdict they knew MacArthur wanted. Yamashita's lawyers appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, whose controversial decision upheld the conviction over the passionate dissents of two justices who invoked, for the first time in U.S. legal history, the concept of international human rights. Drawing from the tribunal's transcripts, Ryan vividly chronicles this tragic tale and its personalities. His trenchant analysis of the case's lingering question-should a commander be held accountable for the crimes of his troops, even if he has no knowledge of them-has profound implications for all military commanders.
Download or read book Towards the Setting Sun written by James Bradley and published by Timothy Bradley. This book was released on 1984 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Prisoner of Japan written by Sir Harold Atcherley and published by Mereo Books. This book was released on 2013-04-19 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the course of the Second World War, more than a quarter of a million European and American soldiers were taken prisoner by the Japanese in Malaysia, the Dutch East Indies and the Pacific. They went on to suffer years of deprivation and brutality, most of them failing to survive at all. Harold Atcherley was fortunate enough to be one of the survivors. Throughout his time as a prisoner, from the fall of Singapore on 15th February 1942 until 14th September 1945, he kept a diary, which he was able to bring home with him. This book is based on that diary, along with other diaries and official documents. The original diary can now be viewed at The Imperial War Museum, London. He was fortunate enough to count among his friends and comrades the celebrated artist Ronald Searle, whose drawings have been used to illustrate his text; they give a far better impression of what life was like for a POW of the Japanese than mere words can, though neither words nor pictures could ever convey the appalling stench of disease and death on such a massive scale.
Download or read book The Happy Life written by Louis Napoleon Parker and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Z Special Unit written by Gavin Mortimer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-04-14 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading expert Gavin Mortimer tells the remarkable origin story of a wartime special forces unit that defied the odds. Z Special Unit, one of the most intrepid but arguably the most unsung of Allied Special Forces of the Second World War waged a guerrilla war against Japan for two years in the south-west Pacific. On some of their 81 operations Z Special Unit slipped into enemy harbours in canoes and silently mined ships before vanishing into the night; on others they parachuted into the dense Borneo jungle to fight with headhunters against the Japanese and on one occasion they landed on an Indonesian island and smuggled out the pro-Allied sultan from under Japanese noses. The Japanese weren't the only adversary that Z Special Unit encountered in the brutal terrain of the Pacific. In the mango swamps of Borneo and the dense jungle of Papua New Guinea they were faced with venomous snakes, man-eating crocodiles and deadly diseases. But it was the enemy soldiers who proved the most ruthless foe, beheading those Z Special Unit commandos who fell into their hands. Drawing on veteran interviews as well as operational reports and recently declassified SOE files, Gavin Mortimer explores the incredible history of this remarkable special forces unit and the band of commandoes that defied the odds.
Download or read book Railway Man A POW s Searing Account of War Brutality and Forgiveness written by Eric Lomax and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008-06-01 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is a remarkable true story of forgiveness--a tremendous testament to the courage that propels one toward remembrance, and finally, peace with the past. A classic war autobiography, The Railway Man is a powerful tale of survival and of the human capacity to understand even those who have done us unthinkable harm. From The Railway Man: The passion for trains and railroads is, I have been told, incurable. I have also learned that there is no cure for torture. These two afflictions have been intimately linked in the course of my life, and yet through some chance combination of luck and grace I have survived them both. I was born in Edinburgh, in the lowlands of Scotland, in 1919. My father was an official in the General Post Office there, a career which he had started as a boy of 16 and which he intended me to imitate to the letter. He was fascinated by telephony and telegraphy, and I grew up in a world in which tinkering and inventing and making were honoured past-times. I vividly remember the first time that my father placed a giant set of headphones around my ears and I heard, through the hiss and buzz of far-off-energies, a disembodied human voice. In the worst times, much later, when I thought I was about to die in pain and shock at the hands of men who could not imagine anything of my life, who had no respect for who I was or my history, I might have wished that my father had had a different passion. But in the 1920s, technology was still powerful and beautiful without being menacing. Who would have thought that a radio, for example, could cause terrible harm? It seemed to be a wonderful instrument by which people could speak to each other; and yet I heard Hitler ranting over airwaves, and saw two men beaten to death for their part in making such an instrument, and suffered for my own part in it for a half a century.
Download or read book No Better Friend written by Robert Weintraub and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The extraordinary tale of survival and friendship between a man and a dog in World War II. Flight technician Frank Williams and Judy, a purebred pointer, met in the most unlikely of places: an internment camp in the Pacific. Judy was a fiercely loyal dog, with a keen sense for who was friend and who was foe, and the pair's relationship deepened throughout their captivity. When the prisoners suffered beatings, Judy would repeatedly risk her life to intervene. She survived bombings and other near-death experiences and became a beacon not only for Frank but for all the men, who saw in her survival a flicker of hope for their own. Judy's devotion to those she was interned with was matched by their love for her, which helped keep the men and their dog alive despite the ever-present threat of death by disease or the rifles of the guards. At one point, deep in despair and starvation, Frank contemplated killing himself and the dog to prevent either from watching the other die. But both were rescued, and Judy spent the rest of her life with Frank. She became the war's only official canine POW, and after she died at age fourteen, Frank couldn't bring himself to ever have another dog. Their story -- of an unbreakable bond forged in the worst circumstances -- is one of the great undiscovered sagas of World War II.
Download or read book The Mothers written by Robert Briffault and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 868 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Eavesdropping on the Emperor written by Peter Kornicki and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-01 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Japanese signals were decoded at Bletchley Park, who translated them into English? When Japanese soldiers were taken as prisoners of war, who interrogated them? When Japanese maps and plans were captured on the battlefield, who deciphered them for Britain? When Great Britain found itself at war with Japan in December 1941, there was a linguistic battle to be fought--but Britain was hopelessly unprepared. Eavesdropping on the Emperor traces the men and women with a talent for languages who were put on crash courses in Japanese, and unfolds the history of their war. Some were sent with their new skills to India; others to Mauritius, where there was a secret radio intercept station; or to Australia, where they worked with Australian and American codebreakers. Translating the despatches of the Japanese ambassador in Berlin after his conversations with Hitler; retrieving filthy but valuable documents from the battlefield in Burma; monitoring Japanese airwaves to warn of air-raids--Britain depended on these forgotten 'war heroes'. The accuracy of their translations was a matter of life or death, and they rose to the challenge. Based on declassified archives and interviews with the few survivors, this fascinating, globe-trotting book tells their stories.
Download or read book 222 Cemeteries to See Before You Die written by Loren Rhoads and published by Black Dog & Leventhal. This book was released on 2024-08-27 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perfect for budding cemetery armchair travelers and serious taphophiles, this hauntingly beautiful guide to the world's most interesting and unusual cemeteries has been revised and updated to include 23 additional locations. Every year, millions of tourists flock to cemeteries around the globe to uncover hidden stories of their residents and admire the incredible architecture, stunning landscapes, and even wildlife in these open-air museums. In this lavishly photographic bucket list of the world’s most interesting cemeteries, author Loren Rhoads, who hosts the popular Cemetery Travel blog, details the history, eye-catching monuments, and other fascinating finds that make each destination unique. Entries include unforgettable cemeteries such as the Mount Koya cemetery in Japan, where 10,000 lanterns illuminate the forest setting; Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery which hosts gorgeous night tours of the Southern Gothic tombstones under moss-covered trees; and Il Cimitero Acattolico in Rome that is the final resting place of young poets John Keats and Percy Shelley. Whether you are a true taphophile (cemetery enthusiast) who seeks out obscure locations or a tourist who likes to incorporate not-to-be-missed cemeteries like Paris's Pere Lachaise and Arlington National Cemetery into your itinerary, 222 Cemeteries to See Before You Die is both a useful trip-planning tool and a browser's delight.
Download or read book The Railway Man A POW s Searing Account of War Brutality and Forgiveness Movie Tie in Editions written by Eric Lomax and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-04-11 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the PEN/Ackerley Prize The Railway Man is a remarkable memoir of forgiveness—a tremendous testament to the courage that propels one toward remembrance, and finally, peace with the past. Eric Lomax, sent to Malaya in World War II, was taken prisoner by the Japanese and put to punishing work on the notorious Burma-Siam railway. After the radio he illicitly helped to build in order to follow war news was discovered, he was subjected to two years of starvation and torture. He would never forget the interpreter at these brutal sessions. Fifty years after returning home from the war, marrying, and gaining the strength from his wife Patti to fight his demons, he learned the interpreter was alive. Through letters and meeting with his former torturer, Lomax bravely moved beyond bitterness drawing on an extraordinary will to extend forgiveness. Now a major motion picture starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman.
Download or read book The Final Betrayal written by Mark Felton and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2010-06-19 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the period between the unconditional surrender of Japan on 14 August 1945, and the arrival of Allied liberation forces in Japanese-occupied territories after 2 September 1945. The delay handed the Japanese a golden opportunity to set their house in order before Allied war crimes investigators arrived. After 14 August groups of Allied POWs were brutally murdered. Vast amounts of documentation concerning crimes were burned ahead of the arrival of Allied forces. POW facilities and medical experimentation installations were either abandoned or destroyed. Perhaps the greatest crimes were continuing deaths of Allied POWs from starvation, disease and ill-treatment after the Japanese surrender. The blame rests with the American authorities, and particularly General MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific. MacArthur expressly forbade any Allied forces from liberating Japanese occupied territories before he had personally taken the formal Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. Vice Admiral Lord Mountbatten, Commanding Allied forces in Southeast Asia, protested against this policy, believing that pandering to MacArthurs vanity and ego would mean condemning many starving and sick prisoners to death. Deaths among British and Commonwealth POWs were significant as opposed to American POWs who were already largely liberated in the Philippines and elsewhere.
Download or read book Nagasaki The Forgotten Prisoners written by John Willis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-08-02 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is one of the most remarkable untold stories of the Second World war. At 11.02 am on an August morning in 1945 America dropped the world's most powerful atomic bomb on the Japanese port city of Nagasaki. The most European city in Japan was flattened to the ground 'as if it had been swept aside by a broom'. More than 70,000 Japanese were killed. At the time, hundreds of Allied prisoners of war were working close to the bomb's detonation point, as forced labourers in the shipyards and foundries of Nagasaki. These men, from the Dales of Yorkshire and the dusty outback of Australia, from the fields of Holland and the remote towns of Texas, had already endured an extraordinary lottery of life and death that had changed their lives forever. They had lived through nearly four years of malnutrition, disease, and brutality. Now their prison home was the target of America's second atomic bomb. In one of the greatest survival stories of the Second World War, we trace their astonishing experiences back to bloody battles in the Malayan jungle, before the dramatic fall of Fortress Singapore, the mighty symbol of the British Empire. This abject capitulation was followed by surrender in Java and elsewhere in the East, condemning the captives to years of cruel imprisonment by the Japanese. Their lives grew evermore perilous when thousands of prisoners were shipped off to build the infamous Thai-Burma Railway, including the Bridge on the River Kwai. If that was not harsh enough, POWs were then transported to Japan in the overcrowded holds of what were called hell ships. These rusty buckets were regularly sunk by Allied submarines, and thousands of prisoners lived through unimaginable horror, adrift on the ocean for days. Some still had to endure the final supreme test, the world's second atomic bomb. The prisoners in Nagasaki were eyewitnesses to one of the most significant events in modern history but writing notes or diaries in a Japanese prison camp was dangerous. To avoid detection, one Allied prisoner buried his notes in the grave of a fellow POW to be reclaimed after the war, another wrote his diary in Irish. Now, using unpublished and rarely seen notes, interviews, and memoirs, this unique book weaves together a powerful chorus of voices to paint a vivid picture of defeat, endurance, and survival against astonishing odds.
