Download or read book Prisoners of the Sumatra Railway written by Lizzie Oliver and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-12-14 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prisoners of the Sumatra Railway is the first book to detail the experiences of British former prisoners of war (POWs) who were forced to construct a railway across Sumatra during the Japanese occupation. It is also the first study to be undertaken of the life-writing of POWs held captive by the Japanese during the Second World War, and the transgenerational responses in Britain to this period of captivity. This book brings to light previously unpublished materials, including: · Exceptionally rare and detailed diaries, notebooks and letters from the railway · Memoirs from Sumatra, including detailed recollections and post-war statements written by key personnel on the railway, such as Medical Officers and interpreters · Remarkable original artwork created by POWs on Sumatra · Contemporaneous photographs taken inside the camps Employing theories of life-writing, memory and war representation, including transgenerational transmission, Lizzie Oliver focuses particularly on what these documents can tell us about how former POWs tried to share, preserve and make sense of their experiences. It is a wholly original study that is of great value to Second World War scholars and anyone interested in 20th-century Southeast Asian history or war and memory.
Download or read book Death and Deprivation on the Forgotten Sumatra Railway written by James H. Banton and published by Pen & Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Henry Banton was born in Burton on Trent in 1920. He worked as a driver of a steam locomotive used to used to transport beer and supplies to breweries around the town. When war broke out Jim joined the RAF, eventually becoming a Leading Aircraftsman as part of the RAF's ground crew. During this time Jim had met the love of his life Dorothy Mason. Jim didn't know that when he left Gladstone Dock in Liverpool he would not see home or his family including Dorothy for another four and a half years. Eventually posted to the Far East he was captured by the Japanese in the hills on the island of Java. Used as slave labour, starved, beaten and witnessing death on a daily basis he was later put to work on the building of the Sumatra Railway. The Far East Prisoners of war became known as the Forgotten Army, however there has been little reference paid to the Sumatra Railway compared with other theatres of WW2. With this in mind the prisoners who worked on the Sumatra Railway could be considered to be the 'Forgotten of the Forgotten Army'. In August 1945 the world celebrated victory in Europe, however for the FEPOW's the war dragged on. As parts of the world were trying to return to normality Jim and his colleagues were being made to dig their own graves in the Sumatra jungle. The FEPOW's lives hung in the balance as orders had been issued to murder all POW's should mainland Japan be invaded by the Allies. This book is Jim's story and it is hoped it will also be a reminder not only of the sacrifice of the Forgotten Army but also highlight the suffering of the 'Forgotten of the Forgotten Army' - The Sumatra Railway POW's.
Download or read book Prisoners of the Sumatra Railway written by Lizzie Oliver and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-12-14 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prisoners of the Sumatra Railway is the first book to detail the experiences of British former prisoners of war (POWs) who were forced to construct a railway across Sumatra during the Japanese occupation. It is also the first study to be undertaken of the life-writing of POWs held captive by the Japanese during the Second World War, and the transgenerational responses in Britain to this period of captivity. This book brings to light previously unpublished materials, including: · Exceptionally rare and detailed diaries, notebooks and letters from the railway · Memoirs from Sumatra, including detailed recollections and post-war statements written by key personnel on the railway, such as Medical Officers and interpreters · Remarkable original artwork created by POWs on Sumatra · Contemporaneous photographs taken inside the camps Employing theories of life-writing, memory and war representation, including transgenerational transmission, Lizzie Oliver focuses particularly on what these documents can tell us about how former POWs tried to share, preserve and make sense of their experiences. It is a wholly original study that is of great value to Second World War scholars and anyone interested in 20th-century Southeast Asian history or war and memory.
Download or read book POW on the Sumatra Railway written by Christine Bridges and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2022-08-11 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Geoffrey Lee (always known as Geoff) joined the RAF on his 20th birthday in June 1941. He left Liverpool on a troop ship in December 1941, with no idea where he was going. He eventually arrived in Java, where he was captured by the Japanese, along with many others. During his time in captivity, he survived several camps in Java, Ambon and Singapore and three hell ship journeys. After being washed ashore in Sumatra, (as a ferry he was being transported on blew up), he was then recaptured and suffered sheer hell as a slave on the Sumatra Railway. Enduring bouts of malaria, beri beri, tropical ulcers and a starvation diet was bad enough, but this was exacerbated by the searing heat and extreme cruelty meted out to the prisoners by the Japanese and Korean guards. Geoff miraculously survived, weighing just 6 stone when he arrived back in Liverpool in December 1945. After his release he found he had difficulty in convincing people where he had been as no one had heard of the “Sumatra Railway”, only the other one, thousands of miles away in Burma. Letters to newspapers were returned as ‘Just another Burma Railway story’. The Ministry of Defence, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and The Imperial War Museum had no records of POW’s building a railway in Sumatra. So began Geoff’s journey, his aim... to prove to the establishment what he already knew to be true. This is Geoff's story of his captivity, release, and subsequent efforts in achieving his aim.
Download or read book The Sumatra Railroad written by H. Hovinga and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the gripping historical tragedy of the 220 km railroad that bored its way through the hot, humid Sumatran jungle during World War II. The railway was commissioned by Japan and built with the blood and tears of Allied prisoners of war and press-ganged Javanese romushas. Henk Hovinga interviewed nearly one hundred former railroad workers and did painstaking archival research. The result is a moving book, richly illustrated with numerous authentic drawings of life in the internment camps, charts and photographs. The original Dutch version of The Sumatra Railroad has become the standard work on the crime of the Japanese railroad construction in Indonesia. Unfortunately this indescribable human catastrophe has always been overshadowed by the drama of the notorious Birma Railroad. This work is first and foremost a posthumous tribute to the thousands of slave workers who lost their lives for the Pakan Baroe Railroad. At the same time, it is a homage to the survivors, for whom the war traumas would never end.
Download or read book The Sumatra Railway Constructed During the 2nd World War on the Island of Sumatra written by H. Neumann and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Captured written by Brenda M. Tranter and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2022-08-03 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Australian Lieutenant, A.E. Tranter, from Heathcote, Victoria, (Australia) spends time in Malaya training young soldiers during the waiting period prior to WW2 in Asia. He survives the battle against the Japanese in Muar and the fall of Singapore, before escaping by boat to the wilds of Sumatra. However, his luck fails and he becomes one of the thousands of prisoners of war in the slave labour camps in Sumatra. He writes a tender book for his little daughter which he manages to keep hidden from the guards throughout his ordeal. Remarkably the book is all about the pleasant and beautiful things he has seen and learned in his enforced travel, even if witnessed from the heat and stench of locked box cars “ ... in spite of the discomfort , we saw much that was interesting and beautiful”. Despite this long ordeal, his writing conveys a message of tolerance, understanding and responsibility. Tranter is amongst those put to work building a road through the jungle in Atjeh, then later, the second death railway - the Pakenbaroe/Moeara Railway, ironically completed on the day WW2 ended; never used and now forgotten in Australia by all but a few. Here the Japanese and Koreans’ treatment of the prisoners becomes increasingly brutal with death and disease common, especially amongst “ the Romushas” - Asian enforced labourers - 80 000 of whom die. Meanwhile his little daughter is growing up in his hometown, under her mother’s care, both unaware of her father’s whereabouts.
Download or read book POW on the Sumatra Railway written by Christine Bridges and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2022-08-11 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Geoffrey Lee (always known as Geoff) joined the RAF on his 20th birthday in June 1941. He left Liverpool on a troop ship in December 1941, with no idea where he was going. He eventually arrived in Java, where he was captured by the Japanese, along with many others. During his time in captivity, he survived several camps in Java, Ambon and Singapore and three hell ship journeys. After being washed ashore in Sumatra, (as a ferry he was being transported on blew up), he was then recaptured and suffered sheer hell as a slave on the Sumatra Railway. Enduring bouts of malaria, beri beri, tropical ulcers and a starvation diet was bad enough, but this was exacerbated by the searing heat and extreme cruelty meted out to the prisoners by the Japanese and Korean guards. Geoff miraculously survived, weighing just 6 stone when he arrived back in Liverpool in December 1945. After his release he found he had difficulty in convincing people where he had been as no one had heard of the “Sumatra Railway”, only the other one, thousands of miles away in Burma. Letters to newspapers were returned as ‘Just another Burma Railway story’. The Ministry of Defence, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and The Imperial War Museum had no records of POW’s building a railway in Sumatra. So began Geoff’s journey, his aim... to prove to the establishment what he already knew to be true. This is Geoff's story of his captivity, release, and subsequent efforts in achieving his aim.
Download or read book Ambushed Under the Southern Cross written by George W. Duffy and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2008 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When George Duffy and his twenty-five classmate graduated from the Massachusetts Nautical School (MNS) on September 23, 1941, an era came to an end. Never again would the three-masted barque Nantucket to go to sea in her role as a sail training vessel for future merchant marine officers. They, also, became the last class to make two summer sail training cruises aboard, thus making the end of the school's tradition extending back to 1891. Those hardened young sailors were immediately recruited as deck and engineering officers into a rapidly growing United States merchant marine. Not quite a year after graduating from MNS, and just ten months into World War Two, George Duffy's good fortune came to an end, when his ship, the American Leader, was sunk by a German commerce raider. George and forty-six of his shipmates were plucked out of the South Atlantic Ocean and taken prisoner. This book relates his two spartan years in the Nantucket, the next rewarding year in the American Leader, and cover three years as prisoner in two German warships, and ten Japanese labor camps scattered over the southeast Asian islands of Java, Singapore, and Sumatra. In addition, a parallel tale recounts the life and career of a young German naval officer, Konrad Hoppe, who served in George's nemesis, the Hsk Michael. Many years after the war they met in Germany in, as Konrad expressed it, "Great delight that the fateful enmity has changed into a sincere friendship."
Download or read book The Sumatra Railroad written by Henk Hovinga and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[An account of the] historical tragedy of the 220 km railroad that bored its way through the hot, humid Sumatran jungle during World War II. The railway was commissioned by Japan and built with the blood and tears of Allied prisoners of war and press-ganged Javanese romushas ... [The author] interviewed nearly one hundred former railroad workers and did painstaking archival research ... [This book is] illustrated with ... authentic drawings of life in the internment camps, charts, and photographs"--Page 4 of cover.
Download or read book Death and Deprivation on the Forgotten Sumatra Railway written by James H. Banton and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Henry Banton was born in Burton on Trent in 1920. He worked as a driver of a steam locomotive used to transport beer and supplies to breweries around the town. When war broke out Jim joined the RAF, eventually becoming a Leading Aircraftsman as part of the RAF’s ground crew. During this time Jim had met the love of his life Dorothy Mason. Jim didn't know that when he left Gladstone Dock in Liverpool he would not see home or his family including Dorothy for another four and a half years. Eventually posted to the Far East he was captured by the Japanese in the hills on the island of Java. Used as slave labour, starved, beaten and witnessing death on a daily basis he was later put to work on the building of the Sumatra Railway. The Far East Prisoners of war became known as the Forgotten Army, however there has been little reference paid to the Sumatra Railway compared with other theatres of WW2. With this in mind the prisoners who worked on the Sumatra Railway could be considered to be the ‘Forgotten of the Forgotten Army’. In August 1945 the world celebrated victory in Europe, however for the FEPOW’s the war dragged on. As parts of the world were trying to return to normality Jim and his colleagues were being made to dig their own graves in the Sumatra jungle. The FEPOW’s lives hung in the balance as orders had been issued to murder all POW’s should mainland Japan be invaded by the Allies. This book is Jim’s story and it is hoped it will also be a reminder not only of the sacrifice of the Forgotten Army but also highlight the suffering of the ‘Forgotten of the Forgotten Army’ – The Sumatra Railway POW’s.
Download or read book The Sumatra Railway written by H. Neumann and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The British Sumatra Battalion written by Ann A. Apthorp and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Interpreting Memories of a Forgotten Army written by Elizabeth Veronica Oliver and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Tjideng Reunion written by Boudewijn van Oort and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two Dutch families leave South Africa for Java, motivated by patriotism. Caught in the events of WWII, they are interned, emerging four years later as refugees, to make a new life in a changed world.
Download or read book Traces of War written by Jan Banning and published by Trolley Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dutch photographer Jan Banning has interviewed and photographed 24 of the survivors of the Burma and Sumatra railways. The haunting images in this book show them as they worked, naked from the waist up. The words elicit, with a matter-of-fact disinterest, the misery of their constant understanding of death.
Download or read book The Sumatra Railway written by H. Neumann and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
