| Description |
304 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm |
| Contents |
Machine derived contents note: Introduction 6 -- Prologue A World of Fever and Pain 11 -- 1 Marching Orders 16 -- 2 Coming, Ready or Not 36 -- 3 Into the Firing Line 42 -- 4 Bleeding Slaughterhouse 58 -- 5 Flies and Filth 75 -- 6 A Happy Interlude 81 -- 7 Signing our Lives Away 94 -- 8 A Garden Party of Sorts 100 -- 9 Alive and Well 105 -- 10 Sayonara Syonanto 117 -- 11 Like Pigs to Market 123 -- 12 Dying a Slow Death 145 -- 13 A Program of Deliberate Murder 160 -- 14 One Step Nearer Home 179 -- 15 The Grim Circling of Vultures 185 -- 16 South to Singapore Again 194 -- 17 Waking up in Paradise 199 -- 18 Doom and Gloom 210 -- 19 Living Like Fighting Cocks 213 -- 20 The Turning Point 217 -- 21 Saved by the Bomb 237 -- 22 Home at Last 248 -- Epilogue Sixty Years On 257 -- Acknowledgments 294 -- Bibliography 296 -- Index 300 |
| Summary |
"This is the gripping story of Captain Hugh Pilkington's disastrous Malaya campaign in which he was shot by a Japanese sniper, became a PoW while hospitalised in Singapore, then- with only one good arm - was packed off to work on the Thai-Burma Death Railway. But he lived to tell the tale, and what a tale ... This account is refreshingly different because: * Pilkington survived the heinous Alexandra Hospital Massacre of February 1942 * He gives the only known account of PoWs travelling north by train to work camps along the Death Railway (most others marched up to 300 km) * His memoirs were completed in October 1945 while on a POW repatriation ship, hence providing this raw, unfiltered, surprisingly dispassionate voice, undistorted by time * Travel writer Stu Lloyd (who has spent 13 years in Southeast Asia) retraces the captain's steps with Pilkington's son, to uncover Pilkington's past as a rubber planter and soldier, and find out- with often surprising results- what the locals today make of that period they know largely as 'Japan time' About the author: Rhodesian-born, Stu Lloyd is one of the most widely published adventure travel writers in the Asia/Pacific, specialising in military and colonial history. He's had five non-fiction books previously published. His work appears in The Australian, Sun Herald, National Geographic Traveler, New Zealand Herald, South China Morning Post, etc. About Pilkington and Son: Captain Hugh Pilkington was born in India, 1904 and worked as a rubber planter in Malaya from 1922-37 before joining the Royal Norfolk Regiment in 1939. His knowledge of the tropics, landscape and language proved invaluable to the Allies. He died in 1982. His son, Paul, was born in 1941 and was nearly five before he met his father, back from war. A 'Ten Pound Pom' he migrated to Sydney in the Sixties and, like his father did, loves a good curry."--publisher |
| Notes |
Includes index |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 296-299) and index |
| Subject |
Lloyd, Stu, 1962- -- Travel -- Singapore.
|
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Lloyd, Stu, 1962- -- Travel -- Malaya
|
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Lloyd, Stu, 1962- -- Travel -- Thailand.
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Pilkington, Hugh.
|
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Pilkington, Hugh Patrick, 1904-1982.
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Burma-Siam Railroad.
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Changi POW Camp (Changi, Singapore)
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Prisoners of war -- Singapore -- Changi
-- ?́ƠBiography
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Prisoners of war -- Thailand -- Biography.
|
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Prisoners of war -- Thailand
-- ?́ƠBiography
|
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World War, 1939-1945 -- Malaya
|
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World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, British.
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Prisoners of war -- Singapore -- Changi -- Biography.
|
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Prisoners of war -- England -- Biography.
|
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World War, 1939-1945 -- Malaysia -- Malaya.
|
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World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, Japanese.
|
| Genre/Form |
Biography.
|
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Personal narratives
|
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Biographies.
|
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Personal narratives.
|
| Author |
Pilkington, Hugh.
|
| LC no. |
2009396552 |
| ISBN |
1877058777 |
|
9781877058776 |
|
