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Book Cover
Book
Author MacArthur, Brian.

Title Surviving the sword : prisoners of the Japanese in the Far East, 1942-45 / Brian MacArthur
Published London : Abacus, 2006
©2005

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  940.547252 Mac/Sts  AVAILABLE
Description xvi, 494 pages : illustrations, 1 map ; 20 cm
Contents Pt I. 1. Surrender -- 2. Changi -- 3. The railway of death -- 4. The real story of the bridge on the River Kwai -- 5. "Speedo" -- 6. Sonkurai : Valley of the shadow of death -- 7. The railway opens -- Pt II. 8. Survival -- 9. Books -- 10. Food -- 11. Religion -- 12. Jungle medicine -- 13. Smoking Gone with the wind -- 14. King Rat -- 15. Letters -- 16. Entertainment -- 17. Sports -- 18. Ingenuity -- 19. The "canaries" -- 20. Officers and gentlemen -- Pt III. 21. The hellships -- 22. Japan -- 23. Haruku -- 24. Sandakan -- 25. Changi 1944-45 -- 26. Freedom -- 27. Home at last
Summary In this book, the author draws on the diaries of American, British, Dutch, and Australian Fepows (Far Eastern prisoners of war). Risking torture and execution to keep diaries and make sketches and drawings, the prisoner recorded not just a litany of horrors, but a moving statement to the nobler instincts of humanity as well. --book jacket
Many prisoners held by the Japanese during WWII were so scarred by their experiences that afterwards they could not discuss them even with their families, believing their brutal treatment was literally incomprehensible. But some were determined that posterity should know how they were starved and beaten, marched almost to death or transported on 'hellships,' used as slave labour, and how thousands died from tropical diseases. They risked torture or execution to keep secret diaries and make drawings that they hid wherever they could, sometimes in the graves of lost comrades. The diaries tell of inhumanity and degradation, but there are also inspirational stories of courage, comradeship and compassion. When men have unwillingly plumbed the depths of human misery, said one prisoner, the artist Ronald Searle, they form a silent understanding of what solidarity, friendship and kindness to others can mean. The diaries and interviews with surviving prisoners drawn on in SURVIVING THE SWORD tell a new generation about that solidarity, friendship and kindness
World history: Second World War
Notes First published: Time Warner Books, 2005
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [435]-439) and index
Subject Prisoners of war -- East Asia.
Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945 -- Atrocities.
Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945 -- Conscript labor -- East Asia.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Conscript labor -- East Asia.
Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, Japanese
World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, Japanese.
ISBN 0349119376 (paperback)