from PIER50

An extrordinary tale of one man's war in Burma. Working on the 'Death Railway' and the bridge on the River Kwai and then being torpedoes on a Japanese ship by the Americans, Alistair Urquhart endured appalling treatment at the hands of the Japenese. The fact that he survived, and is still alive a...

from Chris_El

Recently someone I spoke with mentioned in passing how the Japanese didn't deserve the atom bomb like the Germans deserved it. It was a passing comment in the midst of a group conversation that didn't politely give me a chance to disagree. But, the truth is that the Japanese were just as evil as ...

from expatscot

The vast majority of those of us who feel we have some understanding of the deprivations endured by the allied prisoners of war of the Japanese and their Korean partners will still be taken aback by the searing descriptions contained in this book. The long-term effects, for example, I had not rea...

from Miro

I highly recommend this account of a survivor of WW2 Japanese captivity and the slave work camps of the Burma Siam railway. Urquhart remarkably manages to come out alive after years of atrocious conditions and abuse which he recounts in a straightforward way. It was nothing like the film version,...

from mackthefinger

Truly inspiring account of one mans experience of the second world war in the far east. The early passages are fairly standard - young man growing up in Aberdeen, liked ballroom dancing, starting his working life. Along comes WW2 and he's sent to Singapore. I enjoyed this section of the book that...