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Author : Guus Fonteijn
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2020-03-15
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0648568296
Diary of a Dutch, Jewish prisoner on the Thai-Burma railway during WWII. This is a harrowing account of forced labour in the jungle under horrific conditions of privation and disease.
Author : H. Robert Charles
Publisher : Quarto Publishing Group USA
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2006-11-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781616737603
An American Marine recounts his ordeal as a World War II POW forced by the Japanese to build the railway immortalized in The Bridge on the River Kwai. From June 1942 to October 1943, more than 100,000 Allied POWs who had been forced into slave labor by the Japanese died building the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway, an undertaking immortalized in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai. One of the few who survived was American Marine H. Robert Charles, who describes the ordeal in vivid and harrowing detail in Last Man Out. The story mixes the unimaginable brutality of the camps with the inspiring courage of the men, such as a Dutch Colonial Army doctor whose skill and knowledge of the medicinal value of wild jungle herbs saved the lives of hundreds of his fellow POWs, including the author. Praise for Last Man Out “A remarkable story, long overdue, of the treatment of POW’s captured by Japan.” —Arthur L. Maher, USN, Senior officer to survive sinking of the USS Houston, POW of the Japanese in World War II “In World War II, to move materials and troops from Japan to Burma by avoiding the perilous sea route around the Malay Peninsula, the Japanese military built a railroad through the jungles of Thailand and Burma at great human cost to its prisoner laborers. Last Man Out is an effective addition to the history of this tragedy.” —Library Journal
Author : Hilary Custance Green
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 325 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2016-08-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9781473870024
The ordeals of the POWs put to slave labour by their Japanese masters on the Burma Railway have been well documented yet never cease to shock. It is impossible not to be horrified and moved by their stoic courage in the face of inhuman brutality, appalling hardship and ever-present death.While Barry Custance Baker was enduring his 1000 days of captivity, his young wife Phyllis was attempting to correspond with him and the families of Barrys unit. Fortunately these moving letters have been preserved and appear, edited by their daughter Hilary, in this book along with Barrys graphic memoir written after the War. Surviving the Death Railways combination of first-hand account, correspondence and comment provide a unique insight into the long nightmare experienced by those in the Far East and at home. The result is a powerful and inspiring account of one of the most shameful chapters in the history of mankind which makes for compelling reading.
Author : Barry Custance Baker
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2016
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1473870003
The ordeals of the POWs put to slave labor by their Japanese masters on the 'Burma Railway' have been well documented yet never cease to shock. It is impossible not to be horrified and moved by their stoic courage in the face of inhuman brutality, appalling hardship and ever-present death. While Barry Custance Baker was enduring his 1000 days of captivity, his young wife Phyllis was attempting to correspond with him and the families of Barry's unit. Fortunately these moving letters have been preserved and appear, edited by their daughter Hilary, in this book along with Barry's graphic memoir written after the War. Surviving the Death Railway's combination of first-hand account, correspondence and comment provide a unique insight into the long nightmare experienced by those in the Far East and at home. The result is a powerful and inspiring account of one of the most shameful chapters in the history of mankind which makes for compelling reading.
Author : Kyle Thompson
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 1994
Category : History
ISBN : WISC:89062200696
A Thousand Cups of Rice by Kyle Thompson, is an intimate account of what happened to this American teenager when he and his battalion of field artillery men were captured early in the war, and spent three and one half years under the heel of Imperial Japanese Army. This small group of mostly Texas National Guardsmen along with hundreds of thousands of Allied POWs and Asian coolie laborers were forced to undergo inhuman mental and physical stress while constructing the 265-mile "Death Railway" through the jungles of Burma and Thailand, and before it was completed in late 1943, more than 100,000 of them had been killed or died of horrible diseases. The heartless Asian monsoon contributed to these deaths, but mostly they were caused by long hours of hard labor, an extreme shortage of food, and little or no medical treatment for the numerous jungle diseases that struck these laborers.
Author : H. Robert Charles
Publisher : Motorbooks
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2006-11-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 076032820X
From June 1942 to October 1943, more than 100,000 Allied POWs who had been forced into slave labor by the Japanese died building the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway, an undertaking immortalized in the film "The Bridge on the River Kwai." One of the few who survived was American Marine H. Robert Charles, who describes the ordeal in vivid and harrowing detail in Last Man Out. The story mixes the unimaginable brutality of the camps with the inspiring courage of the men, including a Dutch Colonial Army doctor whose skill and knowledge of the medicinal value of wild jungle herbs saved the lives of hundreds of his fellow POWs, including the author.
Author : Jim Brigginshaw
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 157 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2018-06-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781526740113
This is a remarkable and unique story of Jim Brigginshaw. Having been captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore in 1942, Jim was first sent to work in Burma, to build what has become known as the Death Railway. Unlike many of his comrades, Jim survived this ordeal, only to be transferred to Nagasaki, Japan, where he was sent to work in the mines of Sendryu.Jim describes how the conditions in the 'Hell pits of Sendryu' were even worse than those experienced in Burma, but were ultimately the reason why he survived the war. On the 9th August 1945, the Americans, dropped the second nuclear bomb on Nagaski. Jim was fortunately underground at the time, but through this book re-lives the harrowing aftermath of the attack when the ground shook violently.
Author : Paul H. Kratoska
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 476 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : History
ISBN : 0415309514
Author : John Coast,Laura Noszlopy
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2014-05-13
Category : Prisoners of war
ISBN : 1905802935
The original, classic account of the "River Kwai" railway
Author : Reg Twigg
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2013-05-23
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780241965108
Survivor on the River Kwai is the heartbreaking story of Reg Twigg, one of the last men standing from a forgotten war. Called up in 1940, Reg expected to be fighting Germans. Instead, he found himself caught up in the worst military defeat in modern British history - the fall of Singapore to the Japanese. What followed were three years of hell, moving from one camp to another along the Kwai river, building the infamous Burma railway for the all-conquering Japanese Imperial Army. Some prisoners coped with the endless brutality of the code of Bushido by turning to God; others clung to whatever was left of the regimental structure. Reg made the deadly jungle, with its malaria, cholera, swollen rivers, lethal snakes and exhausting heat, work for him. With an ingenuity that is astonishing, he trapped and ate lizards, harvested pumpkins from the canteen rubbish heap and with his homemade razor became camp barber. That Reg survived is testimony to his own courage and determination, his will to beat the alien brutality of camp guards who had nothing but contempt for him and his fellow POWs. He was a risk taker whose survival strategies sometimes bordered on genius. Reg's story is unique. Reg Twigg was born at Wigston (Leicester) barracks on 16 December 1913. He was called up to the Leicestershire Regiment in 1940 but instead of fighting Hitler he was sent to the Far East, stationed at Singapore. When captured by the Japanese, he decided he would do everything to survive. After his repatriation from the Far East, Reg returned to Leicester. With his family he returned to Thailand in 2006, and revisited the sites of the POW camps. Reg died in 2013, at the age of ninety-nine, two weeks before the publication of this book.
Author : Kelly E. Crager
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2008-01-22
Category : History
ISBN : 1585446351
Late in 1940, the young men of the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment stepped off the trucks at Camp Bowie in Brownwood, Texas, ready to complete the training they would need for active duty in World War II. Many of them had grown up together in Jacksboro, Texas, and almost all of them were eager to face any challenge. Just over a year later, these carefree young Texans would be confronted by horrors they could never have imagined. The battalion was en route to bolster the Allied defense of the Philippines when they received news of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Soon, they found themselves ashore on Java, with orders to assist the Dutch, British, and Australian defense of the island against imminent Japanese invasion. When war came to Java in March 1942, the Japanese forces overwhelmed the numerically inferior Allied defenders in little more than a week. For more than three years, the Texans, along with the sailors and marines who survived the sinking of the USS Houston, were prisoners of the Imperial Japanese Army. Beginning in late 1942, these prisoners-of-war were shipped to Burma to accelerate completion of the Burma-Thailand railway. These men labored alongside other Allied prisoners and Asian conscript laborers to build more than 260 miles of railroad for their Japanese taskmasters. They suffered abscessed wounds, near-starvation, daily beatings, and debilitating disease, and 89 of the original 534 Texans taken prisoner died in the infested, malarial jungles. The survivors received a hero’s welcome from Gov. Coke Stevenson, who declared October 29, 1945, as “Lost Battalion Day” when they finally returned to Texas. Kelly E. Crager consulted official documentary sources of the National Archives and the U.S. Army and mined the personal memoirs and oral history interviews of the “Lost Battalion” members. He focuses on the treatment the men received in their captivity and surmises that a main factor in the battalion’s comparatively high survival rate (84 percent of the 2nd Battalion) was the comraderie of the Texans and their commitment to care for each other. This narrative is grueling, yet ultimately inspiring. Hell under the Rising Sun will be a valuable addition to the collections of World War II historians and interested general readers alike.
Author : Kalman Dubov
Publisher : Kalman Dubov
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2021-12-05
Category : History
ISBN : 8210379456XXX
I visited New Zealand twice, in December 2017, and in March 2020. Both instances were while I was on the cruise ship, the magnificent Amsterdam, Holland America Lines flagship. This book reflects on my time in New Zealand during the first visit. The second visit was a time of increasing awareness of the dangers of Covid-19, soon causing many countries to close their ports to visitors. My review and analysis of New Zealand begin with its geography, reviewing the micro-continent, now reflecting but the remnant of a larger and now non-existent landmass. I focus on New Zealand's three main islands, its geography, flora, and fauna. I then discuss the arrival of the Maori, a controversial topic, with most scholars agreeing to the 1280 CE year when they arrived on these islands. An alternate view claims the Maori arrived here many centuries earlier, though no evidence validates this claim. Regardless of when they arrived, the Maori retain their own culture, cuisine, dress and way of living. Modern New Zealand’s history begins with the arrival of the famed English explorer James Cook in 1769, followed by English settlers. The arrival of Europeans changed the country and the way the Maori related to each other as well as to the new European arrivals. The Musket Wars saw the first change. These were wars fought between the Maori, with added lethality of using European weaponry. That consequence of the wars prompted the signing of the Waitangi Treaty, which many Maori chieftains agreed to in exchange for receiving Crown protection and citizenship. This Treaty, however, was in two versions: an English and another in Maori, resulting in the debate of what the Maori actually agreed to, and if they surrendered sovereignty by signing the document. The Treaty and its provisions are today the subject of controversy, with the government agreeing to compensations for Maori losses. Some of those losses resulted from confiscations during the New Zealand Wars when rebellious Maori were suppressed and the land was taken from them. I also review the different wars fought by New Zealand, first as a British colony, and later as an independent Commonwealth. New Zealanders are proud of their connection to the ‘Mother Country.’ When Britain was involved in the conflict, New Zealand immediately stood at her side, committing soldiers in her defense. also review the French attack on the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace ship, an act sanctioned by the highest echelon of the French government. New Zealand was shocked by the reticence of Western world powers against this attack. The fact New Zealand stood alone in the face of this attack on its territory made it realize it had to adopt its own political agenda. Perhaps because New Zealand stood alone in the aftermath of this French attack on its soil bolstered its leadership to declare a national anti-nuclear policy. That policy resulted in harsh rhetoric and distance from the United States, though the ANZUS Treaty was not abrogated as a result. New Zealand today remains a member of the Five Eyes, consisting of a consortium of English-speaking countries that gathers and shares intelligence. New Zealand has a small but active Jewish community, primarily in Auckland and Wellington. I visited the Auckland Jewish community and was able to assess the country's relationship with the State of Israel. The section on My Visit reflects visiting Waitangi House in the Bay of Islands, Tauranga, Rotorua as well as Auckland. New Zealand is a beautiful country and I was enriched by visiting and becoming aware of its history, traditions, and people. I hope that the pandemic will be history to once again sail the waters and visit this distant land.
Author : Kalman Dubov
Publisher : Kalman Dubov
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2021-11-24
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 8210379456XXX
The continent of Australia has an ancient and modern history. Aborigines arrived at this continent an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, living a hunter-gatherer existence while developing unique ways to live and thrive on this land. That idyllic life ended in 1770 when the great British explorer James Cook discovered the continent. Just eighteen years later, in 1788, the First Fleet of convict ships from England established a colony at Botany Bay, near today's city of Sydney. The settlement grew and developed, while additional convict ships and settlers came to this continent to make a new home and life for themselves. As the number of settlers increased, there was a corresponding series of attacks on the Aborigines. Massacres took many lives, while European diseases for which the Aborigines had no immunity, decimated these ancient communities. I review this tragic interaction between these two diverse cultures which continues today. I also explore the Stolen Generation, the racist and genocidal policy of forcibly removing Aboriginal children from their parents and community, then giving these children to white parents to be raised in an atmosphere intolerant to the Aboriginal culture and history. An estimated 100,000 children were taken in this manner, remembered nationally and annually as Sorry Day. In addition, an estimated 500,000 white children were taken from parents and given to others. While forcibly negating and outlawing native cultures has taken place in many countries, where dominant values are identified as superior to the older and subjugated culture, the forcible removal of hundreds of thousands of white children from parents reflects a policy that begs to be examined in depth. I also review the establishment of a Royal Commission that examined sexual predatory attacks on children, both in the Roman Catholic Church, by diocesan and order priests (brothers) while these children were wards of these religious institutions by order of the federal government. I also explore the percentages of prelates who acted in this criminal manner. This issue has been faced in several other countries, with resulting questions regarding the role Catholic priests and their bishops have in teaching religious values while protecting their charges from sexual abuse. The Jewish community too has been charged in this scourge. Two religious schools in Melbourne were charged with knowledge of such attacks taking place in these schools but the rabbinic leadership neither reported the abuse to civil authorities nor made efforts to stop it. In this regard, I explore the Jewish law inhibiting such reporting to secular authorities. In fact, the historic and traditional Jewish community standard prefers to protect the predator and not protect the victimized child. This standard is gradually changing as progressive awareness is made into the corrosive atmosphere surrounding a victimized child and the enormous psychological and emotional costs endured by the child for the remainder of his or her life. The theme of sexual abuse is also present with regard to Malka Leifer. This woman was charged with over seventy counts of criminal behavior while having a senior administrative and teaching role in a leading ultra-Orthodox religious school for girls. She became a cause célèbre with international intrigue between Australia and Israel when she escaped Australian shores for refuge in Israel. Years of legal wrangling ensued, by many Israeli courts, including the Supreme Court, each examining the increasing furor if this woman should be extradited to face criminal charges in Australia. Malka Leifer was only recently returned to Australia, now finally awaiting has moment of facing her accusers in open court. This volume also reviews and analyzes each war Australians fought in, from the Second Boer War, First World War, Second World War, Korean and Vietnam Wars, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These conflicts culminated with the ANZUS Treaty, with a military cooperation agreement between the United States, Australia and New Zealand. The United States identified New Zealand as standing against the West when it promulgated its anti-nuclear zone. New Zealand identified with smaller Pacific island nations that condemned nuclear testing on remote Pacific islands and the resulting fallout with consequent health issues they face because of such testing. I was on the Holland American Grand Voyage while visiting Australian ports. I review the different Australian ports the Amsterdam came to, such as Darwin, Brisbane, and Sydney. I review each of these cities, both as the country developed and modernly, with these cities taking on more developed economic power.
Author : Alistair Urquhart
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2010-10-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781628731507
Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders, captured by the Japanese in Singapore. Forced into manual labor as a POW, he survived 750 days in the jungle working as a slave on the notorious “Death Railway” and building the Bridge on the River Kwai. Subsequently, he moved to work on a Japanese “hellship,” his ship was torpedoed, and nearly everyone on board the ship died. Not Urquhart. After five days adrift on a raft in the South China Sea, he was rescued by a Japanese whaling ship. His luck would only get worse as he was taken to Japan and forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later, he was just ten miles from ground zero when an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. In late August 1945, he was freed by the American Navy—a living skeleton—and had his first wash in three and a half years. This is the extraordinary story of a young man, conscripted at nineteen, who survived not just one, but three encounters with death, any of which should have probably killed him. Silent for over fifty years, this is Urquhart’s inspirational tale in his own words. It is as moving as any memoir and as exciting as any great war movie.
Author : Michael Truscello
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 378 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2020-09-01
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780262539043
How “drowned town” literature, road movies, energy landscape photography, and “death train” narratives represent the brutality of industrial infrastructures. In this book, Michael Truscello looks at the industrial infrastructure not as an invisible system of connectivity and mobility that keeps capitalism humming in the background but as a manufactured miasma of despair, toxicity, and death. Truscello terms this “infrastructural brutalism”—a formulation that not only alludes to the historical nexus of infrastructure and the concrete aesthetic of Brutalist architecture but also describes the ecological, political, and psychological brutality of industrial infrastructures. Truscello explores the necropolitics of infrastructure—how infrastructure determines who may live and who must die—through the lens of artistic media. He examines the white settler nostalgia of “drowned town” fiction written after the Tennessee Valley Authority flooded rural areas for hydroelectric projects; argues that the road movie represents a struggle with liberal governmentality; considers the ruins of oil capitalism, as seen in photographic landscapes of postindustrial waste; and offers an account of “death train narratives” ranging from the history of the Holocaust to postapocalyptic fiction. Finally, he calls for “brisantic politics,” a culture of unmaking that is capable of slowing the advance of capitalist suicide. “Brisance” refers to the shattering effect of an explosive, but Truscello uses the term to signal a variety of practices for defeating infrastructural power. Brisantic politics, he warns, would require a reorientation of radical politics toward infrastructure, sabotage, and cascading destruction in an interconnected world.