Prisoner of Japan
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Of the quarter of a million European and American soldiers who were taken prisoner by the Japanese in Malaysia, the Dutch East Indies and the Pacific most failed to survive.
The prisoners of the Japanese went on to suffer years of deprivation and brutality in the most appalling conditions. Sir Harold Atcherley was fortunate enough to be one of the survivors. Throughout his time as a prisoner, from the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 until 14 September 1945, he kept a diary, which he was able to bring home with him. This book is based on that diary, along with other diaries and official documents. The original diary can now be viewed at The Imperial War Museum, London.
He was fortunate enough to count among his friends and comrades the celebrated artist Ronald Searle, whose drawings have been used to illustrate his text; they give a far better impression of what life was like for a POW of the Japanese than mere words can, though neither words nor pictures could ever convey the appalling stench of disease and death on such a massive scale.
Sir Harold Atcherley
Born in 1918, Harold Atcherley served in the army throughout the war. He had the misfortune to land in Singapore with the 18th British Infantry Division in January 1942 and became a prisoner shortly afterwards when the island was surrendered to the Japanese. The War diary, which he kept during his three and a half years in captivity, records his experiences in Changi Prisoner of War Camp and hard labour on the construction of the Burma Thailand Railway. He returned home at the end of the war in 1945 and resumed his career with the Royal Dutch Shell Group the following year. He married Anita Leslie, with whom he had three children, and was posted to the Middle East in 1946. Some four years later he went to South America. He returned to work in England in 1960 and retired from the oil industry in 1970. For the next thirty years he served in a voluntary capacity as chairman of a number of government advisory groups, in recognition of which he was awarded a knighthood in 1977. He was also chairman of several charitable organisations including Toynbee Hall and the Aldeburgh Foundation. For the last 10 years he has lived in London with wife Sarah, finally retiring at the age of 80.
Related to Prisoner of Japan
Related ebooks
The Final Betrayal: MacArthur and the Tragedy of Japanese POWs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStateless: How I Helped Nineteen People Get Out of the North Korean Black Hole Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMemoires of Japan 1946: (A People Bowed but Not Broken) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEscape from the Japanese: The Amazing Tale of a PoWs Journey from Hong Kong to Freedom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Cruel Captivity: Prisoners of the Japanese: Their Ordeal and The Legacy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLast Man Out: Surviving the Burma-Thailand Death Railway: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter & Vietnamese Communist Agent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hubert Who? Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Australian Soldiers in Asia-Pacific in World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTakedown: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEncounters on the Front Line: Cambodia: A Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShips from Hell: Japanese War Crimes on the High Seas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Prisoners Of Japan: Did Rank Have Its Privilege? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMafia Cop: The Two Families of Michael Palermo; Saints Only Live in Heaven Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Doctor's Sword Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWith Lawrence in Arabia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brazilian Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beware of the Dog: Rugby's Hard Man Reveals All Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Me. And Me Now: A 1970s Kiwi Hippie Trail Adventure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Pacific War: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFoxtrot in Kandahar: A Memoir of a CIA Officer in Afghanistan at the Inception of America's Longest War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vagabond Heart Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5MacArthur Reconsidered: General Douglas MacArthur as a Wartime Commander Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo Wall Too High: One Man's Daring Escape from Mao's Darkest Prison Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My War Gone By, I Miss It So Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shanghai Policeman: With a New Foreword by Robert Bickers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Force Like No Other 2: The Next Shift: More real stories from the RUC men and women who policed the Troubles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Manaslu Adventure: Three Hapless Friends Try to Climb a Big Mountain: Footsteps on the Mountain Diaries Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Carnage: A succulent Chinese meal, Mr Rent-a-Kill and the Australian Manson murders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Military Biographies For You
Bipolar General: My Forever War with Mental Illness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf: The Original, Accurate, and Complete English Translation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Scars and Stripes: An Unapologetically American Story of Fighting the Taliban, UFC Warriors, and Myself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What It Is Like to Go to War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Caesar: Life of a Colossus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Rumor of War: The Classic Vietnam Memoir (40th Anniversary Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Right Kind of Crazy: My Life as a Navy SEAL, Covert Operative, and Boy Scout from Hell Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Ordinary Dog: My Partner from the SEAL Teams to the Bin Laden Raid Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Delta Force: A Memoir by the Founder of the U.S. Military's Most Secretive Special-Operations Unit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Personal Memoirs Of U.s. Grant Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant: Volumes One and Two Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Pledge to America: One Man's Journey from Political Prisoner to U.S. Navy SEAL Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5To Hell and Back: The Classic Memoir of World War II by America's Most Decorated Soldier Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Staring Down the Wolf: 7 Leadership Commitments That Forge Elite Teams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer - The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Prisoner of Japan
0 ratings0 reviews