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Author: Jan Slimming
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1399085719
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 310
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Book Description
What would it be like to leave your loved ones behind knowing you may never see them again? Then depart on a ship in the dead of night heading for an unknown destination and find yourself in the heat of a battle which concludes in enemy conditions so terrible that your survival in captivity is still under threat? Cultivated from a small, faded, address book secretly written by a young soldier in the Royal Army Service Corps, Captured at Singapore, is a POW story of adventure, courage resilience and luck. In 1940, Londoner Stanley Moore became Driver T/170638 and trained for desert warfare along with many others in the British Army’s 18th Division. Their mission, they thought, was to fight against Hitler and fascism in the Middle East. But in a change of plan and destination, he and his fellow servicemen became sacrificial lambs on a continent much further from home. After tough rudimentary combat training in England, Stan’s division set off on a secret overseas mission. After months at sea, and several unexpected ports of call, their convoy was redirected to the other side of the world as the Imperial Japanese Army rampaged across Manchuria, Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. Singapore was under sole British jurisdiction and a large naval base had been built after the First World War to defend the island at the foot of the Malay Peninsula. The British Government believed Japan would never attack their prize territory and so left Singapore to fight for itself with limited troops and outdated equipment. But after an attack on Pearl Harbor, the under-trained and undersupplied 18th Division was redirected to fight the Japanese. Using extensive research and personal documents, the authors’ account - via their father’s small, faded, diary and his 1990 tape recording - tells of Stan’s journey and arrival in Keppel harbor under shellfire; the horrific 17 day battle to defend the island, the Japanese Admonition and the harrowing forced labour conditions after capitulation. Only a small percentage of the 85,000 British troops returned after the war. Captivity and years of trauma ultimately stole years of the young soldiers’ lives, which they were later ordered to forget by the British Government. The aim of this work is to provide information for future generations to understand how ordinary men died under horrific conditions of war, and how the lucky survived.
Author: Jan Slimming
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1399085719
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Get Book
Book Description
What would it be like to leave your loved ones behind knowing you may never see them again? Then depart on a ship in the dead of night heading for an unknown destination and find yourself in the heat of a battle which concludes in enemy conditions so terrible that your survival in captivity is still under threat? Cultivated from a small, faded, address book secretly written by a young soldier in the Royal Army Service Corps, Captured at Singapore, is a POW story of adventure, courage resilience and luck. In 1940, Londoner Stanley Moore became Driver T/170638 and trained for desert warfare along with many others in the British Army’s 18th Division. Their mission, they thought, was to fight against Hitler and fascism in the Middle East. But in a change of plan and destination, he and his fellow servicemen became sacrificial lambs on a continent much further from home. After tough rudimentary combat training in England, Stan’s division set off on a secret overseas mission. After months at sea, and several unexpected ports of call, their convoy was redirected to the other side of the world as the Imperial Japanese Army rampaged across Manchuria, Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. Singapore was under sole British jurisdiction and a large naval base had been built after the First World War to defend the island at the foot of the Malay Peninsula. The British Government believed Japan would never attack their prize territory and so left Singapore to fight for itself with limited troops and outdated equipment. But after an attack on Pearl Harbor, the under-trained and undersupplied 18th Division was redirected to fight the Japanese. Using extensive research and personal documents, the authors’ account - via their father’s small, faded, diary and his 1990 tape recording - tells of Stan’s journey and arrival in Keppel harbor under shellfire; the horrific 17 day battle to defend the island, the Japanese Admonition and the harrowing forced labour conditions after capitulation. Only a small percentage of the 85,000 British troops returned after the war. Captivity and years of trauma ultimately stole years of the young soldiers’ lives, which they were later ordered to forget by the British Government. The aim of this work is to provide information for future generations to understand how ordinary men died under horrific conditions of war, and how the lucky survived.
Author: Colin Smith
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141906626
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 969
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Book Description
Churchill's description of the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942, after Lt-Gen Percival's surrender led to over 100,000 British, Australian and Indian troops falling into the hands of the Japanese, was no wartime exaggeration. The Japanese had promised that there would be no Dunkirk in Singapore, and its fall led to imprisonment, torture and death for thousands of allied men and women. With much new material from British, Australian, Indian and Japanese sources, Colin Smith has woven together the full and terrifying story of the fall of Singapore and its aftermath. Here, alongside cowardice and incompetence, are forgotten acts of enormous heroism; treachery yet heart-rending loyalty; Japanese compassion as well as brutality from the bravest and most capricious enemy the British ever had to face.
Author: Jon Diamond
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473845580
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
In just 10 weeks from 8 December 1941 to mid February 1942, British and Imperial forces were utterly defeated by the numerically inferior Japanese under General Yamashita. British units fought hard on the Malayan mainland but the Japanese showed greater mobility, cunning and tactical superiority. Morale was badly affected by the loss of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse to Japanese aircraft on 19 December as they sought out enemy shipping. Panic set in as military and civilians withdrew south to Singapore. Thought to be an impregnable fortress, its defences against land attacks were shockingly deficient. General Percival's leadership was at best uninspired and at worst incompetent. Once the Allied troops withdrew to Singapore it was only a matter of time before surrender became inevitable. To make matters worse reinforcements arrived but only in time to be made POWs. The whole catastrophe is brilliantly described in this highly illustrated book.
Author: Ong Chit Chung
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd
ISBN: 9814435449
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 330
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Book Description
When Singapore fell to the Japanese in February 1942, Churchill called it the “largest capitulation in British history.” Till today, the myth persists that this was due to the British forces’ being caught off-guard, with their guns facing the wrong direction—towards the sea. This book offers an alternative insight into why Malaya and Singapore were captured by the Japanese. The question of the landward defence of Singapore and Malaya was first raised as early as 1918, eventually taking the form of Operation Matador, the elaborate planning and preparations for which amply demonstrate that the British fully expected the Japanese to attack Singapore from the rear, and had formulated a plan to stop the Japanese at the Kra Isthmus. Yet, when the Japanese forces landed, they found Malaya and Singapore defended by an emasculated fleet, obsolescent aircraft, inadequate artillery and no tanks. The battle for Malaya and Singapore was lost even before the first shot was fired—in the corridors of power at Whitehall. Churchill’s half-hearted support for Operation Matador meant that Malaya was starved of the necessary reinforcements, and the commanders on the spot were expected to “make bricks without straw.” The question that remains: If implemented, might Operation Matador have stopped the Japanese?
Author: Lionel Wigmore
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780732200442
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: Thean Soo Lim
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Historical fiction, English
Languages : en
Pages : 212
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Book Description
Author: Lt.-Gen. Henry Gordon Bennett
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1786257424
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
Includes more than 30 maps, plans and illustrations The fall of Singapore, the “Gibraltar of the East”, struck by the Imperial Japanese troops during the lightning Malaya campaign of 1942 was a great shock to the Allied cause during the Second World War. No less a person than Prime Minister Winston Churchill assessed it as the “worst disaster” and the “largest capitulation” in British military history. 85,000 British, Indian and Australian troops were marched into the captivity with 50,000 others who had been captured already in the campaign, their fate was to be a barbaric fate in the hands of the Japanese. Their commanders were to be made scapegoats and pilloried for not stopping the disaster, but the true blame in large part lies elsewhere... Australian General Henry Gordon Bennett’s account of the disaster is a gripping defence of his part in the campaign. Sent troops who were ill-equipped, with no experience, and little proper training; the Singapore command attempted to defend their position. Impregnable from seaborne assault, the walls, bastions and fixed positions were no help against the inland advance of the Japanese and with few antiquated fighters to protect them against the heavy air bombardment the Gordon Bennett and his men struggled against the odds. Starved of reinforcements, withheld in Australia and Great Britain, the men and their commanders had to do the best with what they had. In this fascinating book it would seem like the island fortress was doomed from the start in spite of the misguided high hopes of the high command.
Author: Penrod Dean
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781740307093
Category : Changi (Singapore : Concentration camp)
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
Few Australian prisoners of the Japanese in World War II escaped from custody, but Penrod Dean was one of those few. A lieutenant in the Second AIF he was among the thousands captured at the fall of Singapore. Dean and a fellow serviceman escaped from Changi POW camp in 1942. Neither man knew it at the time, but their adventures and their tribulations were just beginning. While on the run they succeeded in sabotaging the Japanese war effort, fell in with the Chinese Communist guerrilla group, and then moved on, alone in the jungles of Malaya. Eventually they were betrayed to their enemies, mercilessly tortured and sentenced to two years solitary confinement at the notorious Outram Road prison in Singapore. Incredibly, Dean taught himself Japanese while in his tiny cell, and worked as a translator after his release back to Changi. He was one of ten Australians chosen to go to Japan and appear as a witness at the Major War Trials.
Author: Oswald Wellington Gilmour
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781734769180
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
This is the vivid and authentic story of the author's escape from Singapore just before the island fell to the Japanese in 1942 during the Second World War. It describes his grueling experiences in reaching the safety of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) via land and sea.Deserving its place in the first-hand accounts of civilian adventures during WWII, Singapore to Freedom illuminates in detail what later became know as "the Malayan tragedy".Mr. Gilmour was Deputy Municipal Engineer of Singapore before the war began, and his absorbing narrative of the hazards and hardships of his experience makes for a book not easily abandoned.
Author: Alistair Urquhart
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1628731508
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
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.
