While it is the duty of an army to maintain enemy soldiers in prisoner-of-war (POW) camps, it is also the right of every POW soldier, irrespective of rank and nationality, to escape and to engage the enemy in whatever method possible. And when the stakes are as big as the Second World War, the stage is set for any challenge that a soldier may have to face& and overcome. This is a little known story of three young officers of the Indian Army, who escaped from a Japanese POW camp in Singapore and made their way through Malaya (now Malaysia), Thailand and Burma (now Myanmar) to reach India, over a period of six months. Travelling through a gruelling tract of arid forests, with a forever depleted stock of provisions and always in the constant fear of coming face to face with enemy forces, these young officers displayed raw courage and bravery in the face of complete annihilation.
Subject: Autobiography. Escape from Paradise is a contemporary and true woman?s story set in Singapore, Brunei, Australia, England, and the United States. It involves Singapore?s famous Tiger Balm family, and a wealthy and mysterious family from Brunei?and the link between them, a young Singaporean woman, May Chu Lee. From its first paragraph, the book draws the reader into the ambiance of a cosmopolitan Asia never touched upon by any other book ?
Weakened by hunger, thirst and ill-treatment, author Charles McCormac, then a World War Two prisoner-of-war in Japanese-occupied Singapore, knew that if he did not escape he would die. With sixteen others he broke out of Pasir Panjang camp and began an epic two-thousand-mile escape from the island of Singapore, through the jungles of Indonesia to Australia. With no compass and no map, and only the goodwill of villagers and their own wits to rely on, the British and Australian POWs’ escape took a staggering five months and only two out of the original seventeen men survived. You’ll Die in Singapore is Charles McCormac’s compelling true account of one of the most horrifying and amazing escapes in World War Two. It is a story of courage, endurance and compassion, and makes for a very gripping read.
Shortly after midnight on 8 December 1941, two divisions of crack troops of the Imperial Japanese Army began a seaborne invasion of southern Thailand and northern Malaya. Their assault developed into a full-blown advance towards Singapore, the main defensive position of the British Empire in the Far East. The defending British, Indian, Australian and Malayan forces were outmanoeuvred on the ground, overwhelmed in the air and scattered on the sea. By the end of January 1942, British Empire forces were driven back onto the island of Singapore Itself, cut off from further outside help. When the Japanese stormed the island with an an-out assault, the defenders were quickly pushed back into a corner from which there was no escape. Singapore’s defenders finally capitulated on 15 February, to prevent the wholesale pillage of the city itself. Their rapid and total defeat was nothing less than military humiliation and political disaster. Based on the most extensive use yet of primary documents in Britain, Japan, Australia and Singapore, Brian Farrell provides the fullest picture of how and why Singapore fell and its real significance to the outcome of the Second World War.
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.
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.
As one of the storied few who defeated the Nazi Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain, American Arthur G. Donahue wished to continue his service and requested overseas duty. In October 1941, he was sent to the British protectorate of Singapore as a precaution against a possible threat from Japan, which was already conducting a war in China. Within two months, all of Asia was thrown into turmoil as Japan - simultaneously bombed Hawaii and invaded the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. Japanese forces swiftly conquered much of Southeast Asia and began moving toward Burma and India. Here, Donahue tells his dramatic story, accompanied by photographs he took himself, of the intense and futile battle against the Japanese for control of the gateway to the Malay Peninsula.
The dark side of The Lion City is explored in a thrilling anthology that gives “plenty of new and unfamiliar voices a chance to shine” (San Francisco Book Review). The island city-state of Singapore harbors unique customs and traditions largely unknown to the West. A booming economy and embrace of conformity overshadow its gambling dens, red-light districts, and a collective passion for ghostly and gory tales. Now, in Singapore Noir, some of its best contemporary authors delve into its seedy side, including three winners of the Singapore Literature Prize: Simon Tay (writing as Donald Tee Quee Ho), Colin Cheong, and Suchen Christine Lim, whose contribution was named a finalist for the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award for Best P.I. Short Story. Eleven more tales showcase the talents of Colin Goh, Philip Jeyaretnam, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, Monica Bhide, S.J. Rozan, Lawrence Osborne, Ovidia Yu, Damon Chua, Johann S. Lee, Dave Chua, and Nury Vittachi. “Singapore, with its great wealth and great poverty existing amid ethnic, linguistic, and cultural tensions, offers fertile ground for bleak fiction . . . Tan has assembled a strong lineup of Singapore natives and knowledgeable visitors for this volume exploring the dark side of a fascinating country.” —Publishers Weekly