Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders captured by the Japanese in Singapore. He not only survived working on the notorious Bridge on the River Kwai , but he was subsequently taken on one of the Japanese 'hellships' which was torpedoed. Nearly everyone else on board died and Urquhart spent 5 days alone on a raft in the South China Sea before being rescued by a whaling ship. He was taken to Japan and then forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later a nuclear bomb dropped just ten miles away ...This is the extraordinary story of a young man, conscripted at nineteen, who survived not just one, but three very close separate encounters with death - encounters which killed nearly all his comrades. This is an amazing read and some of the treatment dished out by the Japanese and Korean guards is staggering in its brutality, almost defies belief. He says himself that the movie version of events bears no resemblance to the reality of survival on the Death Railway. I would highly recommend this book to anyone... and next time you feel like moaning about something silly, just cast your mind back to this book and it will put things in perspective very clearly! Excellent!!!
Quite simply put: one of the greatest stories ever told! The way that this man picks himself up after yet another let-down is a lesson to all of us. And the way he manages to do this time and time again. A truly insperational read. Biggest 'disgust' for me? The way he became P.O.W.? Treatment at the hands of the Japanese guards? Being nuked? No..the way the author was treated by the authorities (at home) when he eventually returned to Britain. Absolutely shocking!!!
Read in the news today that people here in Canada are complaining that Dad's Chocolate cookies will no longer be available.
