The author escaped the fighting in Malaya and Singapore as he was assigned to administrative work in the Battle Box in Fort Canning but was taken prisoner after the surrender and hence went on to suffer more than three years in various ordeals including building the notorious Death Railway in Thailand and Burma, being torpedoed in 'hellships' and then almost being close enough when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. He survived to tell the story and the story was all the more stirring precisely because it was not told with heroics in mind. He told an honest story of how he survived and how he tried to go on, he also told a story of how he eventually became almost immune to the death and suffering that was happening around him. But while this book can be read as a superficial description of one man's experience, there are hints of bigger issues that worth exploring. One of these is the author's attitudes towards the Japanese.
It is no surprise that the author loathed his enemies, especially the camp guards who tortured them no end, yet there was one interesting episode that he mentioned briefly near the end of the book that could have given the readers much to think about - he and Dr Mathieson attended to a sick Japanese girl towards whom he felt no animosity. How does a POW, having gone through such systematic inhumane treatment, feel towards another of 'the other'? This complex attitude of the POWs, even if just that of the author, would have added much to the richness of the book.
Another one is the Koreans who were conscripted to serve in South-East Asia. The Koreans today generally still harbour great dislike of the Japanese owing to the bad legacy Japan left as their colonial master. Yet, in the treatment of the POWs and the populace of South-East Asia, Koreans are known to be no less harsh than the Japanese. In fact, the author even alluded to the Japanese being more measured when it came to beating the POWs (pg. 219). The Koreans today paint themselves as the victims of the Japanese imperialism and in the current K-pop wave, most Asians other than the Japanese, are eager to agree. But were they? This is one subject that is worth exploring (together with the attitudes of the Taiwanese who were also conscripted and served in South-East Asia).
The final one is the parallel that I could not help drawing between the author's experience in signing the agreement with the Japanese in the Selarang Incident and with the British government when he returned to Britain. He described himself signing a name that would not identify him, only in this case if he were to be like his comrades who signed 'Mickey Mouse' in Selarang, he would surely blow his own cover. That bitterness in how he was treated upon his return would stay with him. This is not the first time I came across this theme, it was how General Percival was treated upon his release.
This book resonates a lot with me, mainly because it describes the experience of a soldier who was in Singapore in the days before I was born. His description of the sights and sounds of Singapore then gives me much to imagine. The bumpy road he rode along from 'Singapore' (known as 'town' today) to Changi has long since been replaced by an expressway (our term for 'highway') but it was still there when I was young, so is Selarang camp, which I drive past on occasions just to see the white buildings since its so near home. Now I know it was once home to the Gordon Highlanders as well.
(Find this book at Goodreads)
