To the Kwai and Back

To the Kwai and Back
Author: Ronald Searle
Publisher: Souvenir Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-05
Genre: Illustrators
ISBN: 9780285644205

In 1941 Ronald Searle was made a prisoner of war by the Japanese, after 14 months in a POW camp he was sent to work on the Burma Railway until May 1944 when he was sent to the notorious Changi prison. Throughout his captivity Searle drew to record his experiences, hiding the drawings, and they have been become to be recognised as among the greatest, and most moving, record of WW2. Searle has described the book as "the grafitti of a condemned man... who found himself--to his surprise and delight -- among the reprieved."

Long Way Back to the River Kwai

Long Way Back to the River Kwai
Author: Loet Velmans
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2011-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 161145185X

"He survived brutality, sickness, and war, but he refused to give up hope. Loet Velmans was seventeen when Germany invaded his native Holland in 1940. He and his family escaped to London just before the Dutch army surrendered and German U-boats began their deadly patrol of the North Sea. Deciding they would be safer in the Far East, the Velmans family sailed to the Dutch East Indies--now Indonesia--where Loet joined the Dutch army. In March 1942, the Japanese invaded, conquered the colony in a week without firing a shot, and imprisoned all Dutch soldiers. For three and a half years, Loet toiled in slave-labor camps building the railway made famous by The Bridge on the River Kwai, which would supply the Japanese invasion of India. Some 200,000 POW's and laborers died building this Railway of Death. Loet suffered malaria, dysentery, malnutrition, and unspeakable abuse, but never gave up hope. Almost sixty years later he returned to the place where he nearly died and where he buried his best friend in a burlap sack. From that emotional visit comes this stunning memoir" -- Back cover.

Survivor on the River Kwai

Survivor on the River Kwai
Author: Reg Twigg
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2013-05-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0241965101

Survivor on the River Kwai is the heartbreaking story of Reg Twigg, one of the last men standing from a forgotten war. Called up in 1940, Reg expected to be fighting Germans. Instead, he found himself caught up in the worst military defeat in modern British history - the fall of Singapore to the Japanese. What followed were three years of hell, moving from one camp to another along the Kwai river, building the infamous Burma railway for the all-conquering Japanese Imperial Army. Some prisoners coped with the endless brutality of the code of Bushido by turning to God; others clung to whatever was left of the regimental structure. Reg made the deadly jungle, with its malaria, cholera, swollen rivers, lethal snakes and exhausting heat, work for him. With an ingenuity that is astonishing, he trapped and ate lizards, harvested pumpkins from the canteen rubbish heap and with his homemade razor became camp barber. That Reg survived is testimony to his own courage and determination, his will to beat the alien brutality of camp guards who had nothing but contempt for him and his fellow POWs. He was a risk taker whose survival strategies sometimes bordered on genius. Reg's story is unique. Reg Twigg was born at Wigston (Leicester) barracks on 16 December 1913. He was called up to the Leicestershire Regiment in 1940 but instead of fighting Hitler he was sent to the Far East, stationed at Singapore. When captured by the Japanese, he decided he would do everything to survive. After his repatriation from the Far East, Reg returned to Leicester. With his family he returned to Thailand in 2006, and revisited the sites of the POW camps. Reg died in 2013, at the age of ninety-nine, two weeks before the publication of this book.

To the Kwai and Back

To the Kwai and Back
Author: Ronald Searle
Publisher: Souvenir Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2006
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780285637450

In 1939, as an art student, Ronald Searle volunteered for the army, embarking for Singapore in 1941. Within a month of his arrival there, however, he became a prisoner of the Japanese, and after 14 months in a prisoner-of-war camp, was sent north to a work camp on the Burma Railway. In May 1944, he was sent to the notorious Changi Gaol in Singapore and became one of the few British soldiers to survive imprisonment there. Throughout his captivity, despite the risk, Ronald Searle made drawings to record his experiences. The drawings in this remarkable book were hidden by Searle and smuggled from place to place, stained with the sweat and dirt of his captivity. They are a record of one man's war and are among the most important and moving accounts of the second World War.

To End All Wars

To End All Wars
Author: Ernest Gordon
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2002
Genre: Bridge on the River Kwai (Motion picture)
ISBN: 0007118481

The bestselling classic of the power of love and forgiveness in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.

Last Man Out

Last Man Out
Author: H. Robert Charles
Publisher: Motorbooks
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2006
Genre: Burma-Siam Railway
ISBN: 9780760328200

From June 1942 to October 1943, more than 100,000 Allied POWs who had been forced into slave labor by the Japanese died building the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway, an undertaking immortalized in the film "The Bridge on the River Kwai." One of the few who survived was American Marine H. Robert Charles, who describes the ordeal in vivid and harrowing detail in Last Man Out. The story mixes the unimaginable brutality of the camps with the inspiring courage of the men, including a Dutch Colonial Army doctor whose skill and knowledge of the medicinal value of wild jungle herbs saved the lives of hundreds of his fellow POWs, including the author.

The Man Behind the Bridge

The Man Behind the Bridge
Author: Peter Davies
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2013-12-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1780939620

Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey was the senior British officer concerned with the building of the notorious "Bridge over the River Kwai". Toosey understood from the very beginning that the only real issue was how to ensure that as many of his men as possible should survive their captivity. Many thousands who knew how Toosey stood up to their oppressors at great personal risk were incensed by Alec Guinness's brilliant portrayal of 'Colonel Nicholson' in the film version of Boulle's book. This book provides an accurate historical account of the terrible events during which more than 16,000 PoWs died while building the Thai-Burma railway, of which "the bridge" formed an essential part. A memorial to Toosey, this book is also a definitive history of the building of the railway in the context of the Far Eastern theatre of World War II. First published in 1991, this title is part of the Bloomsbury Academic Collections series.

Essays on Conrad

Essays on Conrad
Author: Ian Watt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2000-07-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780521783873

A landmark collection of Ian Watt's essays on Joseph Conrad.

Railroad of Death

Railroad of Death
Author: John Coast
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014-05-13
Genre: Prisoners of war
ISBN: 9781905802937

The original, classic account of the "River Kwai" railway