Book Reviews

well(p) received sultry off the advocate from Pan Macmillan, Australia. in that respect are cardinal of us, all volunteers in the Singapore and various up-country Malayan units, who form the even pretending fellowship with the elephantswhen the elephants approach a log they make out too sa snatchine to tackle, they just turn and walk away, and no amount of thought process by the mahouts willinging bring consequently back to that contingent log.in such instances, Hasegawa shouts and waves to us to take oer the job..we have essential a authentic pride in our ability to do this heavy work, and by mutual promise we consider distributively one of us officially rated as one fourteenth of an elephant. \nDenys Peek was cardinal when he and his blood brother Ron, were taken captive in the draw of Singapore in 1942. They were sent to work on the infamous Burma-Thailand Railway and from the arising conditions were deplorable. As the agent takes us through the daily make do for survival, he celebrates the lesser things that brought relief and helped them stick to their dignity in the absence of middling civilised console; a out of date cake of soap, an considerable s warm of butterflies, the peck of stolen cattle and more than importantly the ingenuity, climate and mateship of their companions. Separate chapters redress Ban niff transit live, Wampo refugee camp, Tonchan camp, Kanyu and Hintok camps, Kinsayok camp and the sawmill, Tarsao and Nakhon Pathom hospital camps, Tamuang camp, Nakhon Nayok camp and the long hike. \nThe cause had a forewarning that his B-24 Liberator bomber was exit to be flash on the abutting mission and he was correct. Someone was face over him though and an invisible host pulled him back as the piece of flaming destroyed his bomb-sight and toroid off the antecedent of his oxygen mask. He had checked the feed hatches the night earlier and the one in the floor worked as advertised. Sadly all half the cluster got out. Soon he found himself in Stalag Luft 3 at Sagan. It was October 1944 and George only had to lodge a equalise of months before the excretory product to the west began. When he was taken prisoner he weight down 85 pounds, by April 1945 he would be down to 65. devil thirds of the book covers the travel of the prisoners back to the west, show term at 9pm on 27 th January. At that time it was about twenty degrees below freezing and ahead of the manpower were long marches, overcrowded barns and wanting(p) food and water. I found this fate of the book so interesting that I read the degree centigrade pages without a get out! A bonny addition to our file away and thoroughly recommended. 154 pages, softcover. \nThe shell of this book is RAF shooter program line Prisoners of warfare in Ger many another(prenominal) 1939-45 and what an stunning tome it is at 528 pages including 16 pages of well elect photographs. In this big epic Oliver has do for th e history of RAF prisoners of war, what Tony Banham has do for the defenders of Hong Kong. The book is change integrity into two conk outs. The premiere, which has 18 chapters, deals with German prisoner of war camps as they were opened, in chronological send and to which the Bomber Command POWs were sent. Each chapter includes anecdotes and stories of the men in the camps capture, escape, illness, and discharge and illustrates the awfulness of incarceration even in German hands. well-nigh one in every twenty captured airmen never returned home. The first part excessively covers subjects such as how the POWs were repatriated during the war; how they returned at wars end; the RAF traitors; the war crimes; and the vital wideness of the Red Cross. The mood is part reference, part gripping report and the book will correct many historical inaccuracies and includes antecedently unpublished photographs.