Last Post Over the River Kwai is the carefully researched account of the experiences of the officers and men of 2nd Battalion The East Surreys during the Second World War.Stationed in Shanghai in the early 1940s, the Battalion was deployed to Malaya and fought gallantly to slow the Japanese advance. After heavy losses the survivors found themselves POWs in Singapore in February 1942 after the humiliating surrender which Churchill described as Britains worst ever military disaster.The next three and a half years saw members of the Battalion suffering appalling hardship at the hands of their brutal Japanese captors, whether in Singapore, on the Death Railway, Malaya or Japan itself, as wells as on hellships. Many died but remarkably the majority survived to tell their story. Their prolonged captivity with unbelievable hardship, deprivation and cruelty makes for distressing but inspiring reading.

A history of the military bugle call, its use at the end of World War I on Armistice Day, and its effect in today’s culture. At eleven o’clock on the morning of the 11th November 1919 the entire British Empire came to a halt to remember the dead of the Great War. During that first two-minute silence all transport stayed still, all work ceased and millions stood motionless in the streets. The only human sound to be heard was the desolate weeping of those overcome by grief. Then the moment was brought to an end by the playing of the Last Post. A century on, that lone bugle call remains the most emotionally charged piece of music in public life. In an increasingly secular society, it is the closest thing we have to a sacred anthem. Yet along with the poppy, the Cenotaph and the tomb of the Unknown Warrior, its power is profoundly modern. It is a response to the trauma of war that could only have evolved in a democratic age. In this moving exploration of the Last Post’s history, Alwyn W. Turner considers the call’s humble origins and shows how its mournful simplicity reached beyond class, beyond religion, beyond patriotism to speak directly to peoples around the world. Along the way he contemplates the relationship between history and remembrance, and seeks out the legacy of the First World War in today’s culture.

From its invasion of Manchuria through to the Allies’ victory in 1945 the Japanese Imperial Army was guilty of widespread atrocities against its enemies and, in particular, the civilians of occupied countries. Massacre, human experimentation, starvation, forced labour and even cannibalism were commonplace during that period. It has been estimated that the number of deaths which resulted from these atrocities range from anything from three to fourteen million people. Using this appalling record the author explains in graphic detail the cruelty of Japanese military forces, drawing attention to the impact on ordinary people. He explores the possible reasons why people committed such horrendous acts. Seventy-eight years have passed since the surrender, yet the Japanese government has never squarely acknowledge their crimes, nor has it made an official apology. Over the years since, a handful of extreme right-wing elements in Japan has depicted the war and the atrocities as ‘the liberation of backward nations.’ They have attempted to reinterpret bloody massacres as 'a self-defensive holy war.' As his father Hugh Lowry suffered grievously as a Prisoner of War on the infamous Thai/Burma Railway, the author knows first-hand of the lasting psychological and physical wounds suffered by victims of Japanese brutality. This disturbing book should serve as a warning that such extreme and widespread behaviour should never be repeated.

A biography of the British World War II veteran and Japanese POW camp survivor who went on to create a life-saving device. Countless thousands of men and women around the world have good reason to be thankful that Frank Pantridge survived three and a half years of brutal Japanese captivity. Had he not, they too would in all probability have died too. Taken prisoner at the fall of Singapore in February 1942, Frank was forced to endure appalling deprivation. Conditions on the Burma railway were notorious, and the death rate was horrendous. On returning to Belfast in late 1945, Frank specialized in heart diseases. Convinced that the prompt application of electric shock after cardiac arrest could save lives, he reasoned that ventricular defibrillation should be applied not just in hospitals but in the workplace, the home, the street or ambulance. His first “portable” defibrillator was produced in 1965 and over the intervening years evolved into the compact units so prevalent today. The importance of Pantridge’s invention was well demonstrated when U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnston’s life was saved in 1972. This stirring biography reveals the full story of a remarkable man who survived against the odds to save countless lives. Praise for Frank Pantridge MC “Cecil Lowry's book describes a man who...survived against all the odds. . . . A fascinating and moving story.” —Books Monthly (UK)

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.

A British officer recounts his harrowing years as a POW in Thailand, including his time as the camp commandant, in this WWII memoir. Colonel Cary Owtram served with the 137th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, and the 11th Indian Infantry Division in Malaysia. After being captured by the Japanese in Singapore, he was transported to the infamous Burma railway. He went on to spend the next three and a half years in grueling captivity in Thailand, first in Ban Pong Camp and then Chungkai Camp—one of the largest POW camps in the region. Owtram was appointed the British Camp Commandant at Chungkai, making him responsible for his fellow prisoners—a heavy responsibility added to the general deprivation and hardship suffered by all. During that time, Owtram kept a secret diary in which he recorded the brutal experience of surviving day to day and attempting to deal with their harsh and unpredictable Japanese captors. It is not only the prisoners who suffered, but also their families at home. The postscript by Owtram’s daughters vividly demonstrates the agonies of doubt and worry that loved ones went through and the effect of the experience on all.