PoW Stories

	Bataan Death March - A Soldier’s Story This is a chilling eyewitness account of this gruesome chapter of World War II history. Captured when America surrendered the Philippines’ Bataan peninsula, James Bolich survived three and a half years’ emprisonment by the Japanese. From the horrors of the Death March to the cruel deprivations of prison life, he maintained his will to survive, even as his comrades fell beside him and his body wasted to fewer than one hundred pounds. Every soldier who made the tortuous march out of Bataan and survived unbelievable treatment and conditions in prisoner of war camps has a different story to tell and this is the author’s story, so that whoever is interested may have some idea of the part one soldier played in this catastrophic episode.	James Bollich 9781589801677 b&w drawings and maps 215x135mm, paperback 222 pages Pelican Publishing £12.99
	I Am Well, Who Are You? - Writings of a Japanese Prisoner of War David Piper studied Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge from 1937-1940. He was then sent to join the Indian Army, trained at Bangalore as an officer, and went to fight the Japanese in Malaya. From February 1942 - September 1945 he was in Japanese prison camps and the writings in this book reflect his thoughts on the experience at different stages in his life. The last section comes from a diary he kept during the last year of imprisonment at Shirakawa camp in Taiwan.	David Piper 9780953212309 155x215mm, hardback 96 pages Ashmolean Museum £12.00
	In Enemy Hands Personal Accounts of Those Taken Prisoner in World War II A survivor of the Bataan Death March; a doctor held by the Japanese in Shanghai; an American journalist held in Stalag; a former Hitler Youth captured by the Americans; and a German girl taken by the Soviets in the aftermath of Germany's surrender. The experience of incarceration is brutal and demoralising in its own right, yet it is so common that ex-POW organisations continue to thrive even in peacetime. These wide-ranging accounts, told in harrowing detail, reveal the everyday indignities, and at the same time, the heroism of those held in enemy hands during World War II, both in Europe and in the Pacific.	Claire Swedberg 9780811709002 b&w illustrations 155x230mm, hardback 284 pages Stackpole Books £15.50
	Interrupted Lives Four Women's Stories of Internment During World War II in the Philippines Included in this book are interviews and narratives from four women who survived the Japanese internment camps in the Philippines: Margaret Sams, Sascha Jean Jansen, Jane Wills, and Karen Kerns Lewis. There are many books available on the intense, often harrowing, sometimes terrible experiences during World War II. Lives were lost, twisted turned around and dramatically changed. In offering this book, there aim is to awaken a spark of understanding or there common heritage.	Lily Nova and Iven Lourie, Editor 9780964518193 b&w illustrations 140x215mm, paperback 108 pages Gateways Books & Tapes £10.50
	Kavieng Massacre : A War Crime Revealed The war, the people, the crime, the cover-up, and finally the truth. An engaging book revealing the shocking truth of the Kavieng Massacre in March 1944. During the push southward in the Pacific by the Japanese during World War II, a large group of expatriate Australian men and German Catholic missionaries were trapped on New Ireland, many interned by the Japanese in September 1942 at Kavieng. They disappeared without trace in March 1944. The Australian Government commenced a largely secret enquiry into the fate of these missing civilians, discovering that all the Kavieng internees had been secretly murdered by their captors. The Japanese naval officers responsible for the Kavieng massacre elaborately concealed their embarrassing crime to mislead Australian investigations. This concealment was successful and delayed revelation of the truth until 1947. Part I: The Setting, the Background and the Crime; Part II: The Concealment; Part III: The Crime Revealed.	Raden Dunbar 9781863513685 b/w photos 155x230mm 304 pages Sally Milner £14.99 pb
	Long Hard Road : American POWs During World War II Between 1941 and 1945 more than 110,000 American marines, soldiers, airmen, and sailors were taken prisoner by German, Italian, and Japanese forces. Most who fought overseas during World War II weren't prepared for capture, or for the life-altering experiences of incarceration, torture, and camaraderie bred of hardship that followed. Their harrowing story -- often overlooked in Greatest Generation narratives -- is told here by the POWs themselves. Long hours of inactivity followed by moments of sheer terror. Slave labour, death marches, the infamous hell ships. Historian Thomas Saylor pieces together the stories of nearly one hundred World War II POWs to explore what it was like to be the "guest" of the Axis Powers and to reveal how these men managed to survive. Gunner Bob Michelsen bailed out of his wounded B-29 near Tokyo, only to endure days of interrogation and beatings and months as a "special prisoner" in a tiny cell home to seventeen other Americans. Medic Richard Ritchie spent long moments of terror locked with dozens of others in an unmarked boxcar that was repeatedly strafed by Allied forces. In the closing chapter to this moving narrative, the men speak of their difficult transition to life back home, where many sought -- not always successfully -- to put their experience behind them.	Thomas Saylor 9780873515979 b/w photos 155x230mm 296 pages Minnesota Historical Society Press £22.99 hb
	*Sandakan - A Conspiracy of Silence: 3rd Edition*** This is the horrific story of the Sandakan Prisoner of War Camp during the closing years of World War II. Only six Australians survived, and details the bungled rescue attempt, where almost all the men died because of mistakes within the senior ranks. Last hope, last bastion; Selarang; To Sandakan; White coolies; Living dangerously; Comings and goings; Disaster; Japanese justice; For the duration; A plan evolves; To Ranau; Annihilate then all; As the situation dictates; And then there were six; And leave not any traces?; A most regrettable business; Epilogue; Chronological sequence of events; Index.	Lynette Ramsay Silver 9781863512459 b/w photos 155x230mm 400 pages Sally Milner Publishing £16.99 pb
	Shadows of War World War 2 in the Asia-Pacific still casts many shadows. The shadows fall on the lives of Australian ex-POWs, soldiers and their families. Veterans are aged but recall horrors under Japanese Imperial Forces as fresh as yesterday. Dark, too, are the shadows cast on civilians trapped in the conflict -- innocents who suffered through starvation, forced labour and prostitution. Against this is the determination by reactionary Japanese powerbrokers to obliterate this history by rewriting school textbooks so post-war Japanese remain ignorant of their war history. This book presents the deepest and innermost thoughts drawn from some 200 interviews and responses with Australian veterans. Critically all tell of what they think of the Japanese now. This is their record in their own words. In the 60th year after the end of World War 2, wide education makes the young acutely aware of what happened in those critical war years of 1942-45. This book will appeal to teachers hungry for original materials, and their students who want to read history in the words of those who lived it. This book will appeal to veterans, whose leaders have gone in search of reconciliation to Japan. The image of Australian youngsters trekking in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, hand in hand with their Japanese contemporaries, will appeal to all who seek to put the war behind them. Released to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the War in the Pacific, this book will be sought by many a general reader anxious to celebrate the memory of our World War 2 veterans.	Ryoko Adachi & Andrew McKay 9781920787134 140x210mm 248 pages Indra Publishing £16.50 pb
	Song of Survival : Women Interned Song Of Survival, Helen Colijn's account of her wartime experiences, is a window into a largely overlooked dimension of World War 2 -- the imprisonment of women and children in Southeast Asia by the Japanese and how these prisoners of war responded to their dire circumstances. Held in captivity for nearly four years, more then a third of the women in Helen's camp died of disease or starvation. Yet their courage, faith, resiliency, ingenuity, and camaraderie provide us with enduring lessons on living. Though they had no musical instruments, the women had their voices, and from memory scored classical works for symphony and piano to sing. The music that helped sustain them while in captivity is a lasting and precious gift from these women to a world that has witnessed far too much war. Helen's story reached a mass audience via the motion picture Paradise Road, which is based on the events chronicled in Song Of Survival.	Helen Colijn 9781883991104 Hardback £16.50 9781883991142 Paperback £9.99 155x230mm, 224 pages White Cloud Press
	Surviving Bataan and Beyond Colonel Irvin Alexander's Odyssey as a Japanese Prisoner of War Few American prisoners of war during World War II suffered more than the group that was captured on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. The men were forced to endure the infamous Death March, a series of overcrowded prison camps, and the 'hell ships' transporting them to Japan and Korea. Among them was Colonel Irvin Alexander, who recounts his harrowing experience as a captive of the Japanese. As a midlevel commander, he knew the politics behind the surrender in April 1942, but he also suffered with the rest of the men through a horrific confinement. This is the story of one man's struggle to survive a brutal, often unfathomable captivity.	Domonic Caraccilo, Editor 9780811732482 b&w illustrations 155x230mm 342 pages Stackpole Books £12.50 pb