LOST SOULS OF THE RIVER KWAI

Peeke, Mitch

ISBN 10: 1844151271 / ISBN 13: 9781844151271

Published by Pen & Sword Military, Barnsley, 2004

About this Item

Condition: As New in As New DJ, appears unread. This is the moving story of a young man who found himself along with thousands of his comrades in the nightmare of Japanese captivity. Unlike so many (it is said that one Commonwealth POW died for every sleeper laid) Bill lived to tell the tale. Indeed it is remarkable that this story has not been told before, so graphic are Bill's memories of the hardships and horrors. The book goes on to describe how the experiences of those years have affected his life since. Co-authored by Bill Reed and Mitch Peeke, it is the simply riveting autobiographical story of Bill Reed's service in the British Army during World War II, including his capture by the Japanese who put him and his fellow POWs to work as a slave laborer in southeast Asia. Surviving under lethally abusive conditions (including being tortured by his captors), Lost Souls Of The River Kwai tells of Reed's enforced participation on the "Railway of Death" and offers readers a vivid description of how just how traumatically the experience effected him for the rest of his life. A candid memoir of remarkable content for readers seeking documentation of the terrors of being a POW in World War II subject to the terrors of the cruelly merciless Japanese. Bibliography note: Includes bibliographical references and index.

Seller Inventory # 000471

Bibliographic Details

• Title: LOST SOULS OF THE RIVER KWAI
• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military, Barnsley
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1844151271
• ISBN 13: 9781844151271
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: As New
• Weight: 1 pound

About this title

Synopsis

This is the moving story of a young man who found himself along with thousands of his comrades in the nightmare of Japanese captivity. Unlike so many (it is said that one Commonwealth POW died for every sleeper laid) Bill lived to tell the tale. Indeed it is remarkable that this story has not been told before, so graphic are Bill's memories of the hardships and horrors. The book goes on to describe how the experiences of those years have affected his life since.

Review

Bill Reed was one of the many unfortunate British soldiers who arrived in Malaya just in time to take part in the final stages of the campaign in that county and the Japanese victory at Singapore, spending the rest of the Second World War as a prisoner of war. For much of this time he was made to work on the notorious Burma Railway, which cost the lives of at least 15,000 Allied prisoners and 85,000 Asian civilian labourers.

Reed's experiences over the next few years are graphically recounted. The overwhelming sense one gets is of senseless and often random violence, dished out by both the Japanese and Korean guards, with only a few unwilling to participate. Surprisingly the one figure who Reed eventually respected was one of his first camp commanders, executed after the war, but who Reed believes was trapped between his loyalty to the Army and the Emperor and his own religious beliefs.

Even the relatively light hearted sections, recounting the steps the prisoners took to relief their suffering often end in tragedy - perhaps most notably when two prisoners were shot dead after being caught attempting to break back into the camp after a fishing expedition.

The account of Reed's time as a Japanese prisoner is supported by a brief summary of his early wartime service, an account of the fighting in Malaya and Singapore and the immediate aftermath of the British surrender, while we finish with his repatriation at the end of the war, and a summary of his post-war life and the impact his wartime experiences still had on him. --History of War.org