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Author: John Willis Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1912914433 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 385
Book Description
This is one of the most remarkable untold stories of the Second World war. At 11.02 am on an August morning in 1945 America dropped the world's most powerful atomic bomb on the Japanese port city of Nagasaki. The most European city in Japan was flattened to the ground 'as if it had been swept aside by a broom'. More than 70,000 Japanese were killed. At the time, hundreds of Allied prisoners of war were working close to the bomb's detonation point, as forced labourers in the shipyards and foundries of Nagasaki. These men, from the Dales of Yorkshire and the dusty outback of Australia, from the fields of Holland and the remote towns of Texas, had already endured an extraordinary lottery of life and death that had changed their lives forever. They had lived through nearly four years of malnutrition, disease, and brutality. Now their prison home was the target of America's second atomic bomb. In one of the greatest survival stories of the Second World War, we trace their astonishing experiences back to bloody battles in the Malayan jungle, before the dramatic fall of Fortress Singapore, the mighty symbol of the British Empire. This abject capitulation was followed by surrender in Java and elsewhere in the East, condemning the captives to years of cruel imprisonment by the Japanese. Their lives grew evermore perilous when thousands of prisoners were shipped off to build the infamous Thai-Burma Railway, including the Bridge on the River Kwai. If that was not harsh enough, POWs were then transported to Japan in the overcrowded holds of what were called hell ships. These rusty buckets were regularly sunk by Allied submarines, and thousands of prisoners lived through unimaginable horror, adrift on the ocean for days. Some still had to endure the final supreme test, the world's second atomic bomb. The prisoners in Nagasaki were eyewitnesses to one of the most significant events in modern history but writing notes or diaries in a Japanese prison camp was dangerous. To avoid detection, one Allied prisoner buried his notes in the grave of a fellow POW to be reclaimed after the war, another wrote his diary in Irish. Now, using unpublished and rarely seen notes, interviews, and memoirs, this unique book weaves together a powerful chorus of voices to paint a vivid picture of defeat, endurance, and survival against astonishing odds.
Author: John Willis Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1912914433 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 385
Book Description
This is one of the most remarkable untold stories of the Second World war. At 11.02 am on an August morning in 1945 America dropped the world's most powerful atomic bomb on the Japanese port city of Nagasaki. The most European city in Japan was flattened to the ground 'as if it had been swept aside by a broom'. More than 70,000 Japanese were killed. At the time, hundreds of Allied prisoners of war were working close to the bomb's detonation point, as forced labourers in the shipyards and foundries of Nagasaki. These men, from the Dales of Yorkshire and the dusty outback of Australia, from the fields of Holland and the remote towns of Texas, had already endured an extraordinary lottery of life and death that had changed their lives forever. They had lived through nearly four years of malnutrition, disease, and brutality. Now their prison home was the target of America's second atomic bomb. In one of the greatest survival stories of the Second World War, we trace their astonishing experiences back to bloody battles in the Malayan jungle, before the dramatic fall of Fortress Singapore, the mighty symbol of the British Empire. This abject capitulation was followed by surrender in Java and elsewhere in the East, condemning the captives to years of cruel imprisonment by the Japanese. Their lives grew evermore perilous when thousands of prisoners were shipped off to build the infamous Thai-Burma Railway, including the Bridge on the River Kwai. If that was not harsh enough, POWs were then transported to Japan in the overcrowded holds of what were called hell ships. These rusty buckets were regularly sunk by Allied submarines, and thousands of prisoners lived through unimaginable horror, adrift on the ocean for days. Some still had to endure the final supreme test, the world's second atomic bomb. The prisoners in Nagasaki were eyewitnesses to one of the most significant events in modern history but writing notes or diaries in a Japanese prison camp was dangerous. To avoid detection, one Allied prisoner buried his notes in the grave of a fellow POW to be reclaimed after the war, another wrote his diary in Irish. Now, using unpublished and rarely seen notes, interviews, and memoirs, this unique book weaves together a powerful chorus of voices to paint a vivid picture of defeat, endurance, and survival against astonishing odds.
Author: Frank W. Chinnock Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000458997 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 323
Book Description
This book, first published in 1970, examines the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, when an entire industrial city was devastated and the bulk of its population killed or wounded. Coming days after the bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki has largely been forgotten. This book traces the decision by the US to use the second bomb, and the choice of Nagasaki as its target. It follows the bomber to the skies over Nagasaki, and the terrible events that unfolded. Using diaries, written accounts and the testimonies of hundreds of Japanese civilians who survived the bombing, this book provides the definitive text on the Nagasaki atomic bomb.
Author: Hugh Clarke Publisher: Allen & Unwin ISBN: 1742696694 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 136
Book Description
''What I saw was apparently three white parachutes in a triangular fashion about 60 degrees elevation. Suddenly there was a brilliant flash like a photographer's magnesium flash. Instinctively, I dropped to the ground beside a kerbing at the side of the alleyway. Then came the blast with a deafening bang and I felt as though I had been kicked in the guts. I found myself gasping for breath, pinned under a lot of rubble and unable to see. The world was black.'' ''When we looked up, it looked like the end of the world was coming as the sun appeared to be falling towards the earth.'' This is the remarkable story of the Australian prisoners of war who survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. When 'Fat Boy' was dropped, in August 1945, there were 24 Australian POWs in a camp less than two kilometres from the epicentre of the blast. Two other Australians were imprisoned in a camp eight kilometres away. How they came to be there, how they endured their imprisonment, how they survived a nuclear attack, is the inspiring story told in this book. This is the story of bombardier Hugh Clarke and his mates. Through it, often in their own words, a remarkable group of men tell us what they witnessed that sunny morning in 1945. But they tell a great deal more - the conditions within the camp, the courage of their fellow POWs, the unceasing battle for survival. Sometimes with humour, often with sadness, Last Stop Nagasaki! recounts the days leading up to the horrific birth of the Nuclear Age.
Author: Mark Felton Publisher: Grub Street Publishers ISBN: 1844684121 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 310
Book Description
The author of Guarding Hitlertells the truly heart-rending stories of Caucasian and Eurasian children held captive inside Japanese internment camps. The Japanese treatment of Allied children was as harsh and murderous as that of their parents and military POWs, but this whole episode has been overlooked. Children were plucked from comfortable colonial lives and forced to mature hastily in terrible circumstances, where survival became a daily game, and where their lives were constantly threatened by disease, starvation, and physical abuse. Many of these children were separated from their parents, or they saw their families destroyed by the Japanese. Most witnessed almost daily episodes of bestial violence that no child should ever see, and the entire cumulative experience has had a deep and lasting effect into their adult lives. They are among the last victims of Japanese aggression, and even over sixty years later many carry the mental and physical scars of that atrocious episode. “The fate of [Japan’s] military prisoners is now well known, but the equally poor treatment handed out to the civilian internees and their children is a less familiar topic. Many books on this subject focus on a particular part of the Japanese Empire. Felton has taken a different approach, and covers most of the Japanese Empire, from Singapore and the rest of mainland China, through Hong Kong, Malaya, Burma . . . and on into the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines.” —HistoryOfWar.org
Author: George Weller Publisher: Crown ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Weller covered World War II across Europe, Africa, and Asia. At war's end, correspondents were forbidden to enter Nagasaki and Hiroshima, but Weller, presenting himself as a U.S. colonel, set out to explore the devastation. As Nagasaki's first outside observer, he witnessed the bomb's effects. He interviewed doctors trying to cure those dying mysteriously from "Disease X." He sent his forbidden dispatches back to MacArthur's censors, assuming their importance would make them unstoppable. He was wrong: the U.S. government censored every word, and the dispatches vanished from history. Weller also became the first to enter nearby POW camps. He gathered accounts from hundreds of Allied prisoners--but those too were silenced. Weller died in 2002, believing it all lost forever. Months later, his son found a fragile copy in a crate of moldy papers. This historic body of work has never been published.--From publisher description.
Author: John Willis Publisher: BBC Books ISBN: 9781785949005 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
There was a German bomber flying right towards us - a Dornier, one of their biggest. It was so low we could see the pilot flying it and the gunner in the nose of the bomber pointing his machine gun at us... Schoolboy in Kent, during the Battle of Britain My legs pressed harder around my father's waist; my arms nearly choked him. The humming of Japanese aircraft was loud enough for everyone to hear now, and panic spread like ink on a blotter. Child saying goodbye to her parents, Singapore 1942 In the early 2000s, the BBC set up one of its biggest oral history archives, recording the lives and experiences of the ordinary people who lived through World War Two. It amounted to 47,000 testimonies and over 400 diaries and letters, all of which have remained hidden in the archives for twenty years - until now. In The People's War, John Willis unearths untold stories of everyday bravery, moments of terror, and tales of life-affirming community, that guide us through the years of the Second World War. From soldiers in North Africa and prisoners of war in East Asia, to evacuees in the British countryside and women in the factories, The People's War is a truly ambitious and comprehensive journey through a devastating and pivotal period of our history, as you've never read before. Follow the remarkable stories of ordinary individuals who lived, fought, grieved, loved, and survived through World War Two.
Author: John Willis Publisher: Random House ISBN: 1473533929 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
There was a German bomber flying right towards us – a Dornier, one of their biggest. It was so low we could see the pilot flying it and the gunner in the nose of the bomber pointing his machine gun at us... Schoolboy in Kent, during the Battle of Britain My legs pressed harder around my father's waist; my arms nearly choked him. The humming of Japanese aircraft was loud enough for everyone to hear now, and panic spread like ink on a blotter. Child saying goodbye to her parents, Singapore 1942 In the early 2000s, the BBC set up one of its biggest oral history archives, recording the lives and experiences of the ordinary people who lived through World War Two. It amounted to 47,000 testimonies and over 400 diaries and letters, all of which have remained hidden in the archives for twenty years – until now. In The People's War, John Willis unearths untold stories of everyday bravery, moments of terror, and tales of life-affirming community, that guide us through the years of the Second World War. From soldiers in North Africa and prisoners of war in East Asia, to evacuees in the British countryside and women in the factories, The People's War is a truly ambitious and comprehensive journey through a devastating and pivotal period of our history, as you've never read before. Follow the remarkable stories of ordinary individuals who lived, fought, grieved, loved, and survived through World War Two.
Author: Hugh V. Clarke Publisher: Unwin Hyman ISBN: 9780868614120 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 135
Book Description
The author describes his experiences as a Japanese prisoner-of-war held a few miles away from Nagasaki, and describes his impressions of the detonation of the second atomic bomb
Author: Alistair Urquhart Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1628731508 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders, captured by the Japanese in Singapore. Forced into manual labor as a POW, he survived 750 days in the jungle working as a slave on the notorious “Death Railway” and building the Bridge on the River Kwai. Subsequently, he moved to work on a Japanese “hellship,” his ship was torpedoed, and nearly everyone on board the ship died. Not Urquhart. After five days adrift on a raft in the South China Sea, he was rescued by a Japanese whaling ship. His luck would only get worse as he was taken to Japan and forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later, he was just ten miles from ground zero when an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. In late August 1945, he was freed by the American Navy—a living skeleton—and had his first wash in three and a half years. This is the extraordinary story of a young man, conscripted at nineteen, who survived not just one, but three encounters with death, any of which should have probably killed him. Silent for over fifty years, this is Urquhart’s inspirational tale in his own words. It is as moving as any memoir and as exciting as any great war movie.
Author: John Willis
Author: John Willis
Author: Jacqueline Jeynes
Author: Frank W. Chinnock
Author: Hugh Clarke
Author: Mark Felton
Author: George Weller
Author: John Willis
Author: John Willis
Author: Hugh V. Clarke
Author: Alistair Urquhart