Bamboo Doctor: Saving Lives on the Railway of Death in World War Two PDF Download

Author: Stanley S. Pavillard
Publisher: Memoirs from World War Two
ISBN: 9781800558175
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A harrowing account of one man's fight against death and disease in the Japanese hell-camps during the war in the Pacific. Perfect for fans of Laura Hillenbrand, William Meffert and Alex Kershaw. Thousands of Allied prisoners-of-war died building the infamous Bangkok-Burma railroad. Many of those who survived owed their lives to the efforts of doctors like Stanley Pavillard. Their captors looked on with callous indifference as dysentery and disease ripped through the camps while Pavillard and his fellow doctors carried out life-saving operations in brutal conditions: giving blood-transfusions with jam-jars and unclean syringes, removing appendixes by candlelight, operating with razors and bent spoons and going to any length to get the drugs and food which kept so many of the sick and starving prisoners precariously on their feet until the end. Pavillard's memoir Bamboo Doctor is a stark but inspiring record of the triumph of humanity in even the most difficult circumstances. 'conditions such as POWs can rarely have experienced anywhere on this earth since the Middle Ages' Yorkshire Evening News 'Frank, factual... highly realistic ... a record of what human spirit can surmount' Liverpool Daily Post 'On the side of the captors, it is a disgraceful story; on the side of the doctors a heroic one' The Irish Press 'By his professional skill and his ingenuity in finding some way to defeat the odds against him, he saved many from perishing miserably in mud and filth.' Survivor

Author: H. Robert Charles
Publisher: Motorbooks
ISBN: 9780760328200
Category : Burma-Siam Railway
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
From June 1942 to October 1943, more than 100,000 Allied POWs who had been forced into slave labor by the Japanese died building the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway, an undertaking immortalized in the film "The Bridge on the River Kwai." One of the few who survived was American Marine H. Robert Charles, who describes the ordeal in vivid and harrowing detail in Last Man Out. The story mixes the unimaginable brutality of the camps with the inspiring courage of the men, including a Dutch Colonial Army doctor whose skill and knowledge of the medicinal value of wild jungle herbs saved the lives of hundreds of his fellow POWs, including the author.

Author: John Coast
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781905802937
Category : Prisoners of war
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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The original, classic account of the "River Kwai" railway

Author: John Hersey
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0593082362
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Hiroshima is the story of six people—a clerk, a widowed seamstress, a physician, a Methodist minister, a young surgeon, and a German Catholic priest—who lived through the greatest single manmade disaster in history. In vivid and indelible prose, Pulitzer Prize–winner John Hersey traces the stories of these half-dozen individuals from 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, when Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city, through the hours and days that followed. Almost four decades after the original publication of this celebrated book, Hersey went back to Hiroshima in search of the people whose stories he had told, and his account of what he discovered is now the eloquent and moving final chapter of Hiroshima.

Author: Reg Twigg
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241965101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
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.

Author: Sarah Baring
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781800550599
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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An engrossing account of working in the top-secret world of Bletchley Park during World War Two. Perfect for fans of Sinclair McKay, Tessa Dunlop and Andrew Hodges. In 1938, Sarah Baring was enjoying life as a young debutante. Only a few years later, at the height of World War Two, she was working alongside some of the greatest minds of Britain in their code-breaking operations at Bletchley Park. How did she end up in the top-secret world of cyphers and codes? And what did she do within the confines of Bletchley's Hut 4 that allowed the British Navy to be always one step ahead of their foes? Like many young men and women across all levels of British society, the outbreak of war in 1939 dramatically altered the course of Sarah's life. Knowing that she could not stand by while others were enlisting, she left her position in Vogue magazine and signed up to work as a telephonist at an Air Raid Precautions Centre before working in a fighter plane factory to do her bit. The women that she worked alongside were unlike those she had known in her high society life and opened her eyes to a completely different world. Yet, after just a few months, she was requested to leave the factory behind and was thrust into the world of intelligence, code-breaking and huge computers, rubbing shoulders with awkward geniuses like Alan Turing. The Road to Station X provides a window into the life of a young woman that shifted from being a carefree debutante to factory girl to working with code-breakers in Bletchley Park as a result of the turbulent events of World War Two. As the Daily Mail stated, "her natural modesty meant she hardly mentioned her vital contribution to Britain's war effort." However, shortly before she died she wrote her memoir which "revealed the truth about her role in the war."

Author: Laura Hillenbrand
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812974492
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. In boyhood, Louis Zamperini was an incorrigible delinquent. As a teenager, he channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when World War II began, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to a doomed flight on a May afternoon in 1943. When his Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean, against all odds, Zamperini survived, adrift on a foundering life raft. Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will. Appearing in paperback for the first time—with twenty arresting new photos and an extensive Q&A with the author—Unbroken is an unforgettable testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit, brought vividly to life by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand. Hailed as the top nonfiction book of the year by Time magazine • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and the Indies Choice Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year award “Extraordinarily moving . . . a powerfully drawn survival epic.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] one-in-a-billion story . . . designed to wrench from self-respecting critics all the blurby adjectives we normally try to avoid: It is amazing, unforgettable, gripping, harrowing, chilling, and inspiring.”—New York “Staggering . . . mesmerizing . . . Hillenbrand’s writing is so ferociously cinematic, the events she describes so incredible, you don’t dare take your eyes off the page.”—People “A meticulous, soaring and beautifully written account of an extraordinary life.”—The Washington Post “Ambitious and powerful . . . a startling narrative and an inspirational book.”—The New York Times Book Review “Magnificent . . . incredible . . . [Hillenbrand] has crafted another masterful blend of sports, history and overcoming terrific odds; this is biography taken to the nth degree, a chronicle of a remarkable life lived through extraordinary times.”—The Dallas Morning News “An astonishing testament to the superhuman power of tenacity.”—Entertainment Weekly “A tale of triumph and redemption . . . astonishingly detailed.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “[A] masterfully told true story . . . nothing less than a marvel.”—Washingtonian “[Hillenbrand tells this] story with cool elegance but at a thrilling sprinter’s pace.”—Time “Hillenbrand [is] one of our best writers of narrative history. You don’t have to be a sports fan or a war-history buff to devour this book—you just have to love great storytelling.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Author: Jeremy Adelman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400846846
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 761

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The life and times of one of the most provocative thinkers of the twentieth century Worldly Philosopher chronicles the times and writings of Albert O. Hirschman, one of the twentieth century's most original and provocative thinkers. In this gripping biography, Jeremy Adelman tells the story of a man shaped by modern horrors and hopes, a worldly intellectual who fought for and wrote in defense of the values of tolerance and change. This is the first major account of Hirschman’s remarkable life, and a tale of the twentieth century as seen through the story of an astute and passionate observer. Adelman’s riveting narrative traces how Hirschman’s personal experiences shaped his unique intellectual perspective, and how his enduring legacy is one of hope, open-mindedness, and practical idealism.

Author: Michael Julius King
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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This Leavenworth Paper is a critical reconstruction of World War II Ranger operations conducted at or near Djebel el Ank, Tunisia; Porto Empedocle, Sicily; Cisterna, Italy; Zerf, Germany; and Cabanatuan in the Philippines. It is not intended to be a comprehensive account of World War II Ranger operations, for such a study would have to include numerous minor actions that are too poorly documented to be studied to advantage. It is, however, representative for it examines several types of operations conducted against the troops of three enemy nations in a variety of physical and tactical environments. As such, it draws a wide range of lessons useful to combat leaders who may have to conduct such operations or be on guard against them in the future. Many factors determined the outcomes of the operations featured in this Leavenworth Paper, and of these there are four that are important enough to merit special emphasis. These are surprise, the quality of opposing forces, the success of friendly forces with which the Rangers were cooperating, and popular support.

Author: Tim O'Brien
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0547420293
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing. The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.