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Chargement... One Fourteenth of an Elephant: A Memoir of Life and Death on the Burma-Thailand Railwaypar Ian Denys Peek
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In February 1942, Singapore fell to the Japanese. Denys Peek and his brother were just two of tens of thousands of British and Commonwealth soldiers and citizens taken prisoner. Eight months later, he and his comrades were packed into steel goods wagons and transported by rail to Siam. They were to become part of the slave labour force destined for the massive construction project that would later become infamous as the Burma Thailand Railway. He would spend the next three years in over fifteen different work and 'hospital' camps on the railway, stubbornly refusing to give in and die in a place where over 20,000 prisoners of war and uncounted slave labourers met their deaths. Narrated in the present tense and written with clarity, passion and a remarkable eye for detail, Denys Peek has vividly recreated not just the hardships and horrors of the railway and the daily struggle for survival but also the comradeship, spirit and humour of the men who worked on it. It stands as a haunting, evocative and deeply moving testimony to the suffering of those who lived and died there - a salutary reminder of man's potential for inhumanity to his fellow man. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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 Google Books — Chargement...GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)940.547252History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- Military History Of World War II Prisoners of war; medical and social services Prisioner-of-War CampsClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne: (4.8)
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It tells you everything, told by the author who survived. Every detail of the railways construction is there. The working conditions are worse than anything you could ever imagine. Every bit of this is detailed and true. At the same time there is comradeship and courage and bravery, shouldering brutality and cowardice.
First there is the barbarism of the Japanese. I want to emphasize that sentence, so it gets its very own paragraph.
As normally is the situation in POW camps, the officers of the captured army remain in control of their own men. There were plenty of officers who did nothing for their men. Let's just say, as always in real life, nothing is simple. To honestly portray all aspects of this event you must relate it in detail, and for that reason I do not see the abundant detail as a criticism of the book. It does make for hard reading. The author relates every detail, all his own experiences. The book moves forward chronologically. Each chapter states the name of the camp and the dates when Ian Denys Peek was there. There are clear maps. The author did not study other accounts or books in writing this. It is his account of what he went through from October 1942 to November 1945. His brother, Ron, was with him. Both had joined the Singapore Volunteers and had been taken POW when Singapore capitulated. His mother was in India. His father was in a Japanese internment camp in Singapore.
The book is written with detail and a lack of sentimentality. Here is what happened.
I can also recommend The Forgotten Highlander: My Incredible Story Of Survival During The War In The Far East. I have given both five stars. I do not recommend Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption]. (