The Fatal Flag - The Top Brass in Captivity

This is the true story of English POW Brigadier Claude Richards, which adds a missing dimension to the many accounts of this period in Japanese WWII history. It concentrates on the plight of high-ranking officers whose experiences as a group have largely been ignored.

Made possible by his copious yet covertly written notes, Claude's legacy also presented an opportunity to write a partial biography of his interesting family at a time when the misfortunes of war kept it apart. Deprived of any letters from his wife for the majority of his imprisonment, Claude still generated vital psychological support from the connection he maintained by writing notional letters to her. His conversational narrative also contains frequent appraisals of his fellow officers - not always complimentary!

From the malarious tropics of Formosa to the freezing gales of Manchuria, ageing men endured physical and mental abuse, the torment of starvation and the attrition of disease, but it was a consolation 'to the wretched to have companions in misery' and most survived. A combination of literature, cards, rumour and humour, or the stimulation of latent wanderlust in some cases, helped relieve the ennui and frustration of those wasted years.

Available from:
Troubador Publishing

WWII in the Pacific - DVD collection

If your particular interest in the Second World War focuses on the battles in the Pacific, then you are particularly well catered for at the moment.

As well as the mini series The Pacific, and reprinted editions of classic books, Reader Digest have now brought out a 6 DVD collection, containing over 12 hours of footage, including period newsreels.

The 6 DVDs are:

• America Taken by Surprise - The story of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor
• Attack & Counter Attack - America's offensive in the Solomon Islands, Guadalcanal and Tarawa
• Victory in the Pacific - American forces turn the tide
• Crucial Turning Points - A look at the stories behind 15 key battles
• Headline Stories of the 20th Century - Authentic Hearst theatrical wartime newsreel footage
• Going for Broke - The largely untold story of Japanese-American soldiers in WWII.

Plenty of material to keep you busy if the US experience of the Pacific War is your thing!

Available from:
Amazon (UK) (note: this is a US import so is in Region 1 - NTSC - format)
Amazon (US)

With The Old Breed - Eugene Sledge

The inspiration for the forthcoming series The Pacific, Eugene B. Sledge's memoir With The Old Breed has been reissued in paperback by Ebury Press.

In 1944 Sledge landed on the beach at Peleliu in 1944 as a twenty-year-old new recruit to the US Marines. Involved in combat both there and at Okinawa, where ‘the world was a nightmare of flashes, explosions, and snapping bullets’, he witnessed first-hand two of the fiercest and filthiest Pacific battles of the Second World War.

Based on notes Sledge secretly kept hidden in a copy of the Bible, With The Old Breed captures with simplicity and honesty the horrendous conditions he, and his fellow marines, endured in this relentless theatre of war. From the heat and incessant rain, to debilitating tropical diseases and the ubiquitous jungle rot that ate away leather, canvas and flesh, Sledge describes the dehumanising horror of living with ever-present death.

Philosophical and dignified, With The Old Breed also reflects candidly on the struggle to remain human in the face of unthinkable depravity. Sledge’s hatred for the brutality of the Japanese never blinds him to their shared horrible fate of being joined together in death on Pacific beaches, nor prevents him from recognising that his fellow marines sometimes committed similar savagery.

Detailing his own journey from patriotic innocence to battle-scarred veteran, Sledge's memoir is a graphic account of war in the Pacific and a moving reflection on the senselessness of war.

E. B. Sledge was born in Mobile, Alabama. In late 1943 he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was then sent to the Pacific where he fought at Peleliu and Okinawa. After returning from the war he immediately began working on a book based on the notes he had taken while posted in the Pacific theatre, which became With the Old Breed. Sledge joined the biology faculty of Alabama College, where he taught until his retirement. Sledge died on March 3rd, 2001. See Wikipedia for his full biography.

Available from:
Ebury Press

On and off the Flight Deck Reflections of a Naval Fighter Pilot in World War 2

Hank Adlam began his naval flying career in 1941, his first operational posting was to the newly-formed No. 890 Squadron. The squadron’s first operational role was to protect a convoy sailing from New York and bound for Greenock. Their major task was to protect the ship’s squadron of Fairey Swordfish anti-submarine aircraft and to destroy any long-range Lufwaffe Fw Condor reconnaissance patrols that were transmitting convoy positions to the waiting U-boat wolf-packs. During this first operational voyage he lost his best friend who was shot down. Later, on this same initiation to front-line operational flying, Hank was forced to ditch into gale-torn Atlantic Ocean.

In the autumn of 1942, 890 Squadron joined the fleet carrier HMS Illustrious, again involving convoy protection. During one patrol he helped destroy an enemy Blohm und Voss Bv 138 Seaplane. Illustrious sailed for the Mediterranean arriving in Malta, with the objective of providing air cover for the landings at Salerno. 1944 saw the Squadron pilots despatched aboard HMS London and then they briefly joined HMS Atheling, to provide air cover for a strong fleet attacking Japanese shipping around the Andaman Islands. When 890 was disbanded he joined 1839 Squadron flying the new Grumman Hellcat.

Available from:
Pen & Sword Books

Favourable Winds - free book to download

Favourable Winds - A Twentieth Century Odyssey tells the personal story of Gerry O'Neill, who sadly passed away last year.

Gerry was a member of the Merchant Navy during the Second World War, and while this book covers his entire life, the chapters relating to his wartime experience are of particular interest. I have extracted these from the table of contents to indicate a flavour of the content of Favourable Winds.

Growing Up in North Dublin and Going to Sea 1925-41

Canadian Pacific Steamships, 1941-42

• R.M.S. Empress of Asia
• Escape from Singapore

Irish Shipping Limited, 1942

• s.s. Irish Larch (ex Haifa Trader)
• The Matriculation Examination

British Merchant Navy, 1942-43

• s.s. Lornaston
• Air Raid on London Dockland
• Invasion of North Africa

Ministry of War Transport, 1943

• North Africa – Interpreter, Algiers and Oran
• Spared by a German Airman
• Danke Schön, Fritz, Für Unserer Leben, und Guten Reisen

Marriage and a Brief Honeymoon, 1943

• Another Welcome Respite from the War
• Du Bist Mein Ganzen Herz

Special Exercises, 1943

• Operations Mincemeat and Cockade
• We bury "The Man Who Never Was" at Huelva
• An Abortive Invasion Attempt
• Liaisons Dangereuses

Canadian Pacific Steamships, 1943-44

• R.M.S. "Empress of Australia"
• A Passage to India and the East
• A Venture into the Carpet Trade

The Loneliest Christmas I Ever Spent, 1943

• A Bleak Day in Belfast
• No Room at the Inn

Stranded in Cork, 1944-

• A Most Opportune Football Match

Farm Labourer, 1944

• A Welcome Break from Hostilities
• A Few Peaceful Days in Bangor, North Wales
  

Further Episodes on the R.M.S Empress of Australia, 1944

• Encounter with a Hurricane
• Momentous First Visit to New York

Russian Convoy, 1944

• Repatriation of Soviet Prisoners from French Labour Camps
• Inability to Save Lives at Sea
• Libera Nos a Malo

Flower Class Corvettes

• North Atlantic Convoys

North Atlantic Convoys, 1944-45

• The Toss of a Coin and the Loss of a Friend
• A Great Personal Tragedy
• Non Nobis sed Vobis

Off to War in the Pacific, 1944

• A Frightening Passage through the Panama Canal
• Russian Roulette in New Guinea

The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 1944

• The Most Incisive Battle of the War against Japan
• “War is too important to be left to the generals” - Winston Churchill

The Battle of Iwo Jima, 1945

• A Hard-Fought Encounter with the Japanese
  

The Last and Costliest Battle of the War – Okinawa, 1945

• Fortunate to Survive a Near Fatality

Sojourn in Honolulu, 1945

• Experience of U.S. Care and Attention

Favourable Winds is downloadable free of charge in PDF format, or you can purchase the print edition from Lulu.

Corvettes Canada: Convoy Veterans of WWII Tell Their True Stories

In Corvettes Canada, Mac Johnston re-creates life aboard corvettes through the worlds of the veterans themselves. Within a framework of the basic events of the war, this book is essentially the product of the memories of more than 250 men, collected by correspondence in a project that got underway with an initial personalized letter to several hundred corvette veterans in 1990. Hundreds of additional letters followed as more veterans were identified. The letter count rose to 1,400 and then 1,900 to flesh out the corvette story.

From the fall of 1940 until May 1945, Corvettes Canada follows these small warships as they shepherd convoys of merchant ships carrying weapons, food, oil, raw materials and manufactured goods from North America to the United Kingdom. On the return trip, the escorts bring back the empty vessels for reloading.

As told in the worlds of the veterans, the routines of life aboard a corvette are punctuated by sudden burst of fierce action--the life-and-death moments for warships, merchant ships and German submarines. This was but one enemy--the other was the North Atlantic itself, a powerful force that brought severe cold, icy storms and fierce gales.

In addition to the famous Newfie-Derry Run on the North Atlantic, corvettes also saw duty in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the triangle run to New York and Boston, in the Caribbean, in the Mediterranean and in the English Channel, as well as the Pacific Ocean.

Published by Wiley. Preview at Google books.

Available from:
Amazon

Prisoner of the Rising Sun

This is the story of Stanley Wort, a young man thrust into the Royal Navy in distant Hong Kong. He relates some of the humorous situations in which he found himself and provides a realistic account of what life was like for servicemen in pre war Hong Kong.

It describes the prelude to war from his point of view and his part in the Battle for Hong Kong. There follows the story of what happened to him when taken prisoner and life and death in prison camps in Hong Kong and Japan. It tells what it was like to be shipped to Japan in the hold of Japanese merchantmen with constant fear of being torpedoed.

In Japan itself he and his fellow prisoners were used as slave labour. Treatment was harsh and brutal and although many of them died the Japanese never broke the spirit of the survivors.

The author explains how it felt to be a prisoner working in a Japanese factory when a major earthquake struck. He also relates what it was like to be on the receiving end of a B29 fire raid and what the Japanese did to downed American airmen. In August 1945 he saw the Japanese bow before loudspeakers and although he did not realize it then, heard the Japanese Emperor announce the surrender of Japan. The book contains a tribute to the efficiency and kindness of the American forces that got him out and on his way home.

Available from:
Pen & Sword

World War II Reflections: An Oral History of Pennsylvania's Veterans

Thirty veterans of World War II from Pennsylvania recall their time of service in France, Italy, Burma, Guadalcanal, the Philippines, and the Pacific in this new volume based on Pennsylvania Cable Network's award-winning series "World War II - In Their Own Words".

The very personal and deeply human accounts are presented in the veterans' own words, giving a perspective of the war through the eyes of ordinary citizen-soldiers. The stories range from profound experiences of dealing with death on a daily basis to the everyday facts of camp life, such as food, clothes, and leisure.

Available from:
Amazon

The Missing Years: A POW's Story from Changi to Hellfire Pass

The Missing Years is the story of Captain Hugh Pilkington's disastrous Malaya campaign in which he was shot by a Japanese sniper, became a PoW while hospitalised in Singapore, then— with only one good arm — was packed off to work on the Thai-Burma Death Railway.

This account has two unique elements which make it standout - Pilkington survived the infamous Alexandra Hospital Massacre of February 1942 and his memoirs were completed in October 1945 while on a POW repatriation ship, hence providing a raw, unfiltered, surprisingly dispassionate voice, undistorted by time.

Travel writer Stu Lloyd (who has spent 13 years in Southeast Asia) retraces the captain's steps with Pilkington's son Paul, to uncover Pilkington's past as a rubber planter and soldier, and find out— with often surprising results— what the locals today make of that period they know largely as 'Japan time'.

Captain Hugh Pilkington was born in India, 1904 and worked as a rubber planter in Malaya from 1922-37 before joining the Royal Norfolk Regiment in 1939. His knowledge of the tropics, landscape and language proved invaluable to the Allies. He died in 1982. Paul Pilkington was born in 1941 and was nearly five before he met his father, back from war.

Available from:
Rosenberg Publishing

Memoirs of a B-29 Pilot

Charles R. Reyher, Major, U.S. Air Force (Ret.) memoir is of the author’s wartime experiences leading up to and as a B-29 Superfortress Aircraft Commander.. He was participated in the air offensive against Japan from the Marianas Islands in the South Pacific.

After graduation as a pilot cadet, he became a bomb approach pilot at a bombardier training base for one year. Then, rated as a B-17 Flying Fortress 1st Pilot, he spent six months duty as a B-17 instructor pilot at an airbase training new B-17 crews as replacements for the 8th Air Force in England. Many months of training to be a B-29 Aircraft Commander followed.

He arrived at newly constructed Northwest Field, Guam, in early June 1945. 125 factory-new B-29B Superfortresses made up the new 315th Very Heavy Bomb Wing. He and his crew flew 13 missions before the end of the war, all against oil targets.

In addition to covering his wartime service, the author concludes the book with several chapters detailing various aspects of the air war against Japan and how he believes attacking Japan’s oil refineries and supplies could have ended the war even without the use of the atomic bombs.

Available from:
Merriam Press

New & Notable - 12th May

Saipan: Oral Histories of the Pacific War
by Bruce M. Petty

The battle for Saipan is remembered as one of the bloodiest battles fought in the Pacific during World War II, and was a turning point on the road to the defeat of Japan. In this work, the survivors—including Pacific Islanders on whose land the Americans and Japanese fought their war—have the opportunity to tell their stories in their own words. The author offers an introduction to the volume and arranges the oral histories by location—Saipan, Yap and Tinian, Rota, Palau Islands, and Guam—in the first half, and by branch of service (Marines, Army, Navy, Airforce & Home Front) in the second half.

Available from:
McFarland



The Bamboo Cage
The POW Diary of Flight Lieutenant Robert Wyse 1942-43
Edited by Jonathon F. Vance

Robert Wyse enlisted in the RAF in the late 1930s. Too old to be trained as a pilot, he became a flight controller and served throughout the Battle of Britain. In late 1941, his squadron was despatched to the Far East. The Japanese soon invaded, and Robert Wyse, along with tens of thousands of his comrades, became a prisoner of war. Shortly after arriving in his first prison camp, Wyse returned to keeping the diary he had begun en route to the Far East. Although P.O.W.s were forbidden to keep diaries, Wyse persevered and hid his journal, usually in a bamboo pole beside his bed. Over two years, he kept a detailed record of life in various camps in Sumatra, only ending in December of 1943 when it became too dangerous. He buried his notes, intending to return to claim them after the war.

The diary is a remarkably detailed and frank portrayal of life as a prisoner. Wyse was sharply critical of some of his fellow P.O.W.s, either for botching the defence of Java and Sumatra or for failing to provide the proper leadership in captivity. Nor did he hesitate to describe the savage conduct of his captors, although sometimes clearly struggling to find the words to adequately describe the brutalities he had witnessed.

Wyse spent over three years in enemy hands (the first two of which are described in this diary) before being liberated in the late summer of 1945. He was hospitalized for some time and didn’t return home until late 1946, his health ruined by the privations of his imprisonment. He died in 1967 at the age of 67.

Available from:
Goose Lane Editions

New & Notable - 15th April

Penalty Strike The Memoirs of a Red Army Penal Company Commander 1943-45
by Alexander Pyl'cyn (Stackpole Books)
The focus of this book are the author's vivid memories of service as a company commander in a Red Army officers' penal battalion on the Eastern Front 1944-45. During this time, he and his unit participated in the 1944 Soviet summer offensive Operation 'Bagration', the Vistula-Oder operation into eastern Germany, and the final assault on Berlin.

Alexander Pyl'cyn was a platoon commander and later a commander of an officers' penal company. He was a senior lieutenant having a degraded regiment commander as a second-in-command. He and his company had to carry out the most difficult and dangerous operations in order to break through the enemy defenses. With more than 80% of the men lost his company succeeded in completing their missions. The horrors of war, the hand-to-hand fights with a desperately struggling enemy are described in this book along with a story of a strong feeling between the young officer and a hospital nurse Rita. Thanks to Alexander Rita was appointed a nurse in the penal battalion. She saved dozens of soldiers, carrying them from the battlefield under enemy fire. It was Rita who saved Alexander Pyl'cyn from death, when he was badly wounded near Berlin. She became his wife in the last months of the war.
Available from:
Amazon.com

Hurricane Pilot: The Wartime Letters of W.O. Harry L. Gill, DFM
Edited by Brent Wilson with Barbara J. Gill (Goose Lane Editions)
Harry L. Gill was born in Devon and attended Fredericton High School. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in Moncton in 1940 at the age of 18 and was among the first to pass through the British Commonwealth Air Training Program. . After flying training he was posted to 607 Fighter Squadron of the Royal Air Force.
In February 1942, Mr. Gill’s squadron of Hurricane Fighters attacked the German warships Scharnhorst and Gniesenau during the infamous “Channel Dash”. Mr. Gill’s bravery and flying skill in that action won him a Distinguished Flying Medal. In June of 1942, he traveled with his squadron to India to shore up Commonwealth defences against the Japanese. On Jan. 17 1943, at age 20, Harry Gill was shot down and killed in action. He lies buried in Maynamati Commonwealth War Cemetery in Bangladesh.

Drawing extensively on Gill's correspondence with his parents and his siblings, this very personal account of war shows how Gill was transformed from a small-town boy to a mature fighter pilot serving in a global war on another continent. His letters depict the enthusiasm of youth, a strong sense of humour, his plans for the future, and this continuing attachment to home.
Available from:
Goose Lane Editions

What Price Bushido?

Alf 'Blackie' Baker was captured by the Japanese in Singapore in February 1942. 'What Price Bushido?' is his story of his treatment as a FEPOW.

However, while a considerable number of stories have been published by FEPOWs about the treatment in POW camps in Thailand (the 'Death Railway'), Alf Baker's story is very different.

He was one of the 600 Artillerymen who were transported to Rabaul, New Britain (now Papua New Guinea - see Google Map) in October 1942. When the war ended three years later, only 18 men remained alive. 517 of these men were taken to Ballale in the Solomon Islands, from which none returned alive - a terrible incident which seems to have been lost in history.

Before I read this book I had no idea about what happened at Rabaul and Ballale. Alf Baker's book includes a Roll of Honour of both the lost and the survivors. It is a fitting tribute to the men who lost their lives while POWs of the Japanese.

Available:
Believed to be out of print, although I have seen copies in secondhand bookshops in Devon.
Amazon

Further reading:
The story of Alfred William Burgess (killed at Ballale)