The Naked Island (1952) by Russell Braddon
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Overview: The Naked Island is a war narrative of appalling suffering, but also of indomitable courage and endurance on the part of British and Australian soldiers. Russell Braddon arrived in Malaya in 1941. After sketchy training the troops were plunged into battle against an enemy well trained and overwhelming in numbers. Defeat was inevitable. On his twenty-first birthday he was captured and seated in a ditch to be shot – but the Japanese changed their minds. Then followed over three years in captivity – in Kuala Lumpur, in Changi gaol in Singapore, in Thailand (Siam) building the notorious ‘railway of death’. The Japanese knew every trick of humiliating and breaking their prisoners. Yet the captives showed that the human spirit can surmount the extremes of physical agony and stay unconquered; and a few men of exceptional bravery emerged, like Padre Noel Duckworth and the medical officer Major Kevin Fagan. Russell Braddon tells the tale with simplicity and with a cynical wit. He does not disguise his view that thousands for the mistakes of the pre-War planners. Readers are warned too that he doesn’t gloss over the grim details of the prisoners’ ordeal.
Genre: Non-Fiction > History
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