A Town like Alice

We lived in Malaya in the early 1950s, less than 10 years after the war ended. The local paper, The Straits Times serialised a graphic book that described what happened to men, women and children in the camps, but especially the men, the horrendous tortures. Vast numbers of the men died in the prison camps or working on the railway, they were starved of food and worked until they died. The nearest equivalent would be the Nazi Concentration camps. Those who survived to come home often died prematurely or suffered from mental illness.

What was being published would not have been put in a paper in the UK, too graphic, too unpleasant and then, would not have been published in a book either. I was 10 at the time and my mother tried to stop me reading about it all, but I did.

If you had read these accounts, you would have had precious little pity for any Japanese soldier.
Much more aware of the arrogance and superior attitudes of the colonialist 'invader' I think many of these comparisons are unsafe. Everywhere people spoke in a different tone, in a different way. Listen to the Queens voice when she became Queen and now.

In the late 1950s my father was seconded to the Malayan army along with many other army officers to help train them after independence. The army was multi-racial, Malaya is multiracial, Chinese, Indians as well as Malays and Brits and everyone was on an equal footing and socialised together.

Oh yes, I remember it now.
Worth repeating, I think!

I don't think I'm going to get there now, it was on the bucket list so watching that would be second best.

Does anyone remember the television series with Bryan Brown? It covered the whole of the book with their life in Australia building a town like Alice.

Talullah

Weren't you moved when the Japanese invaded Malaya and took the women? Most of whom died under brutal conditions?

And young children.

Someone who lived near me when I was a child was in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.
Apparently he survived by eating banana skins. Thousands did not.

Much more aware of the arrogance and superior attitudes of the colonialist 'invaders

Just to give a sense of perspective:
The Japanese were invaders and occupiers. They invaded Manchuria, China, Indo-China, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, New Guinea, Papua and would have invaded Australia but were stopped by the Americans.

The film does not follow all the novel, the Australian was captured , and tortured for help and acts of kindness towards the women prisoners. Forced to work on the notorious Burmese railway. The man Eric Lomax apparently met and, very graciously, forgave his torturer in 1995.

Yes of course- all I am saying is that 60 years later, I saw other things in the film and was also moved by other things- unlike the first time.

Talullah

Weren't you moved when the Japanese invaded Malaya and took the women? Most of whom died under brutal conditions?

Hear, hear!

Weren't you moved when the Japanese invaded Malaya and took the women? Most of whom died under brutal conditions?