Surviving the Sword: Prisoners of the Japanese in the Far East, 1942-45

To read Brian MacArthur's book is to get a glimpse into hell. There was one chapter in fact I couldn't even read, and how often does that happen. That's the story of the North Borneo camp Sandakan where thousands of Australian prisoners of war were kept for years while they completed work on an airfield (slave labor), and then, when their work was done, they were systematically starved to death by their Japanese captors, in the waning months of World War II. Only six men survived. The book makes you wonder about what happens during war and how do the people in power lose all their humanity and show such inventive cruelty to their captives? It wasn't only the guards and camp commandants... Each camp had its own collaborators, and some of the black marketers were as nasty and brutal as the Japanese. And then there were the captured Koreans or Thais who, forced to act as guards by the Japanese, rivalled their own captors in cruel games perhaps believing that, if they were more sadistic towards the British and Australian prisoners, they might curry favor with those above them. One thinks of Hannah Arendt's argument about the banality of evil, and wonders how one would have held up oneself under such horrific conditions. Well, I would have died within a few days I'm sure. And maybe conditions in US prisons are just as dehumanizing, ands the picture is too global to see it, but something about the particular set of circumstances in Singapore, Burma, Malaya, and Indonesia that staggers the imagination. Based on the contemporary diaries of more than 150 prisoners, diaries kept in secret, some of them buried and re-buried after each entry made, SURVIVING THE SWORD reconstructs a world of contradictions, a world in which cruelty was matched by compassion, infighting by camaraderie, people hurting each other by people helping each other, ignorance by ingenuity. I liked the story of the Rolex firm, after the war, examining a watch that kept perfect time despite having all its parts redone carved out of bamboo by resourceful prisoners with a magnifying glass. And the story of how one remarkable doctor found a way to grow yeast, to save the eyesight of hundreds of suffering prisoners, is the stuff heroic movies are made of. But don't mention movies to author Brian MacArthur or he'll sit you down and tell you at length about what a bad movie THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVE KWAI was with its Alec Guinness character a libel on the great man the part was modelled on. He estimates that 27 percent of Fepows (Far East Prisoners of War) died in camp, compared to somewhere between 4 and 6 percent of their counterparts held by the Germans or Italians. The figures speak for themselves, but he is an eloquent spokesman as well.

upon reviewing the several hundred books in my library on world war II, i noticed my reading was skewed heavily to the european theatre (particularly the eastern front) ... i felt this book was a good start to creating more balance in my studies. with a firm understanding of japanese brutality during the war ("the rape of nanking" illustrates this very clearly), i felt i needed more than the bataan death march, hari kari and suicide pilots to better understand the japanese disdain for surrendering. this book proved to be a real jaw-dropper. i had no idea as to the horrific conditions of the prison camps or the brutal treatment received by the men who were confined in them. as gratuitous as the violence and disgusting conditions were within these prison camps the book supplies more than enough examples of how utterly brilliant man can be in his will to survive. the stories that these survivors recall so vividly will keep the reader thoroughly engrossed to the very last page. if someone desires to gain a deeper knowledge of world war II's pacific theatre, i would definately recommend this book ... it is a superb resource.

Brian MacArthur has done a tremendous service to the people who fell under the sway of the Japanese during World War II. Since that war was sixty years ago, it is easy to forget how nasty, brutish, and malevolent were the ways in which the Japanese treated their prisoners. This book performs admirably in reminding those who forgot, how bad it really was. The book concentrates on the plight of the British and Australian POWs that were captured primarily in the fall of Singapore. While this may seem restricted, it is actually a good grouping as most of the war in the far east was fought by Americans and another recent book - Conduct Under Fire - covers that ground. It is an interesting exercise to read these books in close proximity to each other - as I did, inadvertantly! The story is told in essentially three parts. The first part focuses on the building of the Burma-Thailand Railway and the horrors of the initial descent into the hell that was a Japanese POW camp. A film that was produced some decades ago also showed this event which was called "A Bridge on the River Kwai". The author takes umbrage at the movie and spends many pages comparing the reality to the fictionalized version and indeed, the movie was a complete whitewash and a twisting of the real events. I say it was a whitewash because after reading the accounts of the suffering workers, it is impossible to see the movie's opening sequence with the lines of actors cheerfully whistling "Colonel Bogey" as having any connection to the reality. The reality was that the prisoners were mistreated and abused horribly, torture was practiced by the Japanese as a tool for slaking their sadistic tendencies and starvation was a tool to slowly kill off the prisoners. Clearly the goal of the Japanese was to get the most amount of work out of the prisoners as they could while spending the least amount possible to maintain them. We read over and over again about how the Japanese kept food and medicines away from the prisoners preferring to hoard the materials rather than save any lives. The second part of the book chronicles the lives of the surviving prisoners after the railway was concluded. Many of the prisoners were transported around the theater by ship and many stories are told about these "Hellships". I thought it was instructive to note that more people died on the Hellships than did during the construction of the railway which was the object of the first part of the book! The only discordant note in this section was when the author describes one set of events and points out that throughout the war, only Americans descended into killing their own in this one event. That was an unnecessary and gratuitous slap at a group of fellow prisoners. the final part of the book is simply a collection of disparate anecdotes. The author recounts the horrors of some of the worst-known events - for example an island where a force of 2401 prisoners were building an airfield and only 6 survived it - as w

I couldn't leave the book. The author's ability to describe the prisoner's horrific treatment kept me spellbound.

Brian MacArthur has written a stirring account of the plight of the prisoners of the Japanese during WWII. The book goes far beyond David Lean's fictional "Bridge on the River Kwai," presenting details and first-person accounts that Hollywood never could. The book reveals the scope of Japanese abuses in individual camps, as well as the distribution of these camps throughout SE Asia. And while the story is heart-wrenching at face-value, there is an overriding theme that words are inadequate to express the misery that was actually endured by these tortured souls, many of whom never made it home. The mortality rate among prisoners of the Japanese was five times that of the Germans, a fact that may surprise many who get most of their history from the media. This book represents a new look at the darker side of the Pacific War, and is a glowing tribute to the perseverance of the allied prisoners of war.