Three Came Home

This book contains the wartime memoirs of Agnes Keith. In 1939, Keith published a book "Land Beneath the Wind," describing her life as the wife of a British colonial official in Northern Borneo. She and her husband Harry were on home leave in North America in 1939 when she finished writing the book. However, Harry was called back early to Borneo from his leave because of the war clouds on the horizon. Agnes, who was pregnant, soon followed, and several months later, gave birth to their son George in Sandakan. Although there had been talk of evacuating women and children from colonial outposts in the Pacific, no orders came through for evacuation before the Japanese invasion, and Agnes refused to leave Harry behind voluntarily. Thus, when the Japanese arrived, all three Keiths were still in Sandakan, and were soon interned in prisoners' camps for the duration of the war. In this book, Keith recounts the stories of how she, George, and Harry survived life in the camps. Her tale was so remarkable that it was made into a movie shortly after the war. Readers of Keith's earlier book will be stunned at the change in tone of her writing. In Land Beneath the Wind, Keith writes with an airy, scattered-brained style, almost as if she were afraid that otherwise, she would be taken too seriously. Indeed, it was perhaps her humor itself that made her first book popular. But the light tone is gone completely from this book. The nightmare of the prison camps, where random beatings were a certainty, but food was often unattainable, and hygiene nonexistent, took away her carefree nature and matured her overnight beyond her years. For more than three years, she struggled daily to find any kind of food for George, from wormy rice to just plain worms. This woman of colonial privilege traded family heirloom jewelry for a chicken, and learned to hoard night soil for use as fertilizer. From the start, the Japanese camp leader recognized her as a special prisoner, because he had read Land Beneath the Wind. He required her to keep a journal of her camp adventures for future publication to show how "humane" the Japanese treatment of prisoners had been. So every day, after she completed her required prison work, she had to write for this commander about how wonderful camp life was. When that was finished, she secretly wrote up notes describing what life was really like, and hid them in cans buried under their huts or in the latrines. The most amazing part of her experience is not only that she and George and Harry survived at all, but that through it all, she managed to come away from the camps without blind hatred for the Japanese. She recognized that some of the prison guards were evil, but that many couldn't help but obey their superiors. The years of captivity for the Keiths robbed them of their youth, their health, and the better part of George's childhood, but Agnes finds fault not with Japanese people, but rather with the idea of war itself.

Three Came Home is a well-written, true story of a woman and her son's internment in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Borneo during WWII. Agnes Newton Keith creates a vivid portrait of the conditions under which the prisoners lived and of their day to day lives. She also makes it clear that people are not inherently good or bad; they are often victims of circumstances. Her love for her son and hope that they will be reunited with her husband keep her going and morally-centred. An absolutely excellent book!

As much as "Three Came Home" is a story of war, it is a story of love. Mrs. Keith's love for her husband and son are paralleled with her hatred of internment. She balances the good in people, even the enemy, with the bad. The clear message is that war is what makes people bad. I enjoyed this book. It is beautifully written, with every sentence eliciting some kind of emotion in the reader. Mrs. Keith is an admirable woman for her literary accomplishments and her ability to share her experiences on a very personal level.

Keith, UC Berkeley grad in 1930s, writes of the world of Java, Bali, Borneo as a witty, charming American mother of a new baby -- suddenly out of her $100 1938 evening gowns and lifestyle as successful author of prewar bestseller "Land Below the Wind" and into POW camp. Sketches in my 1946 batik-bound original published book are adorable; spiritual message for world without war or race-hatred vivid and memorable.

The captive narrative is a standby in American literature. Every war has produced a crop of such memoirs, and the most remarkable thing about them as a group is there essential sameness. Whether the teller is an woman abducted by Indians in colonial days or a aviator shot down over Vietnam, the experience of captivity is singular. It is also a difficult genre to present well. Nothing much happens to the POW. A day-by day recitation of starvation and waiting does little to engage the reader. And since most POWs were not writers in their previous life, they lack the kind of literary skill necessary to make a the story live. That is what makes Agnes Keith's 1947 "Three Came Home" so rich. Keith was a writer before her internment by the Japanese in 1942, and used her skill to present an heartbreaking but ultimately affirming narrative of life inside a jungle prison camp. Agnes Newton Keith came to British Borneo in 1934 as a new bride. Harry Keith was Director of Agriculture for the colony, charged with making trees grow "where before there were none." They settled in Sandakan, North Borneo, where Agnes translated her love of writing into an award-winning book, "Land Below the Winds." In 1940, she gave birth to a son, named George. George was not yet walking when war clouds began to gather over Borneo. By late 1941, the Japanese were threatening the invasion of the entire South Pacific. Talk in Sandakan revolved around the likelihood of the Government evacuating all European women and children. Agnes, like many other women, decided to stay with her husband. Invasion came on January 19, 1942. For the next 4 1/2 months, the 80 European residents of Sandakan lived under virtual house arrest. Agnes suffered a miscarriage under the strain. On May 12, they received orders to be ready to move within the hour, They were permitted one suitcase each. Husbands were separated from their wives and children. By nightfall, Agnes and George were dumped into a leaky old Quarantine Station on Berhala Island. They would not be free again until September, 1945. While there were countless examples of selflessness, captivity did not bring out the best in all people. Some hoarded food and medicine; others told guards about smuggling operations in exchange for favors. Tempers flared, and pre-war civility fell away. Keith recalled one women telling her: "I hate your guts Agnes, and I'm going to tell you so. Although I'd like to be nice to you, just to keep out of that damned book of yours." And Agnes was writing a book, at great peril. For the next 4 years, she wrote in microscopic letters on any blank scrap of paper she could find. These notes were then hidden in old bottles, in George's toys, sewn into the linings of their clothes. "Land Below the Wind" had been widely read in Japan before the war, so the Camp Authority frequently searched her belongings for these notes. They never found them. This running diary chronicl