Unsentimentally, he depicts the difficulties of the war-traumatized when trying to reintegrate into civilization. No hero's welcome. From Changi, Urquhart was sent north to work as a slave labourer on the notorious Burma Road railway where conditions were even worse. His life narrowed down to a round of pain and deprivation. Food was in short supply, beatings were regular, illness afflicted even the strongest and death was ever present. In that hellhole, which included a stint working on the bridge on the river Kwai, where conditions were so unlike the film of the same name as to make comparisons laughable, Urquhart found strength and resolution from his inner self. This is the extraordinary story of a young man, conscripted at nineteen, who survived not just one but three separate encounters with death—encounters which killed nearly all his comrades. Silent for over fifty years, this is Alistair Urquhart’s extraordinary, moving, and inspirational tale of survival against the odds. He watched wretched fellows succumb to different illnesses. In many cases, their immune systems were not equipped to deal with the conditions they faced. In others, the psychological torment reduced many of the prisoners to mere husks.

I could soon see outlines of people in the water in the distance, all of them covered in oil. I had no way to know who they were, whether Japanese or POWs. It was easy to mistake a Japanese for one of my own. I made up my mind that if it came down to me or a Japanese, he would be going to meet his ancestors.” The writing style of this is very simplistic, but the content is more graphic and unfiltered than most of the other memoirs I've read. Urquhart describes all the illnesses and tortures with details that other POWs had left out. Other important details were those that Urquhart mentioned on the British government's end; their complete disrespect and mistreatment of their own soldiers after they returned from the camps. Mr Urquhart had tremendous respect for his compatriot, which made a reunion at one of the book events all the more evocative and poignant. Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders captured by the Japanese in Singapore. He not only survived working on the notorious Bridge on the River Kwai , but he was subsequently taken on one of the Japanese ‘hellships’ which was torpedoed. Nearly everyone else on board died and Urquhart spent 5 days alone on a raft in the South China Sea before being rescued by a whaling ship. He was taken to Japan and then forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later a nuclear bomb dropped just ten miles away . . .This is the extraordinary story of a young man, conscripted at nineteen and whose father was a Somme Veteran, who survived not just one, but three very close separate encounters with death – encounters which killed nearly all his comrades. The Forgotten Highlander: My Incredible Story of Survival During the War in the Far East by Alistair Urquhart – eBook Details Another one is the Koreans who were conscripted to serve in South-East Asia. The Koreans today generally still harbour great dislike of the Japanese owing to the bad legacy Japan left as their colonial master. Yet, in the treatment of the POWs and the populace of South-East Asia, Koreans are known to be no less harsh than the Japanese. In fact, the author even alluded to the Japanese being more measured when it came to beating the POWs (pg. 219). The Koreans today paint themselves as the victims of the Japanese imperialism and in the current K-pop wave, most Asians other than the Japanese, are eager to agree. But were they? This is one subject that is worth exploring (together with the attitudes of the Taiwanese who were also conscripted and served in South-East Asia).The writing itself is lucid and engaging and the narrative flows fairly well despite a big gap during 1941 which you miss unless you read carefully. These stylistic points aren't really the point but it does make an easy read.

When war broke out in 1939 he was then asked to join up and duly did so. His unit was transferred to Singapore. So far, so mundane.Riveting, powerful, moving.”— The Observer, “Compelling . . .A book that must be read.”— Daily Mail. A story of almost unimaginable suffering.”—BBC Radio 4. “Urquhart grabs our attention with unforgettable stories.”— Minneapolis Star-Tribune of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars The Forgotten Highlander: My Incredible Story of Survival During the War in the Far East by Alistair Urquhart

I’ve heard many stories about the Infamous death railway before reading this book, but oh my, was I unprepared to learn the truth or what... It pains me to think of how an entire generation of soldiers lost their youth and their dignity and their right to be treated as fellow humans through these years of hell. No money or anything in this world can compensate the loss of lives of hundreds of thousands of young men who were simply dragged into a war they did not ask for.This was the young Aberdeen-born Gordon Highlander, who was among the tens of thousands of Allied troops taken prisoner by the Japanese after the Fall of Singapore, still regarded as one of the greatest catastrophes of the whole conflict. I also feel awful to be thinking that compared to Alistair's experience, my Dad's experience seemed like a walk in the park. Of course, it wasn't, but my Dad appeared to hang on to his dignity, and was not treated as sub-human. An important reason that Alistair Urquhart wanted to write his memoir was that he is dismayed and angry with the Japanese government for denying the atrocities that were committed in WWII. I admit to some bias here but my experience of being with my Japanese wife for nearly 20 years, knowing her parents who are both still alive and who were actually in Nagasaki the day the A-bomb was dropped, and of my wife’s Japanese friends and their families, is that there is indeed an awareness of what happened and great sadness and shame associated with that. True it’s not often talked about and also what students learn in school may not tell all of the grizzly details but I believe this is because of the shame brought about by discussing it. In many ways Japan is a shame based culture and most people prefer not to talk about what happened in WWII simply because it is shameful. Don’t let the silence and the sometimes questionable statements and actions from the Japanese government fool you that ordinary people don’t know what happened or that they deny what happened. Having said this though, I do understand the horror Urquhart experienced made him bitter and angry towards the Japanese. massacre at the Alexandra military hospital. Three hundred and twenty-three patients, doctors and nurses were systematically murdered in the shadow of the Red Cross that was meant to protect them. The invaders actually bayoneted some of the patients on the operating table. When I read”

Alistair Urquhart endured the brutality of a PoW camp, the horror of being held captive on a vessel that was torpedoed by his own side and was shipped to Nagasaki just weeks before an atomic bomb reduced the city to rubble. When he left Scotland, at 20, he had been a fit and healthy man with an athletic gait, weighing in at 135 pounds. I couldn’t believe the harshness of conditions that the POWs suffered in. With very little food or water they suffered all manner of diseases and challenges. On top of that there was no medical assistance. The unforgiving taskmasters treated them as easily dispensable. They were relentless and spared no one even appearing to enjoy coming up with sadistic methods of punishment.The death railway was one of the most horrendous crimes against humanity in the 20th century. It was the unimaginable task undertaken by the Japanese imperial army in building a railway connecting Thailand to Burma. stars. An amazing story of survival. Remarkable too that this book was published in 2010, when Alistair Urquhart was in his 90th year. His memory still vivid and alive enough to recount his experiences, he has left us with an incredible memoir detailing the horrific treatment he received at the hands of the Japanese. From the introduction…… Those who returned came home to a country that did not understand what they had endured, and which, for the most part, did not want to know. He survived the blast but admitted it was a very different person who returned to the north of Scotland from the optimistic young lad who had left his homeland. The construction of the Death Railway was one of the greatest war crimes of the twentieth century. It was said that one man died for every sleeper laid. Certainly over sixteen thousand of us British, Australian, Dutch, American and Canadian prisoners died on the railway – murdered by the ambitions of the Japanese Imperial Army to complete the lifeline to their forces in Burma by December 1943. Up to a hundred thousand native slaves, Thais, Indians, Malayans and Tamils also died in atrocious circumstances. Even Japanese engineers”