Armistice Day!

[wburns_kh]

November 11 is the anniversary of the 1918 Armistice that ended combat in World War I. What are your favorite books on war and peace?

[dlcjr]

We're reading "Silent Night. The story of the WW1 Christmas Truce" by Stanley Weintraub in our Readable History book club. This is a really good book of about 200 pages so it can be read quickly. The author gives an interesting "what if" scenario at the end about what might, or might not have happened had the combatants on the Western Front walked away after Christmas Eve 1914. Good book. Dave C., Allen,TX (www.readablehistory.com)

[Skyler97]

My favorite book on World War 1 has to be Hemingway's "Farewell to Arms" with Anton Meyer's "Once an Eagle" a close second though the latter spans 3 Wars.

My favorite book on WWII is Guy Sager's autobiography "The Forgotten Soldier" about his experiences as a French Alsatian drafted into the German Army in WWII serving on the Eastern Front. There is a lot of controversey over whether or not the events in the book are true or if Sager has written a work of fiction.

[wburns_kh]

Nice to see you again, Skyler.

[arizonadesertw…]

Just watched a show on PBS a couple days ago about something that happened in WWII, that I didn't know anything about, and wonder where I'll be able to learn more.

It was about the railway built by the Japanise using POW's and Asian endentured(spell?) servenents(men, women, and children) as slave labor, working a large percentage of these people to death in the process. A movie was made about a small portion of the railway, in the 1950's called The "Bridge Over the River Kwi"(again, sorry if spelling is incorrect). I was shocked at the concentration camp- like conditions in these camps along the railway as they were being built. I even felt somehow a little guilty that I'd never heard of it, like somehow these poor men went through all of this in vain, because it wasn't made more public. There were interviews with about 4 POW's and 1 Japanise officer who was in charge of the railway camps.

Very interesting watching both view points, obviously from very different points of view, about what happened, why, and how.

I'd be very interested in learning more about this part of history that I know nothing about.

Anyone have any ideas where I can look?

[Skyler97]

One I remember is "Return from the River Kwai" by Joan Blair recounts the story of the POW's who survived building the railray only to be torpedoed by Allied Submarines as they were being transported to japan to be Slave Labor. It may be out of print.

"Thunder Below!" by Admiral Eugene Fluckey recounts part of the story as the USS 'Barb' picked up some survivors who were on the Doomed Transports.

"Flyboys" by James Bradley delves somewhat into Japanese Atrochities during the War.

"Long Way Back From the RIver Kwai" by Loet Velmans, a memoir of one of the Pow's.

Anything you can find on Unit 731 probably has something on the Concentration Camps run by Imperial Japan.

[Choisya]

The story of the building of the Bridge over the River Kwai and the Burma Road by mostly British & Commonwealth POWs is very well known to all Brits Arizonadesertwinds and the film and various documentaries are shown on our TV regularly. I am surprised that Americans do not know of it as it is one of the most infamous stories of the war. Most of the ex-prisoners and Japanese officers are now dead but there was a meeting of reconciliation a few years ago. Here is a report about the meeting of reconciliation, which mentions other books:-

http://www.forachange.co.uk/index.php?stoid=67

Here is another website which also mentions a book written by one of the prisoners:-

http://subsite.icu.ac.jp/people/hsuzuki/christianity/saito_200209-e.html

It was a very bitter campaigh and some of the soldiers refuse to forgive their captors for their extreme cruelty:-

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1436385,00.html

Here is an internet piece about the number of deaths:-

'DEATH RAILWAY

By the end of 1943, the 15,000 Australians imprisoned in Changi had left for slave labour on the Burma-Siam Railway. The first group, 'A' Force, consisting of some 3,000 men, boarded the Japanese hell-ships Tohohashi Maru and Celebes Maru. Packed like sardines they could neither stand nor lie. Soon most were suffering from diarrhoea and the smell and conditions can only be imagined.

The prisoners were unloaded at Margui and Tavoy in Burma. Ahead lay a 35 km walk to the base camp at Thanbyuzayat many prisoners dying on the way. Within weeks around 61,000 Allied prisoners, Dutch, British, Australian and Americans (700 men from the USS Houston) were scattered in camps throughout Burma (Myanmar) and Siam (Thailand) near the 265 mile long railway they were about to construct. It was completed in October, 1943, after 14 murderous months. For every mile of track, 393 men died. Also in the workforce were around 200,000 Asian labourers. Work on the railway and the building of the two bridges (one wooden and one steel) over the Kwae Noi River, took its toll, estimates putting the Asian death toll as high as 80,000. The Allied death toll was nearly 13,000. Today, three beautifully laid out cemeteries lie along the route of the railway line. At Kanchanaburi lie the remains of 6,982 POW's including 1,362 Australians. At Thanbyuzayat there are 3,771 graves and at Chungkai 1,329 graves. The names of those with no known grave are commemorated on memorials in Rangoon, Hong Kong and Singapore.'

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arizonadesertwinds wrote:
Just watched a show on PBS a couple days ago about something that happened in WWII, that I didn't know anything about, and wonder where I'll be able to learn more.

It was about the railway built by the Japanise using POW's and Asian endentured(spell?) servenents(men, women, and children) as slave labor, working a large percentage of these people to death in the process. A movie was made about a small portion of the railway, in the 1950's called The "Bridge Over the River Kwi"(again, sorry if spelling is incorrect). I was shocked at the concentration camp- like conditions in these camps along the railway as they were being built. I even felt somehow a little guilty that I'd never heard of it, like somehow these poor men went through all of this in vain, because it wasn't made more public. There were interviews with about 4 POW's and 1 Japanise officer who was in charge of the railway camps.

Very interesting watching both view points, obviously from very different points of view, about what happened, why, and how.

I'd be very interested in learning more about this part of history that I know nothing about.

Anyone have any ideas where I can look?

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Message Edited by Choisya on 01-21-200701:56 PM

Message Edited by Choisya on 01-23-200706:01 AM