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NO MERCY FROM THE JAPANESE
A Survivor's Account of the Burma
Railway and the Hellships 1942-1945
John Wyatt with Cecil Lowry
By
the laws of statistics John Wyatt should not be here today to tell his
story. He firmly believes that someone somewhere was looking after him
during those four years. When readers of this gripping memoir examine
the odds they will understand why he holds this view.
During the Malayan campaign his regiment lost two-thirds of its men.
More than three hundred patients and staff in the Alexandra Military Hospital,
Singapore, were slaughtered by the Japanese - he must be one of the very
few survivors still alive today. Twenty-six per cent of British soldiers
slaving on the Burma Railway died. More than fifty men out of around six
hundred died on the 'Asaka Maru', which was torpedoed, and the
'Hakasan Maru', the grim second 'Hell Ship' that took on survivors.
Many more POWs did not manage to survive the winter of 1944/45, the coldest
in Japan since records began. Yet John survived all these traumatic events
and this chronicle of his experiences makes for the most compelling and
graphic reading. The courage, dignity, endurance and resilience of men
like him never ceases to amaze.
Describing as it does with quiet understatement the courage and endurance
of his colleagues and the cruelty of their captors, No Mercy from the
Japanese is a humbling and unforgettable story.
Hardback 176 pages ISBN 978 18441 5 6528
Available at the special price of £17.99 plus £3.50
(UK)
Rest of the world plus £7.50 Airmail
£2.00 from every order will be donated to "COFEPOW"
Pen and Sword Books Limited 47, Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS
Tel 01226 734555 or Fax 1226 734438
Order on line at www.pen-and-sword.co.uk