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Short Cruise on the Vyner Brooke
by Ralph E H Armstrong
Foreword by Patricia, Countess Mountbatten of Burma
It
was no pleasant trip........the 'Vyner Brooke' was a small, nineteen
hundredton steamer designed to carry cargo and no more than fifty passengers
between Sarawak and the East Indies, but on St Valentine's Day, February
14th 1942, her decks and cabins were packed with over three hundred women
and children - evacuees fleeing from a ferocious and unprovoked Japanese
assault upon Singapore, which had left its waterfront blazing.
They had hoped, somehow to reach Australia and safety. Instead, the 'Vyner
Brooke' was attacked by Japanese aircraft, bombed and sunk in the
Bangka Strait, and survivors struggled for long hours, even days, battling
strong currents to reach shore exhausted, only for some of them to be
bloodily slaughtered there by Japanese troops.
First published in 2003 by George Mann of Maidstone
Available from :- Navy Blue, Units 3 & 4 Palladium Arcade, DARTMOUTH,
Devon, TQ6 9PY
Email:- navyblue34@aol.com
Website:- http://www.navybluememorabilia.co.uk/products.asp?id=34
Price £8.95 plus £1.50 P&P
ISBN 0704104067 Non fiction paperback 144 pages including numerous photographs