<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: A different view of the Pacific war.
Review: The author gives a stirring and very readable story as told from the eyes of a Dutch soldier captured by the Japanese during the invasion of Java in 1942. Velman gives a very interesting story of his backgound as a Jew in prewar Holland and his families escape from the Nazis only to fall into the hands of the Japanes later.Most of his time as a POW was spent helping to build the Thai-Burma railroad. During this period, hundreds of thousands of Aliied prisoners and native slave labors died due to disease, famine, loss of spirit, and, of course, the direct mistreatment of them by the Japanese. All this for a railraod that was barely used and is now overgrown and torn up. It is a compelling book and the author is still trying to come to terms with the Japanse to this day. I also highly recommend Ernest Gordon's "Beneath the Valley of the Kwai". This book was written much earlier but tells the story from the British point of view. It is now available under the title "To End All Wars".
Rating:
Summary: Thank you Leot Velmans
Review: The author survived the ordeal of Changhi prison in Singapore and enslavement by the Japanese to build the railroad in Siam -- my own father did not. Velmans' account is intensely painful to read but made me feel close to the father I never got to know, 60 years later.
<< 1 >>
| 
