The Forgotten Highlander: My Incredible Story of Survival During the War in the Far East

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They came to think of themselves as the forgotten army - the men who endured years of suffering in Japanese Prisoner of War Camps during World War II. 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. He, with hundreds of others, was marched through the jungle to a prison camp. Many died from dehydration and exhaustion on the long march. 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. He ended up in a camp in mainland Japan. He was there when the war ended. But his prison camp was a few miles from the city of Nagasaki.

Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders, captured by the Japanese in Singapore. Forced into manual labor as a POW, he survived 750 days in the jungle working as a slave on the notorious “Death Railway” and building the Bridge on the River Kwai. Subsequently, he moved to work on a Japanese “hellship,” his ship was torpedoed, and nearly everyone on board the ship died. Not Urquhart. After five days adrift on a raft in the South China Sea, he was rescued by a Japanese whaling ship.

In the 1957 film Bridge on the River Kwei the men whistle Colonel Bogie and the officers valiantly defy their Japanese guards. 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. That was traumatic enough, but Mr Urquhart didn’t just spend two years as a slave labourer while helping to build the Death Railway in Burma and the bridge over the river Kwai, which was later turned into a famous film he regarded as “sanitised”. When he left Scotland, at 20, he had been a fit and healthy man with an athletic gait, weighing in at 135 pounds. 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”

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.”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. In common with his father, who had fought as a Gordon Highlander during the Battle of the Somme in the First World War, Mr Urquhart never spoke about his wartime privations for decades afterwards. The pain was too deep, the sadness too profound. Do you think it's possible to survive having malaria, dysentery, beri-beri and tropical infected skin ulcers all at the same time while being worked to death during WW2 in a Japanese prison camp building a railroad in Burma?

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. I enjoyed this book. It was well written and engaging. There is no doubt that Alistair's story of survival is incredible. What I didn't gain from this book (hence the rating) is any insight over what made the difference. When he goes to schools, what does he talk about to the kids? If I compare this to Viktor Frankl's "Man's search for meaning", I got a lot more out of Frankl's book in terms of insight into the mentality of a survivor. Mr Urquhart had tremendous respect for his compatriot, which made a reunion at one of the book events all the more evocative and poignant. He decided, right from the outset of the venture, that he would not gloss over any aspect of the campaign, not even the incompetence and complacency of some Allied commanders that sparked the fall of Singapore in the first place.Knowing that this is a true story makes it more sad reading. The brutality Alistair Uruqhart experienced as a POW is horrendous. It's amazing how he and others survived but it's heartbreaking that many did not. Singapore has been captured by the Japanese. Alistair is forced with those others captured to walk northward. He will be one of those to build the notorious "Death Railway" from Thailand into Burma. He was soon to be one of those working on the notoriuos bridge over the River Kwai. And according to the Japanese the Rape of Nanking in 0937 just didn't happen. According to the Japanese the prisoners working on the railway, they were treated humanely....... 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...