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

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Forgotten Highlander* chronicles the forced march from Singapore to Thailand and the horrors its Scottish author experienced for 750 days: slave labor, starvation, pestilence, disease, sadistic torture and murder. An early vivid example describes how Japanese soldiers would rush through a hospital bayoneting patients right on the operating table. But even that can't compare for the worst to come. Germany has atoned. Young Germans know of their nation's dreadful crimes. But young Japanese are taught nothing of their nation's guilt. Short book that gives you insights into Japan's cruelty (a word not strong enough) and the great arrogance of the west towards the east. I also feel awful to be thinking that compared to Alistair's experience, my Dad's experience seemed like a walk in the park. Of course, it wasn't, but my Dad appeared to hang on to his dignity, and was not treated as sub-human. stars. An amazing story of survival. Remarkable too that this book was published in 2010, when Alistair Urquhart was in his 90th year. His memory still vivid and alive enough to recount his experiences, he has left us with an incredible memoir detailing the horrific treatment he received at the hands of the Japanese. From the introduction……

An important reason that Alistair Urquhart wanted to write his memoir was that he is dismayed and angry with the Japanese government for denying the atrocities that were committed in WWII. I admit to some bias here but my experience of being with my Japanese wife for nearly 20 years, knowing her parents who are both still alive and who were actually in Nagasaki the day the A-bomb was dropped, and of my wife’s Japanese friends and their families, is that there is indeed an awareness of what happened and great sadness and shame associated with that. True it’s not often talked about and also what students learn in school may not tell all of the grizzly details but I believe this is because of the shame brought about by discussing it. In many ways Japan is a shame based culture and most people prefer not to talk about what happened in WWII simply because it is shameful. Don’t let the silence and the sometimes questionable statements and actions from the Japanese government fool you that ordinary people don’t know what happened or that they deny what happened. Having said this though, I do understand the horror Urquhart experienced made him bitter and angry towards the Japanese.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....... The captured allied soldiers from Britain, Scotland, Australia were put to work in building this railway and the treatment and cruelty that befell upon these soldiers fell nothing short of inhumanity. The men survived on a few handfuls of rice a day. Many succumbed to disease - cholera, beriberi, tropical ulcers. Their weight fell to five or six stone. Beatings were routine. I have read so much about the cruelty of the German Nazi regime and the communists of other eras but the cruelty of the then government and army of the imperial japan comes second to NOTHING.

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... Even when the Death Railway had reduced us to little more than animals, there was humanity in the shape of our saintly medical officers who triumphed over barbarism.” I was a prisoner, and it was a gut-wrenching realisation to think that my liberty was gone and there was no telling for how long it would last. Finally, they introduced themselves as the widow and daughter of his former comrade Dr Mathieson. And while Mr Urquhart was an old campaigner, who had grown inured to keeping his emotions to himself, he shed tears at the thought of the bonds which had been forged in the worst possible circumstances. ‘The happiness that will come’ I can assure you that you won't put it down once you start. It's a moving and thought provoking account of what these heroes endured, how they survived and how they were treated once they returned.He declared: “Remember, that while it is always darkest before the dawn, perseverance pays off and the good times will return.” From the New York Times bestselling author The Four Winds, a moving, powerful novel about the fragile threads that bind together our lives and the astonishing potential of second chances Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders captured by the Japanese in Singapore. He not only survived working on the notorious Bridge on the River Kwai , but he was subsequently taken on one of the Japanese ‘hellships’ which was torpedoed. Nearly everyone else on board died and Urquhart spent 5 days alone on a raft in the South China Sea before being rescued by a whaling ship. He was taken to Japan and then forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later a nuclear bomb dropped just ten miles away . . . 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”