Sickness, starvation, brutality, and forced labour plagued the existence of tens of thousands of Allied POWs in World War II. More than a quarter of these POWs died in captivity.
Long Night’s Journey into Day centres on the lives of Canadian, British, Indian, and Hong Kong POWs captured at Hong Kong in December 1941 and incarcerated in camps in Hong Kong and the Japanese Home Islands. Experiences of American POWs in the Philippines, and British and Australians POWs in Singapore, are interwoven throughout the book.
Starvation and diseases such as diphtheria, beriberi, dysentery, and tuberculosis afflicted all these unfortunate men, affecting their lives not only in the camps during the war but after they returned home. Yet despite the dispiriting circumstances of their captivity, these men found ways to improve their existence, keeping up their morale with such events as musical concerts and entertainments created entirely within the various camps.
Based largely on hundreds of interviews with former POWs, as well as material culled from archives around the world, Professor Roland details the extremes the prisoners endured — from having to eat fattened maggots in order to live to choosing starvation by trading away their skimpy rations for cigarettes.
No previous book has shown the essential relationship between almost universal ill health and POW life and death, or provides such a complete and unbiased account of POW life in the Far East in the 1940s.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 940.54/7252
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 21
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- a-ja---
- ISBN
- 9780889209428 0889203628
- LCCN
- D805.H85
- LCCN Item number
- R64 2001eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaBNVSL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xxviii, 421 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)gtp00521611 (OCoLC)65183874 (CaOOCEL)402678
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaBNVSL
Table of Contents
- Contents 10
- Illustrations and Tables 12
- Preface 14
- Acknowledgments 18
- Abbreviations 22
- Hong Kong Chronology 26
- 1. Hong Kong before 8 December 1941 30
- 2. The Eighteen-Day War: 8-25 December 1941 42
- 3. The Prisoner-of-War Camps and Hospitals 74
- 4. Prisoner-of-War Life in Hong Kong 120
- 5. Trying to Cope with Too Little Food 156
- 6. In Sickness, Rarely in Health: Life and Death in the Camps and Hospitals 184
- 7. The Overseas Drafts 236
- 8. POW Camps in the Japanese Home Islands 254
- 9. Less than Perfect Soldiers 332
- 10. The Journey Ends—But It Never Does 350
- Notes 358
- Bibliography 404
- Index 434
- A 434
- B 435
- C 436
- D 437
- E 438
- F 438
- G 439
- H 440
- I 441
- J 441
- K 442
- L 442
- M 442
- N 443
- O 444
- P 444
- Q 445
- R 445
- S 446
- T 448
- U 449
- V 449
- W 449
- Y 450
- Z 450
