I have just finished reading an incredible true story called You’ll Die in Singapore, by Charles McCormac who was an air gunner with No. 205 Squadron on Catalinas in Singapore till the Japs invaded in 1942. The story follows the attack on Singapore, the invasion, his capture, torture and eventual escape from a death camp, and the incredible journey he and his fellow escapees made over a five month jungle trek to safety.
I had read a similar story before, Into The Sun by RNZAF pilot Claude Thompson who was also in Singapore at the time and had been in both captivity and made evasion on foot. I can highly recommend that book too.
But You’ll Die In Singapore, a 1950’s book, is absolutely gripping, terrifying and a real eye opener. I had no idea there were resistance movements and secret organisations and networks operating against the Japs in their midst in Sumatra and Java. I have also never read such vivid recollections of survival against all odds. Those who evaded the Germans in Europe had it easy compared with those in the south east Asian jungles where not only the cruelest enemy imaginable working against your odds but the lack of food, lack of water, disease, language barriers and much more make this story incredible.
I’d love to know more about Sqn Ldr Charles McCormac and whether he is still alive. Google tells little more than the book is for sale on many sites and better still you can read it for free here:
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=EPlEN-zIqAAC&dq=you’ll+die+in+singapore&pg=PP1&ots=3T2T86ryzc&source=bn&sig=tGJaxNU-KrxnuKRc1BmmHaTubDU&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result
By: Bob - 6th November 2008 at 11:32
We visited the Changi Prison museum last year when in Singapore – very moving place to visit.
Having two uncles who were POWs under the Japanese I can understand why they felt the way they did after the war…
By: Joglo - 6th November 2008 at 11:01
When I was a youth, I met a guy who had been a Captain in the RAMC. He was captured when the Japanese invaded Singapore and he spent a few years as a POW there until the end of the war.
The photos he showed me were horrific, but I had grown up used to watching cinema newsreels of the death camps when they were liberated, so they didn’t come as that much of a shock to me.
Many servicemen died in Singapore, it was hell there as a POW, but as Capt Macklin explained, the Japanese treated their prisoners exactly as they would expect to be treated themselves if captured, they had no idea that different rules were applied in other countries.
The Geneva Convention was an unknown to them.
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November 6, 2008 at 10:35 am