No Mercy from the Japanese: A Survivors Account of the Burma Railway and the Hellships, 1942–1945

by John Wyatt, Cecil Lowry

By the laws of statistics John Lowry should not be here today to tell his story. He firmly believes that someone somewhere was looking after him during those four years. Examine the odds stacked against him and his readers will understand why he hold this view. During the conflict in Malaya and Singapore his regiment lost two thirds of its men. More than three hundred patients and staff in the Alexandra Military hospital were slaughtered by the Japanese he was the only known survivor. Twenty six percent of British soldiers slaving on the Burma Railway died. More than fifty men out of around six hundred died aboard the Aaska Maru and the Hakasan Maru. Many more did not manage to survive the harshest Japanese winter of 1944/45, the coldest in Japan since record began. John s experiences make for the most compelling and graphic reading. The courage, endurance and resilience of men like him never ceases to amaze.

205 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Andrea Di Bernardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

In recent years, the experience of allied and above all British soldiers who fought against the Japanese has been often treated by memoirs, non-fiction books and films. Books such as "The Railway Man" or "The Forgotten Highlander" tell this story well (from the first was also made a good film with Colin Firth) and it is only good that this little holocaust suffered by allied POWs along "Death's Railway" that connected Thailand to Burma (which was also the subject of the beautiful classic "The Bridge on the River Kwai" by David Lean) receives the attention deserved. Despite so many books that theme is still often treated secondarily, yet that theater of war has produced books of absolute value both from the point of view of memorialism ("Quartered safe out here" by George MacDonald Fraser is perhaps the most beautiful war memoirs book ever written, with the famous author of Flashman who was active in the 14th Army, the "Forgotten Army") and the military essay ("Defeat Into Victory" written by Field Marshal Slim, commander of that 14th Army).
Precisely for this reason I threw myself headlong into reading this beautiful memoir, written by John Wyatt with the help of Cecil Lowry. John Wyatt was a conscript of the East Surrey regiment who found himself trying to stop the Japanese advance along the Burmese peninsula in late 1941 and early 1942. A struggle as we know in vain. And then that regiment contributed to the ineffective defense of the fortress of Singapore with the worst defeat of the British Army in the East. The story of Wyatt, a fervent Catholic, of the horrors of the death's railway and then of transport to Japan aboard two ships that were floating nightmares is a tale of great moral as well as physical temperament. It is difficult not to empathize with his sufferings and it is still difficult to understand the brutality of the Japanese, who vented themselves as well as in the prison camps precisely after the conquest of Singapore, in the Alexandra Hospital massacre, in which Wyatt was wounded, miraculously escaping the fate of many who perished there . His story of resilience and endurance is also a fortunate story as the East Surreys suffered enormous losses, with very few survivors, including Wyatt, in fighting and imprisonment. We cannot but feel close to his joy at the end of the war, when he saw the American ships that carried the prisoners on a long journey eastward and towards home in the port of Yokosuka. I read this book in two days, feeling close to the writer, who died in 2009, a few months after the book was published, I felt close to him and his experiences and I am grateful that Cecil Lowry, son of a regular of East Surrey Regiment that fought in those places and was a prisoner and slave on that railway, brought to light this story full of hope and love for life.

[Pauine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An autobiography well worth reading which describes the terrible treatment POWs experienced by the Japanese during the Second World War.

[HY · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sections on Singapore were heartbreaking.