Paperback: 248 pages
Publisher: Zondervan (June 3, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0007118481
ISBN-13: 978-0007118489
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #218,102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #74 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Ethnic & National > Japanese #98 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Transportation > Railroads #686 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > Military > World War II
This account of how a young Scot, captured by the Japanese in April, 1942, managed to survive the brutal treatment accorded POWs under Japan's control has endured long after Ernest Gordon's imprisonment ended, and will continue to endure and influence readers for more years to come. This book, originally published over 40 years ago, was one of the sources for the highly popular movie of that era, "Bridge Over the River Kwai," and the more recent "To End All Wars."Some parts of this book are very difficult to read as Gordon, a Captain in a Scottish regiment, spares no detail as he relates the physical trauma, the diseases, the wretched conditions imposed by their captors and the senseless, sometimes unbelievable treatment by the guards of their captives . How to survive this vertiable hell hole? As he notes, without some sort of discipline and some moral compass for guidance, many men gave up hope and died. But Gordon found within the prison camp two people who selflessly gave of themselves when Gordon was literally at death's door to help restore him to physical health, of people who washed his sores, encouraged, prodded, and inspired. Through the faith of these two, one a Methodist, the other a Roman Catholic, Gordon reinvestigated the New Testament and from that learned and acted out the commandment to "love others", even including the brutal Japanese guards, as he would love himself. Using these simple teachings of love, encouragement, and selfless help to your neighbor, Gordon and others in the various camps were able to overcome the horrific conditions under which they existed. The melding of the spiritual and the discipline of order, neatness, and cooperation saw the POWs triumph over the evil of the system under which they existed.
Formally published as "Miracle on the River Kwai" and renamed to coincide with a new movie. This book was written by Ernest Gordon a Scottish Army officer who served in the South Pacific During the war.Back StoryDuring that time the Japanese advanced on Singapore, and Gordon and a few other officers try to escape on a chartered sailboat. After being captured at sea, he was incarcerated and sent to a work camp in Thailand, building the infamous railway of death, where nearly 80,000 prisoners lost their life in a little over a year. This railway and the Chungkai prison camp are the real back story to the Oscar winning film "Bridge On the River Kwai."What the classic movie doesn't tell you is the horrific condition and constant death that the builders of the bridge met with on a daily basis.The BookThe story is a recount of Ernest Gordon's experiences at the camp and his witness to that camps transformation from what he called "the worst that man could be" to the "best that man could be."The book starts with Gordon laying in the hospital at Chungkai, called the "Death House" by the prisoners as there was very few he came back from the hospital. Gordon then flashes back to what led him here, and then continues from that point and tells of the camps transformation. Before Gordon wound up in the hospital the camp was very much "every man for himself" animal instinct and the law of the jungle dictated who lived and who died. During Gordon's stay at the hospital while he was suffering and near death with Beriberi, Tropical Ulcers, Malaria, and Amoebic Dysentery, he propped himself up, void of hope, and penned a last letter to his parents. That was his low point.
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