Drawn from a journal secretly written by a young soldier in the Royal Army Service Corps, a true POW story of adventure, courage, resilience and luck.
What would it be like to leave your loved ones behind knowing you may never see them again? What if you had to depart on a ship in the dead of night heading for an unknown destination only to find yourself in the heat of a battle that concludes in enemy conditions so terrible your survival in captivity is under threat?
In 1940, Stanley Moore trained for desert warfare along with many others in the British Army’s 18th Division. Their mission, they thought, was to fight against Hitler and fascism in the Middle East. But in a change of plan and destination, he and his fellow servicemen became sacrificial lambs on a continent much further from home.
Stan’s division set off from England on a secret overseas mission. But after an attack on Pearl Harbor, the under-trained and undersupplied 18th Division was redirected to fight the Japanese.
Using extensive research and personal documents, Jill Robertson and Jan Slimming—Stanley Moore's daughters—detail Stan’s journey and arrival in Keppel harbor under shellfire; the horrific seventeen day battle to defend the island, the Japanese Admonition and the harrowing forced labor conditions after capitulation.
Only a small percentage of the eighty-five,zero British troops returned after the war. Captured at Singapore reveals how ordinary men died under horrific conditions, and how the lucky survived.
“[The authors have] made brilliant use of [their] father’s wartime diary . . .to create a clear picture of the suffering endured by POWs at Changi prison camp.” —Military History Quarterly
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