Descent Into Hell: The Fall of Singapore - Pudu and Changi - the Thai-Burma Railway

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Descent Into Hell: The Fall of Singapore - Pudu and Changi - the Thai-Burma Railway
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Peter Brune
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:816
Dimensions(mm): Height 233,Width 154
Category/GenreSecond world war
ISBN/Barcode 9781741145342
ClassificationsDewey:940.54259
Audience
General
Tertiary Education (US: College)

Publishing Details

Publisher Allen & Unwin
Imprint Allen & Unwin
Publication Date 1 August 2014
Publication Country Australia

Description

Descent into Hell is a scrupulously researched and groundbreaking account of one of the most traumatic calamities in Australian history - the Malayan Campaign, the fall of Singapore and the subsequent horrors of the Thai-Burma Railway. Unpicking the myths and legends of the war, Peter Brune goes to the heart of the Australian experience. He describes the shambolic planning by the British in Singapore and the failures and incompetence of some of the Australian command. He debunks the claims about Australian deserters in Singapore, and we learn of the black market in Changi and the beatings, torture and murder on the Thai-Burma Railway. Here too are stories of the war's many heroes and villains: of officers who looked after their men and optimised their chances of survival, and others who looked after themselves at their men's expense; the heroes of battle who became ineffectual and lost in the camps and on the Railway, and the least liked and least respected battlefield officers who came to be great leaders. And then there are countless acts of kindness and decency performed by one POW for another in the most cruel of circumstances. Impressive, compelling and rich in human spirit, Descent into Hell is an unprecedented chronicle by one of Australia's finest military historians.

Author Biography

Peter Brune is one of Australia's leading military historians. He is author of the bestselling and highly acclaimed A Bastard of a Place: the Australians in Papua, as well as Those Ragged Bloody Heroes: From the Kokoda Trail to Gona Beach 1942, The Spell Broken: Exploding the Myth of Japanese Invincibility, and We Band of Brothers: A Biography of Ralph Honner, Soldier and Statesman, and is co-author with Neil McDonald of 200 Shots: Damien Parer and George Silk and the Australians at War in New Guinea.