The Forgotten Highlander: My Incredible Story of Survival During the War in the Far East

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It is a difficult book to read because of the many horrors which he faced and lived through in his six years as a member of the army. I cried and cheered and I learned so much more about WW2 than I thought possible in one man's story. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble.

People unfortunately have to be reminded of the deprivation of the leaders of Japan just some 80 years ago. This is the extraordinary story of a young man, conscripted at nineteen and whose father was a Somme Veteran, who survived not just one, but three very close separate encounters with death – encounters which killed nearly all his comrades. I was recommended to read this book by Alistair's niece whilst I was promoting my father's account of his time as a POW in Upper Silesia.

But yes, he was on the outskirts of the city when it was obliterated by the Allied deployment of a second atomic bomb on August 9 1945, just three days after the onset of the nuclear age had caused unprecedented devastation to Hiroshima. The Koreans today paint themselves as the victims of the Japanese imperialism and in the current K-pop wave, most Asians other than the Japanese, are eager to agree. Not only had Singapore been considered impregnable, but the Japanese had been written off as racially inferior types who would be easily crushed.

I've read so many personal POW accounts that it's only when I start spotting the differences that I really get interested.It is exactly because of instances like these where governments engage in very Orwellian actions, that independent accounts of personal experiences are very important. Alistair Urquhart's book, The Forgotten Highlander: One Man's Incredible Story Of Survival During The War In The Far East, is published by Little, Brown. This was the young Aberdeen-born Gordon Highlander, who was among the tens of thousands of Allied troops taken prisoner by the Japanese after the Fall of Singapore, still regarded as one of the greatest catastrophes of the whole conflict.