The Railway Man

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Nagase soon reveals that the Japanese (including himself) were brainwashed into thinking the war would be a victorious one for them, and that he never knew about the high casualties caused by the Imperial Japanese Army. Anyone interested in WWII history will be rewarded, and anyone that has been wronged and dreams of revenge, anyone who has experienced the effects, or know someone who has, of PTSD, much will be gained by this story of redemption. The real Eric Lomax (center) with his onscreen counterparts, Jeremy Irvine (left) and Colin Firth (right). The Railway Man is an autobiographical book by Eric Lomax about his experiences as a prisoner of war during World War II and being forced to help build the Thai– Burma Railway for the Japanese military. You can't help but think that this must have been good therapy for him to finally get his thoughts and experiences out in the open after years of suppression.

During the second world war Eric Lomax was forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway and was tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio. After serving some time in Asia, his troops found themselves surrounded by the enemy, resigned to their fate and later forced by the Japanese to build the “Death Railway” (the Burma-Siam line): “railways have always broken the bodies and spirits of their builders, I knew that already: the Panama Railway cost the lives of one in five of its workforce; the rail roads across the Rockies had demanded appalling sacrifices; the Alpine tunnels were considered to be death traps, even for the well-fed peasant boys who built them”.

His entire life was shattered when he was taken prisoner of war by the Japanese when Singapore surrendered in February of 1942. What I saw for the first time was the man Dad should have been, the man he would have been if he hadn't suffered in the terrible way that he did.

His later life included reconciliation with one of his former torturers, interpreter Takashi Nagase of Kurashiki, Japan. Years after the WWII, he came face-to-face with one of his captors – Japanese interpreter Takashi Nagase, a meeting that finally led to a reconciliation. He manages to get placed in a hospital and hears news that two devastating bombs are dropped on Japan destroying entire cities. The intensity of the emotions and the suffering of Eric Lomax and his fellow comrades are clearly depicted more in this book than in the movie. There was very little support for these men, certainly the general public was not aware of the true extent of the horrors faced on the front line.E’ stata una lettura molto interessante, anche se la scrittura non è particolarmente brillante, ma sicuramente precisa e, spesso, sconvolgente. Growing up before World War II, Lomax is fascinated by railways and spends his holidays trying to spot rare locomotives near his home in Edinburgh, Scotland. This railways was depicted in the movie, "Bridge on the River Kwai", though Lomax says it is the most unrealistic depiction of POW conditions with the healthiest looking prisoners he had ever seen. Unable to talk about his experiences to anyone and told to move on, he does the best he can but is constantly haunted by the brutality of his prison years. We are provided with searing portrayals of his long incarceration – the torture of himself and his comrades, his interrogations, lengthy imprisonment in small cells where silence was maintained for months at a time.

Following his capture by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore in 1942, Nan waited for three-and-a-half years not knowing whether he was alive or dead. The jungle being too dense for the enemy to cross but the Japanese do cross the jungle and take them from behind. Left emotionally scarred and unable to form normal relationships, Lomax suffered for years until, with the help of his wife, Patti Lomax, and of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, he came terms with what happened. The Japanese discover the radio on a raid of the POW camp and the officers are taken away and beaten and tortured repeatedly. In the years following the war, Imperial Japanese Army officer and interpreter Takashi Nagase made more than sixty missions of atonement to the River Kwai in Thailand (as of Lomax's 1996 book).The dust jacket of this book is slightly damaged/ripped, however, this does not affect the internal condition. As a lieutenant, he was captured by the Japanese following the surrender of Singapore in February 1942.