The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquart

Alistair Urquhart grew up in Aberdeen, Scotland and was enjoying a pretty good life until Hitler declared war on the British. As a 20 year-old he joined the local army regiment, the Gordon Highlanders. He was shipped out to Singapore, where he languished through a boring year shuffling papers and perfecting his ball room dancing.

Then everything changed and what ensued is one of the worst stories I have ever heard. He was captured by the Japanese in 1942 when they invaded Singapore. Forced into slave labor as a POW, he survived 750 days in the jungle working on the notorious “Death Railway” and building the bridge over the River Kwai. During this time over 100,000 men lost their lives and Urquart was very luck not to be among them. Things went from bad to worse when he was transported on a Japanese “hellship,” in a hold where you were unable to move because the men were packed in so tightly. Almost one in three of the POWs on these ships died in the hold. To make matters worse his ship was torpedoed, and nearly everyone on board died, but not Urquhart. He drifted on a make shift raft for five days in the South China Sea, and while others were rescued by the American submarine that sunk them, he was rescued by a Japanese whaling ship and returned to the enemy.

The misfortune does not end here, as he was taken to Japan and forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later, he was just ten miles from ground zero when an atomic bomb was dropped knocking him to the ground. In late August 1945, he was freed by the American Navy, and on the way to the boat he drove though radiated dust, which later lead to cancer. At this point the 5' 6" 135 lb Urquart had been reduced to 82 lbs and he looked like a living skeleton after three and a half years as a POW.

The greatest insult of all was that the British government never gave him any compensation nor did they provide medical help for his litany of maladies: cholera, beriberi, dysentery, malaria, and the subsequent cancer from radiation exposure and skin cancer from sun exposure. Despite the constant nightmares and never being able to eat anything but the simplest, blandest foods for the rest of his life, he married and had a happy family. He finally sat down to tell the world his story in 2010. At 91, he still lives in Dundee and spends his time teaching retired people how to use the computer and attends and teaches ballroom dancing.

After reading this book I don't think I can ever complain about anything, ever. He is truly part of the greatest generation.