We Have a Library in Mind
eBook - ePub

We Have a Library in Mind

An Extraordinary Survival Exercise in a Second World War Japanese Camp

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

We Have a Library in Mind

An Extraordinary Survival Exercise in a Second World War Japanese Camp

About this book

The Imperial War Museum archived Anthony Smelt's personal papers because he spent three years of the Second World War interned in Batu Lintang, a camp in Borneo. He had been working as a civil servant in British North Borneo until the Japanese invaded at the beginning of 1942. In those years of captivity, he was an active member of the camp, documenting the diet of his fellow internees and contributing to various aspects of their lives. He was later awarded an OBE for his services during internment, when POWs and civilian internees alike endured food shortages, disease, forced labour, brutal treatment, and lack of adequate clothing and living quarters. Of the approximately 2,000 British POWs held at Batu Lintang, over two-thirds died during or as a result of their captivity.

An additional cruelty was enforced boredom. With so many types of recreation forbidden, however, a dozen of the men – all identified by the author from an encoded list in her grandfather Anthony's papers – decided to invent a magical library.

Offering short biographies of the main protagonists, descriptions of their experiences in camp and a concise examination of the 'library' itself, Lucy Alexander has revealed an astonishing exercise in mental survival under the most appalling circumstances.

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Yes, you can access We Have a Library in Mind by L. C. Alexander in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Introduction
  3. 1 William Anthony Casterton Smelt (IL #2)
  4. 2 John Norrie McArthur (IL #5)
  5. 3 Alan Rice-Oxley (IL #14)
  6. 4 George Cathcart Woolley (IL #22)
  7. 5 Reggie Rutter (IL #48)
  8. 6 Harry & Agnes Keith (IL #49)
  9. 7 Arthur Hugh Peters Humphrey (IL #57)
  10. 8 Edric Medley Selous (IL #74)
  11. 9 Cyril Drummond Le Gros Clark (IL #75)
  12. 10 Kenelm Hubert Digby (IL #93)
  13. 11 Lawrence John Clapham (IL #99)
  14. Unabridged List of Library Entries
  15. Endnotes
  16. Bibliography