Sign-In
Cart
The Missing Years: A PoW's Diary from Changi to Hellfire Pass
Paperback
Military BiographiesJapanese HistoryWorld War II
Publisher Price: $29.99
ISBN13: 9780645328035
Publisher: Catmatdog
Published: Jul 18 2026
Pages: 334
Weight: 0.99
Height: 0.75 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
A Secret Memoir of Living Hell ... Revisited.
British officer Capt Hugh Pilkington of the Royal Norfolks enjoyed the full and fun life of a rubber planter in pre-war Malaya. Then war broke out and he found himself fighting in Johor. Shot by a sniper, he was hospitalised in Singapore, only for the hospital to be overrun by the Japanese in a horrific massacre. As a POW he was soon sent to labour on the Death Railway in Thailand.
Then, 60 years later, his son Paul retraced his nightmarish steps -- with best-selling travel writer travel Stuart Lloyd -- with some really surprising findings and encounters along the way.
Part Military History. Part Travelogue. Pure Human Spirit!
Over 30 pages of historical and original new photographs.
Voted one of the Top 3 War Books of the Year when it was published by The Australian newspaper.
Finalist, Book of the Year, Australian Society of Travel Writers.
Why?
Because -- through secret diaries written between 1942 and 1945 -- it draws you into the very personal observations of Capt Hugh 'Pilk' Pilkington of the 6th Royal Norfolks, who'd spent 12 years working in pre-war colonial Malaya. He goes from a life of privilege to a life of a prisoner for 3.5 years. And his son spends a night in a Malaysian jail to see what it's like! The Missing Years is full of these side-by-side comparisons of then and now in Changi and the Alexandra Hospital (Singapore), the former battlefields of Batu Pahat and Parit Sulong, Johore, (Malaysia), and Kanchanaburi, the Bridge on the River Kwai, and Hellfire Pass (Thailand).
In February 1942, a sniper's bullet brought down Captain Hugh Patrick Pilkington of the 6th Royal Norfolks. Fevered in Singapore's Alexandra Military Hospital as the island fell, he was too weak to evacuate. What followed was three and a half years of hell-and one man's unflinching chronicle of survival against impossible odds.
Written in secret on scraps of paper purloined from the Japanese themselves (at pain of execution), Pilkington's diaries became a memoir aboard the repatriation ship HMT Sobieski in September 1945. Raw. Unfiltered. Visceral. These were not memories dimmed by time but accounts seared into the present moment-the stench of suppurating wounds, the delirious night screams, the brutal reality of the Thai-Burma Death Railway.
What emerges is far more than a POW chronicle. This is an exploration of empires colliding, of men pushed past breaking point, of the thin line between survival and surrender. Pilkington's superior knowledge of Malaya-where he'd lived as a rubber planter for fifteen years-becomes both blessing and curse as he watches the colonial world he'd known consumed by something he never imagined.
Also from
Lloyd, Stuart
A Monkey's Wedding: A Pioneering Family's Seven-generation Saga in Southern Africa.
Lloyd, Stuart
Paperback
A Monkey's Wedding: A Pioneering Family's Seven-generation Saga in Southern Africa
Lloyd, Stuart
Paperback
Also in
Japanese History
Zen Master Tales: Stories from the Lives of Taigu, Sengai, Hakuin, and Ryokan
Haskel, Peter
Paperback
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
A Brief History of Japan: Samurai, Shogun and Zen: The Extraordinary Story of the Land of the Rising Sun
Clements, Jonathan
Paperback
The Book of Yokai, Expanded Second Edition: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore
Foster, Michael Dylan
Paperback
Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989
Horbinski, Andrea
Paperback
The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture
Ikeno, Osamu
Davies, Roger J.
Paperback
In the Japanese Ballpark: Behind the Scenes of Nippon Professional Baseball
Fitts, Robert K.
Hardcover
Kojiki: Fully Revised Edition: Records of Ancient Matters (Revised and with a New Foreword)
Yasumaro, O. No
Paperback
Japan's Amazing Bullet Trains: The History and Technology of the World's First High-Speed Rail Network
Railways Graphic
Hardcover
Japan's Infamous Unit 731: First-Hand Accounts of Japan's Wartime Human Experimentation Program
Gold, Hal
Paperback
The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War
Yellen, Jeremy A.
Paperback
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb (Large Print Edition)
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
Japan, Beyond the Genkan: An Insider's Guide to the Soft Power, Strong Market, and Social Harmony of America's Asian Partner
Walker Phd, Joshua W.
Hardcover
The Book of Yokai, Expanded Second Edition: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore
Foster, Michael Dylan
Hardcover
Sacred Journeys and Institutional Rivalries: Pilgrimage Mandalas and the Art of Fundraising in Medieval Japan
Andrei, Talia
Hardcover
Nation-Empire: Ideology and Rural Youth Mobilization in Japan and Its Colonies
Chatani, Sayaka
Hardcover
African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan
Girard, Geoffrey
Lockley, Thomas
Paperback
The Japanese Yokai Handbook: A Guide to the Spookiest Ghosts, Demons, Monsters and Evil Creatures from Japanese Folklore
Kinoshita, Masami
Paperback
Bushido: The Samurai Code of Japan: With an Extensive Introduction and Notes by Alexander Bennett
Nitobe, Inazo
Hardcover
Hokusai's Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji: From the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Scantamburlo, Elisabetta
Paperback
A Plague Upon Humanity: The Hidden History of Japan's Biological Warfare Program
Barenblatt, Daniel
Paperback
A Geek in Japan: Discovering the Land of Manga, Anime, Zen, and the Tea Ceremony (Revised and Expanded with New Topics)
Garcia, Hector
Paperback
Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan
O'Reilly, Bill
Dugard, Martin
Paperback
Japanese Kabuki Stories: Tales of Love and Death from the Japanese Theater
Civardi, Ornella
Hardcover
Miti and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975
Johnson, Chalmers
Paperback
Samurai!: The Autobiography of Japan's World War II Flying Ace
Sakai, Saburo
Caidin, Martin
Saito, Fred
Paperback
Brokering a Race War: Japanese Americans in the Pacific War and the Occupation of Japan
Azuma, Eiichiro
Paperback
Japanese Legends: Samurai, Spirits, Myths & the Sacred Stories of Japan
Alive, History Brought
Hardcover
Japanese Legends and Folklore: Samurai Tales, Ghost Stories, Legends, Fairy Tales and Historical Accounts
Mitford, A. B.
Paperback
Black Snow: Curtis Lemay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb
Scott, James M.
Paperback
Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941
Peattie, David
Evans, David C.
Paperback
Eight Days in August: The Countdown to the Collapse of Japan and the End of World War II
Zablocki, Peter
Hardcover
An Illustrated Guide to Samurai History and Culture: From the Age of Musashi to Contemporary Pop Culture
Blair, Gavin
Hardcover
State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu
Toby, Ronald P.
Paperback
The Lineage of the Arisaka: Facts and Circumstance in the History of the Arisaka Family of Rifles
Faust, Frederic
Paperback
The Pacific War, 1931-1945: A Critical Perspective on Japan's Role in World War II
Ienaga, Saburo
Paperback
Manufacturing Modern Japanese Literature: Publishing, Prizes, and the Ascription of Literary Value
Mack, Edward
Paperback
Cherry Blossoms in Twilight: Memories of a Japanese Girl
Sugama-Weldon, Yaeko
Austin, Linda E.
Weldon, Yaeko Sugama
Paperback
On the Production Methods of Pot Still Whisky: Campbeltown, Scotland, May 1920
Taketsuru, Masataka
Hardcover
Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War
Hicks, George
Paperback
Japanese Swords and Armor: Masterpieces from Thirty of Japan's Most Famous Samurai Warriors
Martin, Paul
Hardcover
And the River Flowed as a Raft of Corpses: The Poetry of Yamaguchi Tsutomu, Survivor of Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Diehl, Chad
Yamaguchi, Tsutomu
Paperback
Memoirs of a Kamikaze: A World War II Pilot's Inspiring Story of Survival, Honor and Reconciliation
Ohta, Shigeru
Odachi, Kazuo
Hardcover
Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989
Horbinski, Andrea
Hardcover
The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan
Benfey, Christopher
Paperback
In This Body, in This Lifetime: Awakening Stories of Japanese Soto Zen Women
Roshi, Sozen Nagasawa
Paperback
The Book of Ninja: The Bansenshukai - Japan's Premier Ninja Manual
Cummins, Antony
Minami, Yoshie
Hardcover
Tokyo: A Biography: Disasters, Destruction and Renewal: The Story of an Indomitable City
Mansfield, Stephen
Paperback
Hiroshige's Japan: On the Trail of the Great Woodblock Print Master - A Modern-Day Artist's Journey on the Old Tokaido Road
Delord, Philippe
Hardcover
Colors in Japanese Art: The Use of Color in Japan's Fine and Decorative Arts
Hamada, Nobuyoshi
Hardcover
Samurai, the Greatest Battles and Warriors in Japanese Art: (Woodblock Prints)
Marks, Andreas
Hardcover
Japan from Anime to Zen: Quick Takes on Culture, Art, History, Food . . . and More
Barton, David Watts
Paperback
Unbeaten Tracks in Japan: Victorian Travelogue Series (Illustrated & Annotated)
Bird, Isabella Lucy
Paperback