Surviving the Sword: Prisoners of the Japanese in the Far East,
1942-45 During World War II, there were few fates that could
befall a soldier so hellish as internment in a Japanese prisoner
of war camp. To this day, many ... Show synopsis During World
War II, there were few fates that could befall a soldier so
hellish as internment in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. To
this day, many survivors-most of whom are in their eighties-
still cannot talk about their experiences without unearthing
terrible memories. Surviving the Sword gives voice to these tens
of thousands of Allied POWs and offers us a powerful reminder of
the terror and depravations of war and the resilience of the
human spirit. In this important book, Brian MacArthur draws on
the diaries of American, British, Dutch, and Australian Fepows
(Far Eastern prisoners of war), some of whose recollections are
published here for the first time. These soldiers wrote and kept
their diaries, in secret, because they were determined that to
record for posterity