Author(s): Robert Charles

Military

Robert Charles was a machine-gunner on the USS Houston, sank by the Japanese in Sundra Straight in 1942. After swimming for nine hours, he was picked up off the Java coast by Japanese forces, and held for forty-three months in slave-labor camps. One of the few to survive the Burma-Thailand railway, Charles brings all his skills as journalist to bear in this harrowing and vivid account which details the brutality of the camps along with the inspiring courage of men such as Henry Hekking, a Dutch Army doctor, whose knowledge of local herbs saved the lives of his fellow POW's, including the author.