Prisoner of War
Coombes recorded his memoirs as a prisoner of war in his book Banpong Express, which provides a vivid narrative of the Malayan Campaign and of life as a prisoner of war under the "death shadow" of the Imperial Japanese Army. This book was written in the prisoner of war camp at Nangpladuk (Siam). It was hidden in the lining of a one gallon thermos container which, being in use in the cook house, was never detected by the Japanese.
His regiment fought for 9 weeks and suffered in a lost cause. Out of the original 700 who came to Malaya, three Officers, including the C.O., and 28 men were killed in action and 184 died a miserable death as prisoners of war. In December 1946, Coombes was Mentioned in Despatches in recognition of his conduct in this campaign. In the concluding paragraph of Banpong Express, Coombes writes "Those of us who remained have experienced the bitterness of defeat and the humiliation of captivity under conditions as macabre as any in the history of warfare. We were indeed lucky that the end came when it did. Now we can live again and hope that out of our experiences we may fashion a philosophy of life dynamic enough to be effective in a war-weary world. It must not happen again".
Read more about this topic: J. H. H. Coombes
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