The Missing Years: A POW’s Story from Changi to Hellfire Pass: 80th Anniversary Edition (updated 2021)

A Secret Memoir of Living Hell … Revisited. Capt Hugh Pilkington 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. ‘Absolutely compelling.’ — John Kerr, Radio 2UE. ‘A very, very gripping story …’ — Graham Mabury, Radio 6PR. ‘An amazing read … a historical document, which Stuart Lloyd has done a fantastic job on.’ — Simon Owens, Radio 3AW. 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). Stuart Lloyd, the author, has lived in Southeast Asia for 25 years, is a military history expert (and battlefield tour guide) on the Japanese campaign, and also one of Asia Pacific’s most widely published travel writers. So you are in great hands as he guides you through the twists and turns of the story, retracing Pilk’s diaries while he and Paul do their best to live on rice and water just like the POWs did. —- ISBN: 9780645328080 | ISBN10: 0645328081 | ISBN-13: 978-0645328080