Alistair Urquhart

Alistair Urquhart’s story of his time in a prisoner of war camp in the Far East during World War 2 is all the more harrowing as he has kept it to himself for over 60 years. As a 20 year old Gordon Highlander, he was captured by the Japanese in Singapore in 1942 and sent to build the Burma to Siam railway, dubbed Death Railway or Hellfire Pass. Surviving the journey to the camp was a feat in itself; wedged into a container on a cattle train with 30 other men. After 900 miles, dehydrated, suffering from malaria, dysentery and diarrhoea, they were forced on an immediate 160km march to reach their final destination. Then started the first of Alistair Urquhart’s 750 days spent as a slave in some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet. Experiencing unspeakable cruelty, Urquhart worked 18-hour shifts every day. He learned to work above head height to avoid the beatings on the bridge over the river Kwaii but didn’t escape the semi-subterranean cages known as ‘Black Holes’. Eventually, while stuffed in the hold of a captured American vessel, they were torpedoed by the Russians and he spent 5 days with no food and water on a single cork raft before being rescued only to be sent to work in the coalmines in Japan. Freedom came in the form of an American B-29 carrying the ‘Fat Man’ but the exposure to the radiation from Nagasaki resulted in his skin cancer in the 1980s. Alistair’s wife died in 1993 not knowing anything of his past, she never asked although the early years of their marriage might have told her something. Alistair’s nightmares resulted in him sleeping in an armchair so as not to hurt her when lashing out. On the long journey home from the Far East, the PoWs were forced to take a vow of silence. But Alistair signed using a false name, outraged at such a cover up. In 2000 they got an apology from the British government and some compensation, he does not receive an army pension. Alistair rehabilitated himself through ball room dancing where he met his wife. He still runs two tea dances a week in Broughty Ferry. Join Alistair to hear about his experiences, thoughts on war and on writing the book so as the many soldiers who didn’t survive would not be forgotten.