Showing results by narrator "Stuart Lloyd" in All Categories

It started with a question from the British colonial government: Could the Malays develop an effective modern fighting force? So in 1933, a small batch of 25 Malay recruits were assigned to train with British officers in Port Dickson, Malaya: The 1st Experimental Company.

Revisited 60 years on. 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. Blasted by a sniper, he was hospitalised in Singapore, only for the hospital to be overrun by the Japanese in a horrific massacre. Then as a POW he was soon sent to labour on the Death Railway in Thailand. Can you imagine the horrors? All the while he kept secret diaries, written on paper stolen from the Japanese.

The Battle for Hong Kong seems lost in the shadow of other battles in Southeast Asia, such as Malaya, Singapore, Burma, and the Philippines. But while the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong Island lasted just one week from 18-25 December 1941, it was highlighted by horrific atrocities involving wounded Allied soldiers, and medical doctors, nurses, orderlies and patients. None worse than the massacre at St Stephen's College, which had transformed into a makeshift hospital.