{"product_id":"the-missing-years-stuart-lloyd-9780645328035","title":"The Missing Years: A PoW's Diary from Changi to Hellfire Pass","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA Secret Memoir of Living Hell ... Revisited.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBritish officer Capt Hugh Pilkington of the Royal Norfolks 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePart Military History. Part Travelogue. Pure Human Spirit!\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOver 30 pages of historical and original new photographs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVoted one of the Top 3 War Books of the Year when it was published by The Australian newspaper.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFinalist, Book of the Year, Australian Society of Travel Writers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhy?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBecause -- 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).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn February 1942, a sniper's bullet brought down Captain Hugh Patrick Pilkington of the 6th Royal Norfolks.\u003c\/strong\u003e Fevered in Singapore's Alexandra Military Hospital as the island fell, he was too weak to evacuate. What followed was three and a half years of hell-and one man's unflinching chronicle of survival against impossible odds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten in secret on scraps of paper purloined from the Japanese themselves (at pain of execution), Pilkington's diaries became a memoir aboard the repatriation ship HMT Sobieski in September 1945. Raw. Unfiltered. Visceral. These were not memories dimmed by time but accounts seared into the present moment-the stench of suppurating wounds, the delirious night screams, the brutal reality of the Thai-Burma Death Railway.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat emerges is far more than a POW chronicle. This is an exploration of empires colliding, of men pushed past breaking point, of the thin line between survival and surrender. Pilkington's superior knowledge of Malaya-where he'd lived as a rubber planter for fifteen years-becomes both blessing and curse as he watches the colonial world he'd known consumed by something he never imagined.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Stuart Lloyd\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0645328030\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780645328035\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Catmatdog\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/18\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 334\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.99lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.75d","brand":"Stuart Lloyd","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":49097498231039,"sku":"9780645328035","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-missing-years-stuart-lloyd-9780645328035","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}