At the Emperor's Pleasure
Surviving Wartime Captivity in the Far East
Published on 29. November 2024
Book
Hardback
282 pages
978-1-0361-0921-9 (ISBN)
Description
At the Emperors Pleasure follows the young couple Christopher and Topsy Man through the savage battle for Hong Kong and the years of enforced separation, she interned in Stanley Camp, Hong Kong, he as a prisoner of war and forced labourer in Kobe, Japan.
The book is not about Christopher and Topsy Man alone but also of friends and colleagues close to them forced to endure the cruel torture and execution by the Kempeitai.
Amongst those close to them some of Topsy's friends and colleagues were raped and murdered, one was imprisoned within shouting distance of her husband being tortured then executed by the Kempeitai, while another died when their camp was mistakenly bombed by the Allies. Topsy was herself the reluctant witness to ritual executions.
Christopher lost brother officers and many of the Cockney soldiers under his command in the battle for Hong Kong. Others drowned in the East China Sea, victims of a barbaric but little-known mass war crime, the sinking of the Lisbon Maru. Still others survived the sinking only to succumb to the harsh regime of the POW camp in Japan. Perhaps most tragic of all, four of Christopher's men came through the battle, the Lisbon Maru sinking and cruel imprisonment only to die when the aircraft carrying them to freedom crashed into the sea during a typhoon.
Like many of their generation who suffered at the hands of the Japanese during the second world war, Christopher and Topsy Man rarely spoke of their experience, and when they did, they were guarded in what they chose to share of it, even with those closest to them in their post-war lives.
With privileged access to personal letters, diaries and records from the wartime years, from memories exchanged with Christopher's and Topsy's contemporaries and from knowledge shared by other historians, the author has written a compelling and moving account of the young couple's lives being torn apart by world events in late 1941.
The book is not about Christopher and Topsy Man alone but also of friends and colleagues close to them forced to endure the cruel torture and execution by the Kempeitai.
Amongst those close to them some of Topsy's friends and colleagues were raped and murdered, one was imprisoned within shouting distance of her husband being tortured then executed by the Kempeitai, while another died when their camp was mistakenly bombed by the Allies. Topsy was herself the reluctant witness to ritual executions.
Christopher lost brother officers and many of the Cockney soldiers under his command in the battle for Hong Kong. Others drowned in the East China Sea, victims of a barbaric but little-known mass war crime, the sinking of the Lisbon Maru. Still others survived the sinking only to succumb to the harsh regime of the POW camp in Japan. Perhaps most tragic of all, four of Christopher's men came through the battle, the Lisbon Maru sinking and cruel imprisonment only to die when the aircraft carrying them to freedom crashed into the sea during a typhoon.
Like many of their generation who suffered at the hands of the Japanese during the second world war, Christopher and Topsy Man rarely spoke of their experience, and when they did, they were guarded in what they chose to share of it, even with those closest to them in their post-war lives.
With privileged access to personal letters, diaries and records from the wartime years, from memories exchanged with Christopher's and Topsy's contemporaries and from knowledge shared by other historians, the author has written a compelling and moving account of the young couple's lives being torn apart by world events in late 1941.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Barnsley
United Kingdom
Illustrations
None
Dimensions
Height: 164 mm
Width: 241 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
528 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-0361-0921-9 (9781036109219)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Richard Graham read modern languages at Jesus College, Cambridge before being commissioned into The Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own), known throughout the British Army as The Diehards. His choice of regiment was hugely influenced by Christopher Man who was then Colonel of the Regiment, just nineteen years after his release from captivity in Japan. The author's thirty years as an infantry soldier included command on active service of Cockney soldiers like those whose character and spirit are threads that run through this book. A Man of Kent by birth and upbringing, he has lived in Guernsey since his retirement as a soldier.