2014 Memoir of Hudson WAG of no. 59 Squadron RAF - Coastal Command, Sumatra & Java and POW Changi

[Edward]

Into The Hands of Nippon: The Memorable and Astounding Account of Bertie Birks’ Experiences of War 1939-45
[diary while a POW, reconstructed log book, letters & memoir]
(Blurb Books 2014)
by Sgt. Hubert Farewells Birks. Edited by David Birks [son]
208 pages - paperback (7.75" x 9.75")
£70.57 - paperback
£6.99 - Ebook, Apple iPad format
$123.11 AU - paperback
$14.60 AU - digital

"This is the story of one man’s war - an RAF Volunteer Reserve, Hubert Farewells Birks, trained as a Wireless Operator / Air Gunner in the Second World War.

On his first operational flight with RAF Coastal Command in the Battle of the Atlantic, Hubert and his crew believed they had sunk a German U-Boat.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in December 1941, Hubert volunteered to join a 59 Squadron crew ferrying a Lockheed Hudson to the Far East, by way of Gibraltar, Malta, Cairo, Karachi, Rangoon and Palembang.

The crew took part in the Battle of Java, sinking a Japanese ammunition ship and making a ‘miracle take-off’ past a barrage of Japanese tanks. After escaping over mountain ranges and through raging torrents, Hubert and his comrades were finally forced to surrender.

Then followed three and a half years as a Prisoner of War, mainly in Changi, Singapore. Daily life became a battle against malnutrition, starvation, disease, ill-treatment and, for one in three, death. When the Japanese surrendered following the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hubert weighed less than six stone. He survived, but many of his friends did not.

Hubert's story is told mostly in his own words, taken from the log book he reconstructed, his own lively account of the squadron's journey to the Far East and the meticulous diary he kept as a POW.

Combined with commentary, quotations, poems, autographs and stunning illustrations by fellow POW Bob Gamble, this is a vivid and personal account of adventure, friendship and survival."

https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/5411902-in...ands-of-nippon

[Edward]

Received my copy of the book on Wo/Ag Hubert F. Birk yesterday from which I discovered that there is a second(!) memoir by a member of his RAF Hudson crew.

P/O Alastair Campbell Hill (no. 59 Squadron) was the crew's Observer. He passed in 1994 and his widow self-published his memoir in 2002. Based on the table of contents the majority of the book covers his time as a POW on Sumatra. Both Campbell Hill and the pilot, P/O Alex R. Wilson, provided accounts of their brief time flying combat over Java for Chris Shores and Brian Cull which were published in Bloody Shambles vol. 2 (1993) - pages 251-252, 297-298.

Scenes from Sumatra
(Mary Campbell Hill, Almondsbury, South Gloucestershire, 2002)
by Alastair Campbell Hill with a forward by LtCol Edward 'Weary' Dunlop
144 pages w/ b&w photos, drawings, maps and 3 appendices - hardback (9 1/2" x 6 1/2")

"Alastair Campbell Hill’s account of his experiences as a prisoner of the Japanese from 1942 to 1945 pulls no punches in its description of the inhuman treatment inflicted on himself and fellow prisoners of war, many of whom did not live to tell the tale. A pilot in the Royal Air Force, he and his crew arrived in the then Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) just as Singapore was overrun by the Japanese. After a series of hair-raising experiences in the air and on the ground, Campbell Hill was captured and sent to a POW (FEPOW, Far Eastern Prisoner of War) camp in Java where his pre-war experience as an actor found an outlet in the organization of a remarkably full programme of entertainments. Here he met Lt Col Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop, the Australian surgeon who became a hero to thousands of prisoners for his leadership, medical care and courage in standing up to the Japanese. The author’s transfer to a notorious ‘work camp’ in Sumatra saw the start of a long period of cruelty at the hands of the guards and steadily declining health as a result of near-starvation and tropical disease. The author died in 1994 leaving his widow Mary to ensure his story made it into print."