Defying the Odds: Surviving Sandakan and Kuching [Paperback]

Michele Cunningham (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 237 pages
• Publisher: Lothian Books (2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0734409176
• ISBN-13: 978-0734409171
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,895,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book Yet on the Sandakan/Kuching Japanese P.O.W. Camps, November 13, 2007

By 

Cecile Lambe "Blog Babe" (Paris, France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

My father, Lieutenant Max Lambe, was in Changi, Sandakan and Kuching camps for three and a half years. He's quoted quite a lot in this book. But that isn't the reason I gave it 5 stars. I've read ALL the books on this tragedy and this is the first one that really tells it from the Officers view. And I think its the first one that gives extensive coverage of the Kuching camp. There's a lot of detail here - a lot of scholarly research and interviews with survivors. Its a horrific tale. I could only read a chapter at a time before being in tears over what these brave men went through. You see...a lot of this stuff remained bottled up for sixty years. Even their families didn't really know what they endured at the hands of the cruel Japanese. The men were told to put it out of their minds - to forget it and get on with their lives. And they did...but with terrible mental scars and physical disabilities...and in the case of the few officers that made it home - terrible guilt over the slaughter of the enlisted men in the Sandakan camp. Shameful really - how the Australian governments neglected them over the years. But one thing it did do for me more than anything else - it made me feel really proud to be an Australian when I read how these men cared and looked after each other - the true spirit of the Aussie Digger and the real meaning of "mateship". Well done Michele Cunningham! Malcolm Lambe, Paris

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book Yet on the Japanese P.O.W Borneo Camps of WWII, October 26, 2007

By 

Cecile Lambe "Blog Babe" (Paris, France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Defying the Odds: Surviving Sandakan and Kuching (Paperback)

My father, Lieutenant Max Lambe, was in Changi, Sandakan and Kuching camps for three and a half years. He's quoted quite a lot in this book. But that isn't the reason I gave it 5 stars. I've read ALL the books on this tragedy and this is the first one that really tells it from the Officers view. And I think its the first one that gives extensive coverage of the Kuching camp. There's a lot of detail here - a lot of scholarly research and interviews with survivors. Its a horrific tale. I could only read a chapter at a time before being in tears over what these brave men went through. You see...a lot of this stuff remained bottled up for sixty years. Even their families didn't really know what they endured at the hands of the cruel Japanese. The men were told to put it out of their minds - to forget it and get on with their lives. And they did...but with terrible mental scars and physical disabilities...and in the case of the few officers that made it home - terrible guilt over the slaughter of the enlisted men in the Sandakan camp. Shameful really - how the Australian governments neglected them over the years. But one thing it did do for me more than anything else - it made me feel really proud to be an Australian when I read how these men cared and looked after each other - the true spirit of the Aussie Digger and the real meaning of "mateship". Well done Michele Cunningham! Malcolm Lambe, Paris.