Colonial Singapore of the 1930s was a beautiful, bustling city. Considered by many to be a den of iniquity, Singapore attracted travelers from all over the world. One of these adventurous souls was Alexander Cockburn, a young Scot who had just graduated from a pharmacy college. He fell in love with the island immediately and asked his fiancée to join him there. She would never make it to Singapore. Instead, Cockburn watched as the beautiful island came to a swift, violent end.
Everyone believed Singapore was an impregnable fortress. Even when the Japanese began to aggressively invade Northern Malaya, British newsreels raved Singapore! Gibraltar of the East! But the Japanese moved quickly through Malaysia, easily defeating British and Australian troops who were grossly unprepared for jungle warfare. British officials, realizing that Singapore was going to fall, evacuated the city of all colonialists, leaving the Chinese, Indian and Malay populations to fend for themselves. Throughout all this, Cockburn worked as a medical volunteer, cleaning up the rubble and bodies left from Japanese bombing. When Singapore fell, he was taken prisoner by the Japanese and placed in a jail for prisoners of war. He would stay there for four years.
Conditions in the prison were horrendous. There was almost no food and no medicines for the malnourished. Many men died in the brutal labor camps. Cockburn used his experience as a pharmacist to help his fellow inmates, making concoctions out of local plants to ease their pain. All the while, his parents and his fiancée heard nothing from him. They didn't know if he was dead or alive.
In 1945, when the Japanese surrendered, Cockburn was alive, but barely. He stayed conscious for the liberation and then blacked out. When he awoke, he was on a hospital ship that would eventually take him home. He returned to his grateful family and his lovely fiancée, who had been waiting almost eight years to see his face again.
