Monday 8 November 2010

British 18th Division in Singapore

Due to problems with the guest book attached to the website I have only just been able to recover some old posts and apologies for delayed replies to your entries where applicable!


David William UK writes....

Researching the British 18th Division at Singapore 1942
An excellent site with a lot of valuable information. I am currently preparing a dissertation on the Fall of Singapore in 1942. The focus is on the men of the British 18th Division who were captured and interned in Japanese camps and working on the Thai-Burma Railway.

I am particularly interested in knowing how these men coped with being pitched into a hopeless military situation and how they were able to continue with their lives after the end of the war. Many were troubled with illnesses and diseases that were contracted during captivity and after the war, many of them were treated at Queen Mary Hospital, Roehampton and studied by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Only last week I attended a conference in Liverpool - the 68th anniversary of the fall of Singapore in 1942 - to meet some of the veterans and hear about some of the pioneering work carried on at this Institute over the past 45 years.

I have also met and interviewed several veterans during the past 20 years and only this weekend was speaking to the sister of a man who was rescued from the Empress of Asia. Some of these interviews were on camera.

If you're wondering about the dissertation then here's the answer. I am just completing the fourth year of a BA history degree at the University of London (Birkbeck). I should have done it years ago. I am now 71.

I would like to hear from anyone who has any links with the British 18th Division and the regiments of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.

Thank you for giving your time to read this story.

1 comment:

Jerome said...

Read about the British 18th Division and the unknown story of how they were transported to Singapore, plus other stories about the war on www.historyarticles.com