Long Night's Journey into Day: Prisoners of War in Hong Kong and Japan, 1941-1945

Danial Duda is an information services librarian in the Queen Elizabeth
II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Charles Roland is a Jason A. Hannah Professor Emeritus of the History of
Medicine at McMaster University. Although scholarly, his fascinating
account of the conditions that prisoners of war (POWs) endured in the
Far East during World War II will interest general readers as well. He
concentrates on the plight of the Canadians captured in Hong Kong in
December 1941, but he also includes the other nationalities captured in
the campaign: British, Indian, and Chinese. American POWs captured in
the Philippines and the British and Australians captured at Singapore
are also part of this story. The author does a good job at explaining
the laws of war—specifically the Geneva Convention of 1929 and its
role in the care and treatment of POWs—and the Japanese philosophy in
dealing with these laws. The human side of the story is told through
many interviews with POWs who survived the ordeal. This major
contribution to the history of POWs, and more specifically their medical
history in POW camps in the Far East, is particularly recommended for
libraries with medical, military, legal, or social history collections.