Eric Lomax (1919–2012)

This is an account by a former Far Eastern Prisoner of War of: his early life; his wartime experiences working on the notorious Burma Siam railway, including savage beatings and other tortures; and his post war attempts to process his anger and desire for revenge, his nightmares and what we would now called PTSD affecting his life and relationships, until he was able to come to terms with it eventually by tracking down and meeting one of his Japanese interrogators (Takashi Nagase, an show more interpreter, in fact) and their being reconciled with each other, Nagase having spent decades of his post-war life trying to bring about reconciliation between the bitter war-time enemies. This encounter was the subject of an award-winning TV documentary.

Lomax was keen on trains from an early age but followed his father into the Post Office in Edinburgh when he finished his education. Born in 1919, he was of the generation that went straight into the war, and was taken prisoner when in February 1942 the Japanese stunningly captured Singapore, the centre of the British Empire in the Far East. He writes clearly and non-dramatically about the horrific deprivations, the near starvation, dirt, beatings, water torture that came with being a prisoner of war, especially after he was arrested for being one of a party in possession of a radio. More than these even, was the uncertainty even about the immediate future and the sense of sheer arbitrariness of knowing that your entire future life was out of your hands - so the complete depersonalisation and deprivation of personal agency was almost the hardest thing to deal with. In his post-war career, Lomax worked in the last colonial administration of Ghana. It was only later in his 50s and 60s that he started to be able to talk about his experiences, initially only to fellow ex-POWs, then later on to those campaigning to support the victims of torture. His personal wish to gain closure as to whether he and his fellow sufferers had been betrayed or whether the discovery of the radio was pure chance, led to discover Nagase in the end. The last couple of chapters of the book are a moving account of the transition between a desire for understanding and revenge through cycles of grief to acceptance, friendship and forgiveness. This was a great read. show less

[The Railway Man: A POW's Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgiveness] by Eric Lomax
3.5★'s

What's It About?
It's a remarkable memoir of forgiveness―a tremendous testament to the courage that propels one toward remembrance, and finally, peace with the past. Eric Lomax, sent to Malaya in World War II, was taken prisoner by the Japanese and put to punishing work on the notorious Burma-Siam railway. After the radio he illicitly helped to build in order to follow war news was discovered, show more he was subjected to two years of starvation and torture. He would never forget the interpreter at these brutal sessions. Fifty years after returning home from the war, marrying, and gaining the strength from his wife Patti to fight his demons, he learned the interpreter was alive. Through letters and meeting with his former torturer, Lomax bravely moved beyond bitterness drawing on an extraordinary will to extend forgiveness.

What Did I Think?
Actually I never set out to read the book. I picked it up and started skimming through it and found myself stopping an reading whole passages which soon advanced to entire pages. So I said to myself..."self..why in the world don't you just start at the front and read this thing."

The book is told from a personal perspective. This is not fiction in any stretch of the imagination. This is the memories and nightmares of a man that faced the horrors and madness of war while a prisoner of a ruthless enemy and lived to tell of it. Ultimately it tells the message of forgiveness and reconciliation. In this day and age the author probably would have been said to have autism. The man is remarkable when you consider the huge suffering that being a prisoner of war would impose on anyone...but a person with that condition would find their situation unbearable at it's best. It is astonishing testimony to this man's spirit that he survived to be such a courageous and insightful man. This has been made into a film by the same title that is available on DVD. I haven't watched it but I understand that the film makers took a great deal of liberties with the facts. show less

I thought this was quite good. It is one of the best. POW accounts I have read. I particularly like that is is the author’s life story and not just the story of his captivity. The details of his ordeal are amazing and well written, but I most liked the reflections on his life after. The violence inflected on him s a POW was still with him 60 years later. It affected his marriages, his jobs, friendships, and children. I think WWII had a much deeper psychological impact on the west than we show more realize. It was too big, and even 75 years later a little too close to see clearly. A lot of men came home psychologically wounded like Lorax and went on to shape the post war world through work and family. How much of that hurt is still with us, passed through two or three generations? show less

Talk about man's inhumanity to man. Eric Lomax was a POW of the Japanese in WW2 and worked on the infamous Burma railway. This is his memoir of his life before the army, his experience of war and the terrible treatment and torture he suffered as a POW. It also deals with the impact that had on his later life - who could survive that and not be scarred.

Inevitably with any great event, it dominates the book. From the very early pages it is almost as if everything he learns or experiences is, show more in someway, shaping him in preparation for the defining event of his life. The main influences would be a love of railways and the steam trains that run them and a interest in machinery and of technology, such as radio specifically. He also manifests a desire for order and system and timetable - a means of knowing where he fits into the system of the structures around him, it's a means of grounding him and connecting him to the world at large.

All of which conspires to have him, as an officer, engaged in concealing a radio and a map of the area, with the railway and other features marked. this small act, and the Japanese's paranoia combine to put him in quite dreadful straits. In later years he focuses his hatred onto the interpreter who was involved in the interrogation and torture he suffered.

Post war, the experience now colours the entire of his life, especially in an emotional sense. But there comes a moment of truth, can you actually continue to hate a man who, half a lifetime ago, was implicit in, but didn't drive or control the torture & interrogation. Mind you, he did nothing to prevent it either.

The book is dominated by his years as a POW - that takes over 1/3rd of the book and leaves a scant 74 pages for his entire life after 1945. the last section, dealing with his post war life, felt very brief. He has a wife that he says, honestly, he should never have married, and she is almost brushed under the carpet. The event leading up to his meeting with and forgiveness of his interpreter also seems a bit rushed, somehow. It is almost as if he's opened up to tell what was done to him, but is still struggling to express emotion in any meaningful way. that's not to say that it's not an incredibly powerful book, but you do seem to go from blind hate to forgiveness without the soul searching that I would expect.

It's written in a style I can recognise. Both my grandfathers fought in WW2, and this sounds a lot like them and their friends. All very matter of fact and understated, until you listen to it and hear what is being said, when it very slightly blows your mind. It's all very plain language - this isn't some work of great erudition, it is simply an unbelievable tale told in such a down to earth manner that you can't help but accept every word as being true. I can't imagine how you survive an experience like that and still come out of it a human being - it's a testament Eric, and the many thousands like him, that they did. show less