'There are some books, which once read, you cannot get completely out of your mind. This is one of them. Whether you are just curious, a scholar, military historian or, like me, have a personal connection to this story, you will at once be absorbed.’ Col (ret’d) Marty Slade, RAMC
One Hell of a Story about Humanity, and Inhumanity.
‘That night seemed like 20 years. Our thoughts and feelings can be better imagined than described. Suddenly I realised today is my birthday -- it also looked like being the day of my death.’ – Pte Bert Gurd, RAMC, survivor.
In the hours before the Fall of Singapore in February 1942, the British Military Hospital Alexandra found itself isolated in a no-man’s-land between the Japanese and Allied frontlines.
This is the definitive account of what happened next, resulting in up to 300 Allied soldier-patients, nurses, orderlies and doctors being killed. Many by bayonet in their beds where they lay prone. Others by bayonet and machine gun after they were removed and held captive overnight in the Sisters’ Quarters outhouse. One even on the operating theatre table awaiting surgery.
A Bleeding Slaughterhouse tells the full story for the first time, examining the characters, causes and culpability of this two-day tsunami of terror.
The story-driven narrative is based on first-hand interviews with survivors, and never-seen unpublished memoir notes. We enjoy pre-war colonial eccentricity, uncover a $3,000,000 corruption scandal, and get to know the main characters intimately. We also track what happened in the aftermath to the victors and the vanquished, meet some amazingly eminent medicos, and encounter some mind-blowing conspiracies in the War Crimes Trials. And name the guilty.
‘I didn’t really think I could escape my awful plight, but I didn’t want to be slaughtered like a sheep. It was worse than any nightmare I ever had and worse than the most fearful ordeal I had ever imagined could happen.’ -- Sgt Norman Bryer, RAF, survivor.
With over 40 pages of original maps, illustrations and unpublished photographs.
