Penrod V. Dean

This story of a young Australian Officer captured by the Japaneses at the fall of Singapore in February 1942 is a stand-out amongst many competent stories of POW's in the Pacific War. Most of all Dean doesn't hesitate to catalog the failings and criminality of men of his own side, nor to give credit to acts of humanity amongst the Japanese. Although these were rare instances in Dean's forthright history of Japanese brutality and the stoicism of his fellow POW's, they add an extra dimension to what is already an extraordinary story. Escaping in the early days of the Japanese occupation, Dean and a companion meet up with the legendary Chin Peng, the Chinese-Malaysian communist. After being recaptured he spent two years in solitary confinement in Singapore, learning fluent Japanese from his captors. At the war's end he assisted in taking the surrender of local Japanese commanders, and was subsequently drafted into the Australian delegation to the Tokyo War Trials. But through all of this Dean comes across as civilian-soldier with no great love of military bumpf or sense of his own importance, but rather a man with an abiding love for his family and country, and for the prospect of a quiet life at war's end.… (altro)