I've finally opened the book The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan. I suppose I'm intimidated by books that win international prizes, expecting them to be erudite, unapproachable, full of deep meaning and worthy. But this book is not like that. It starts off in a little town called Cleveland in Tasmania in about 1915 or 16. We know Cleveland and drive through it on our trips to Hobart. Dorrigo Evans is the focus of the story and we read about his life as the son of a railway fettler and how he wins a scholarship to attend Launceston High School and how his prowess with a football builds his esteem with the kids from the city.
In the 1940s, like so many others, he is sent off to war and finds himself in Singapore where he is captured by the victorious Japanese army. Soon he is one of the prisoners-of-war involved in the building of what became known as the Death Railway. Early in the book, the author mentions the locomotive that will make the first journey on that railway built by the POWs. That locomotive, C5631, is now in a museum in Tokyo.
Richard Flanagan's brother, Martin has written an article condemning what he sees as a Japanese glorification of what happened on that railway in Thailand. He suggests that, considering the appalling atrocities carried out by the advancing Japanese armies, particularly in Nanking and Thailand, they should be a little more circumspect. Where, for example, on the display of the locomotive does it mention the POWs who died constructing the line, not to mention the Tamils, Chinese, Malayans, Thais and Burmese. Were there 50,000, 60,000, even 200,000? No one knows.
I'm sure he has a point but I suspect we shouldn't just accept that the victorious armies are blameless in the way we wage war. Currently, we are witnessing a trial where all sorts of allegations are being made about a recipient of the Victoria Cross. Whether he's guilty or not, I suspect it's just the tip of the iceberg.
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