Hostages to Fortune

Olive green cloth bound, hardback book with gilt titles running along the spine. Comes with nice dust jacket. This book is in really good condition, normal wear, marks and tear apply consistent with use and age. First published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton in 1971, First Edition. 175 pages all intact and nice tight binding. All pages, text, illustrations and maps are in good, clean, readable order. Hint of red colour to top of pages. December 7th 1941, was the Day of Infamy which saw the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour: the next morning the target was Hong Kong. After seventeen days of vicious fighting the peacetime garrison-grossly outnumbered, sleepless and near to starvation-surrendered on Christmas Day. During the the battle Major general Maltby, the ill fated British military commander, referred to his men as "Hostages to Fortune" and for the next three and half years they were just that: in the living hell of Shamshuipo Camp; aboard the hell ship Lisbon Maru; in the final hell of Kobe on the Japanese mainland. Thus the "Hostages to Fortune", their story takes its place besides the grim realism of "The Cruel Sea" and "The Bridge over the River Kwai". The great difference is that this is true.…