C
CelticWarlord
Guest
Agnes Newton Keith (1901 – 1982) was an American author best known for her three autobiographical accounts of life in North Borneo (now Sabah) before, during, and after the WWII. The second of these books, Three Came Home , tells of her time in a Japanese POW and civilian internee camps in North Borneo and Sarawak, and was made into a film of the same name in 1950. She published seven books in all. Her 3 1/2 years in the prison camps were characterized by frequent beatings, torture, personal assault by a guard, and starvation. A tall lady, at the time of liberation in September of 1945 she weighed less than 80 pounds.
“We are not pleasant people here, for the story of war is always the story of hate; it makes no difference with whom one fights. The hate destroys you.”
“Daily I saw myself becoming hard, bitter, and mean, disgracing the picture I had painted for myself in happier days. My disposition and my nerves were becoming unbearable. I was speaking with (young son) George with an hysterical violence which I hated but could not control. I was so hungry that when there was anything to feed him I couldn’t bear to watch.”
“Meanwhile, sitting in the lounge talking, listening to the radio broadcasts (following the war), we learned the pay-off. The world had not changed…Love of country flourished, while love of humanity withered; worship of God was present, and following of Christ was absent. This was the victory we had won. This was the world men had bought with their blood. This was peace .”
“Towards the end of the war when the fighting was heavy over Borneo and we all expected to be blown to bits between friend and foe, we were told; “You needn’t hope for the Allies to come to Kuching and rescue you! If they do come we will cut you to pieces first. We Japanese go crazy when we fight”.”
"For most of the three and a half years our daily meal was a single cup of watery soup and five tablespoons of cooked rice. Rations were regularly cut for perceived disobedience… We slept on a bare wood floor along with rats, mosquitoes, and roaches. Malaria was our constant companion."
"The delicate, small, and middle aged Mrs B. says she was not resisting the guard and did not strike him, but only raised her arm in self defense as he was striking her. This gesture was interpreted as one of attack. She was carried to the office on her stretcher and accused of brutally attacking the prison guard."
"We in prison were now the mistreated ones. Yet it would be only a matter of time, and the turn of the tide, before we would become the abusers and our captors the abused, because we had it within ourselves the same instinct for brutality. War evoked and exalted these instincts. It is war we must hate, and not each other."
Code:
- - - - - - -“Daily I saw myself becoming hard, bitter, and mean, disgracing the picture I had painted for myself in happier days. My disposition and my nerves were becoming unbearable. I was speaking with (young son) George with an hysterical violence which I hated but could not control. I was so hungry that when there was anything to feed him I couldn’t bear to watch.”
“Meanwhile, sitting in the lounge talking, listening to the radio broadcasts (following the war), we learned the pay-off. The world had not changed…Love of country flourished, while love of humanity withered; worship of God was present, and following of Christ was absent. This was the victory we had won. This was the world men had bought with their blood. This was peace .”
“Towards the end of the war when the fighting was heavy over Borneo and we all expected to be blown to bits between friend and foe, we were told; “You needn’t hope for the Allies to come to Kuching and rescue you! If they do come we will cut you to pieces first. We Japanese go crazy when we fight”.”
"For most of the three and a half years our daily meal was a single cup of watery soup and five tablespoons of cooked rice. Rations were regularly cut for perceived disobedience… We slept on a bare wood floor along with rats, mosquitoes, and roaches. Malaria was our constant companion."
"The delicate, small, and middle aged Mrs B. says she was not resisting the guard and did not strike him, but only raised her arm in self defense as he was striking her. This gesture was interpreted as one of attack. She was carried to the office on her stretcher and accused of brutally attacking the prison guard."
"We in prison were now the mistreated ones. Yet it would be only a matter of time, and the turn of the tide, before we would become the abusers and our captors the abused, because we had it within ourselves the same instinct for brutality. War evoked and exalted these instincts. It is war we must hate, and not each other."
Bleak.