On Paths of Ash: A survivor's account of Changi, the Burma Railway and Japan

Robert Holman

Apr. 2009 · Allen & Unwin

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On Paths of Ash is an extraordinary Australian World War II story. Robert and Jack Holman were working-class brothers who found themselves in three of the most horrific experiences of the war. They were interned in Changi prisoner-of-war camp, from where they became prison labourers on the infamous Burma Railway. From there they went as slaves to the coalmines of Japan, close enough to Nagasaki to see the mushroom cloud when the atomic bomb was dropped.

This is Robert Holman's memoir, telling the story of a sensitive boy who grew up and went to war and lived through some of the most terrible experiences it had to offer.

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Robert Holman (1919-2005) was a fettler on the railways of New South Wales, who served in Asia during World War Two. He subsequently recorded his reminiscences of both his childhood and war within several handwritten notebooks and drawing books. Sydney-based writer Peter Thomson was born and raised in the Fiji Islands. While serving as a diplomat, he opened the Fiji embassy in Tokyo in 1980 and lived in Japan for the ensuing four years. His book on the 1987 coups d'etat in Fiji, Kava in the Blood, was the recipient of the E.H. McCormick prize for non-fiction.