Stubborn Buggers: Survivors of the infamous POW gaol that made Changi look like heaven

Tim Bowden

Eph 2014 · Allen & Unwin

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'It made Changi seem like heaven.'

There was a place far worse than Changi - Singapore's Outram Road Gaol. Deprivation here was so extreme that there really was a fate worse than death.

Stubborn Buggers is the story of twelve Australian POWs who endured and survived the Thai-Burma Railway and Sandakan and then the unimaginable hardships of Outram Road Gaol. It is a story of how they dealt with the brutality of the Japanese military police, the feared Kempeitai. And it is the story of how they found a way to go on living even when facing a future of no hope and slow death.

But Stubborn Buggers is about more than suffering and brutality. It is also a story of grit, determination and larrikin humour. It is very much about the triumph of the human spirit.

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Tim Bowden is an acclaimed oral historian, broadcaster, and radio and television documentary maker who, for many years as host of Backchat, was known as the face of the ABC. He is author of many books including the much acclaimed One Crowded Hour: Neil Davis, combat cameraman,The Changi Camera: A unique record of Changi and the Thai-Burma Railway, and the 'Penelope' outback travel series.