THE LIFE OF SIR EDWARD DUNLOP OF THE BURMA-THAILAND RAILWAY IN SOUTH AFRICA

1994 first edition hardcover with dust jacket in very good condition.  A thick book of 709 pages.  R55 postage in SA or R60 courier to most bigger cities. Sir Edward Dunlop, or 'Weary' as many knew him, became a hero to thousands of prisoners of war on the Burma-Thailand 'Death Railway' during World War II. When the War broke out he took charge of a surgical team at St. Mary's, Paddington in the Emergency Medical Service, then joined the Australian Army and served in Palestine, Egypt, Greece, Crete and North Africa. In 1942 he sailed with his medical unit to Java and elected to be captured with the Allied General Hospital he began there. During more than three years as a prisoner of war, his gift for organizing vast hospital camps in Java and on the railway in Thailand, his courage, compassion and determination to get men home alive, made him a legend in his lifetime. Had his frank diaries of captivity been found by the Japanese, he would have been beheaded. Returning to Australia in 1945, Weary dedicated his life to caring for former Allied prisoners of war. Sadly he died before this biography, written with his full cooperation, could be published.