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Description: | Memoir (c 120pp ts) recording his childhood in difficult family circumstances in Oldham (Lancashire) during the 1920s, a period marked by “bitter and squalid poverty”, dangerous work in the local coal mines during which he was injured in several accidents, joining the army in 1935 to escape this situation, serving with the 2nd Battalion The Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire) in training at Tidworth before proceeding with them to overseas service in Shanghai (China), describing his on- and off-duty experiences there in considerable detail , the impact of Japanese military aggression in the area in the late 1930s, the battalion’s transfer to Malaya in 1938, based at Gillman Barracks just outside Singapore, assisting in the construction of defences around the city prior to the Japanese invasion of Malaya in December 1941, remaining in Singapore until the city’s fall in February 1942, and confinement in Changi, Bukit Timah and Sime Road camps, ending the war back in Changi.
Cataloguer SWW | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Subjects: | British Army Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire) 2nd Battalion | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Heathcote, Edward | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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