The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart

The horrors that Alistair Urquhart endured at the hands of the Japanese are revealed after nearly 70 years, says Trevor Royle

The fall of Singapore was the biggest British military disaster in modern times. At the beginning of 1942, Japanese forces cut a swathe through the Malayan peninsula before sweeping into the strategically important port. Unwilling to risk the massacre of civilians, British commanders flew the white flag and defeat was followed by humiliation. Not only had Singapore been considered impregnable, but the Japanese had been written off as racially inferior types who would be easily crushed.

For those who survived, it was the beginning of a season in hell. Among them was Alistair Urquhart, a young conscript soldier in 2nd Gordon Highlanders, one of the few British infantry battalions that had not faltered during the fierce fighting for the vital Singapore causeway. A lifetime after those disastrous events – he is now aged 90 – Urquhart has returned to his time as a soldier and the result is a riveting and frequently troubling account of what happens when an army accepts defeat.

In his opening chapters, Urquhart insists that the loss of Singapore was not just a terrible setback, it also marked the end of Britain's imperial pretensions in the far east. He had arrived in the garrison a year earlier and his eyes had been opened to the reality of colonial life in its heyday. Private soldiers were treated with the same casual contempt the British settlers reserved for the Malays and Chinese, and provided you were white and well-connected social life still went with a swing. Above all, no one ever dreamed that the Japanese would have the temerity to attack this invincible bulwark of British interests in southern Asia.

For the British and the blameless local population, it was a rude awakening. Urquhart provides chilling descriptions of the barbarities inflicted by the Japanese as they took control of the city. Marching into captivity in the notorious Changi prison, the men of the Gordons were confronted with "a thicket of severed Chinese heads speared on poles on both sides of the road." Broken bodies bore witness to massacres in which people had been machine-gunned at will. Every scene spoke of devastation.

For a time regimental discipline held, but all too quickly things fell apart. Much of Urquhart's story will be drearily familiar. His world became populated by monsters whose cartoon character nicknames would have raised a smile had they not been so horrific: the Black Prince, Dr Death, the Mad Mongrel, all sadistic guards devoid of pity or humanity.

From Changi, Urquhart was sent north to work as a slave labourer on the notorious Burma Road railway where conditions were even worse. His life narrowed down to a round of pain and deprivation. Food was in short supply, beatings were regular, illness afflicted even the strongest and death was ever present. In that hellhole, which included a stint working on the bridge on the river Kwai, where conditions were so unlike the film of the same name as to make comparisons laughable, Urquhart found strength and resolution from his inner self.

Whereas many men took solace in each other's company or survived by playing the system, Urquhart retreated into a dream world of music and songs. Before being called up he had enjoyed dancing and popular ballroom tunes populated his imagination. Often he was too weak to sing, but within his head he crooned the hits of earlier years when happiness was a foxtrot and a pretty girl in his arms.

Urquhart had more horrors to face. While being shipped to Japan, his rust-bucket transport was torpedoed by a US submarine. He survived the sinking, but hard labour in a coal mine near Nagasaki almost did for him, as did the atomic bomb that exploded on the city to end the war. Peace took him on a long journey home through the US, but happiness was elusive and as the narrative folds in upon itself, Urquhart's final chapters describe the torment he faced on demobilisation.

He returned to his native Aberdeen but found that he could not settle back into civilian life and repaid his family's many kindnesses with brutish hostility. Having lived within himself for so long, he could not embrace the old kindly world and spent his first months of freedom endlessly pacing the city streets, alone and fearful. Nightmares and flashbacks haunted him and would continue to do so throughout his life.

Today, thanks to the work of charities like Combat Stress, we know more about the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome, but in Urquhart's day veterans were just supposed to get on with their lives. This final section forms the cold heart of the story, but it should be read by anyone who wants to understand the reality of what soldiers suffer as a result of frontline service. There will be many other Urquharts in today's Iraq and Afghanistan.

As for the Gordon Highlanders, the regiment has long since disappeared but its reputation lives on – and not just for its fighting but also its writing. Among those who wore the distinctive Gordon tartan were the poets Vernon Scannell and Alexander Scott and the novelists James Kennaway and George MacDonald Fraser. Now, with this powerful and thought-provoking memoir, Alistair Urquhart has fallen in beside them to join an elite band of first-rate soldier-writers.

Trevor Royle's books include Crimea and The Road to Bosworth Field

To buy The Forgotten Highlander for £xx.xx with free UK p&p, go to go to or call 0330 333 6847

Today's best video

Today in pictures