Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders,captured by the Japanese in Singapore. Forced into manuallabor as a POW, he survived 750 days in the jungle working as aslave on the notorious “Death Railway” and building the Bridgeon the River Kwai. Subsequently, he moved to work on a Japanese“hellship,” his ship was torpedoed, and nearly everyone on boardthe ship died. Not Urquhart. After five days adrift on a raft in theSouth China Sea, he was rescued by a Japanese whaling ship.His luck would only get worse as he was taken to Japan and forcedto work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later, he was just tenmiles from ground zero when an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.In late August 1945, he was freed by the American Navy—aliving skeleton—and had his first wash in three and a half years.This is the extraordinary story of a young man, conscripted at nineteen,who survived not just one, but three encounters with death,any of which should have probably killed him. Silent for over fiftyyears, this is Urquhart’s inspirational tale in his own words. It is asmoving as any memoir and as exciting as any great war movie.