Alistair Urquhart
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Alistair Urquhart
Alistair Urquhart (; 8 September 1919
Alistair Urquhart, 1994
– 7 October 2016) was a Scottish businessman and the author of ''The Forgotten Highlander'', an account of the three and a half years he spent as a Japanese prisoner of war during his service in the during the

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Aberdeen
Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and has a population estimate of for the city of Aberdeen, and for the local council area making it the United Kingdom's 39th most populous built-up area. The city is northeast of Edinburgh and north of London, and is the northernmost major city in the United Kingdom. Aberdeen has a long, sandy coastline and features an oceanic climate, with cool summers and mild, rainy winters. During the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries, Aberdeen's buildings incorporated locally quarried grey granite, which may sparkle like silver because of its high mica content. Since the discovery of North Sea oil in 1969, Aberdeen has been known as the offshore oil capital of Europe. Based upon the discovery of prehistoric villages around the mouths of the rivers ...
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Atomic Bombings Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki
The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict so far. In the final year of World War II, the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This undertaking was preceded by a conventional and firebombing campaign that devastated 64 Japanese cities. The war in the European theatre concluded when Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, and the Allies turned their full attention to the Pacific War. By July 1945, the Allies' Manhattan Project had produced two types of atomic bombs: "Fat Man", a plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapon; and "Little Boy", an enriched uranium gun-type fission weapon. The 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces was trained and equipped with the specialized Silverplate version of the ...
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Nagasaki
is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region have been recognized and included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Part of Nagasaki was home to a major Imperial Japanese Navy base during the First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War. Near the end of World War II, the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made Nagasaki the second and, to date, last city in the world to experience a nuclear attack (at 11:02 am, August 9, 1945 'Japan Standard Time (UTC+9)'). , the city has an estimated population of 407,624 and a population density of 1,004 people per km2. The total area is . History Nagasaki as a Jesuit port of call The first contact with Portuguese explorers occurred in 1543. An early visitor was Fernão Mendes Pinto, who came from Sagres ...
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Aso Mining Company
The Aso Mining forced labour controversy concerns the use of Allied prisoners of war (POW) and Korean conscripts as labourers for the Aso Mining Company in Japan during World War II. Surviving labourers and other records confirmed that the prisoners and conscripts were forced to work in harsh, brutal conditions for little-to-no pay and that some died, at least in part, because of the ill-treatment at the mine. Although reported by Western media sources, former Prime Minister of Japan Tarō Asō, whose immediate family owns the company, now called the Aso Group, repeatedly refused to confirm that his family's company had used forced labour until 2009 when it was acknowledged by the Japanese government. Since then, several surviving former Australian POWs have asked Aso and the company to apologise, but both have declined to do so. Denials In mid-2008 Tarō Asō conceded that his family's coal mine, Aso Mining Company, was alleged to have forced Allied POWs to work in the mines ...
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Whaling Ship
A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales. Terminology The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Japan, still dedicates a single factory ship for the industry. The vessels used by aboriginal whaling communities are much smaller and are used for various purposes over the course of the year. The ''whale catcher'' was developed during the age of steam, and then driven by diesel engines throughout much of the twentieth century. It was designed with a harpoon gun mounted at its bow and was fast enough to chase and catch rorquals such as the fin whale. At first, whale catchers either brought the whales they killed to a whaling station, a settlement ashore where the carcasses could be processed, or to its factory ship anchored in a sheltered bay or inlet. With the later development of the slipway at the ship's stern, whale catchers were able to ...
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USS Pampanito
USS ''Pampanito'' (SS-383/AGSS-383), a , is a United States Navy ship, the third named for the pompano fish. She completed six war patrols from 1944 to 1945 and served as a United States Naval Reserve training ship from 1960 to 1971. She is now a National Historic Landmark, preserved as a memorial and museum ship in the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association located at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, California. Construction and commissioning ''Pampanito''s keel was laid down by the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine, on 15 March 1943. She was launched on 12 July 1943, sponsored by Mrs. James Wolfender, and commissioned on 6 November 1943. World War II After shakedown off New London, Connecticut, ''Pampanito'' transited the Panama Canal and arrived at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 14 February 1944. First patrol, March - May 1944 ''Pampanito''s first war patrol, from 15 March to 2 May, was conducted in the southwest approaches to Saipan and Guam. She served ...
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Torpedo
A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such a device was called an automotive, automobile, locomotive, or fish torpedo; colloquially a ''fish''. The term ''torpedo'' originally applied to a variety of devices, most of which would today be called naval mine, mines. From about 1900, ''torpedo'' has been used strictly to designate a self-propelled underwater explosive device. While the 19th-century battleship had evolved primarily with a view to engagements between armored warships with naval artillery, large-caliber guns, the invention and refinement of torpedoes from the 1860s onwards allowed small torpedo boats and other lighter surface combatant , surface vessels, submarines/submersibles, even improvised fishing boats or frogmen, and later light aircraft, to destroy large shi ...
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Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, both in ancient and in recent times. The rate of cannibalism increases in nutritionally poor environments as individuals turn to members of their own species as an additional food source.Elgar, M.A. & Crespi, B.J. (1992) ''Cannibalism: ecology and evolution among diverse taxa'', Oxford University Press, Oxford ngland New York. Cannibalism regulates population numbers, whereby resources such as food, shelter and territory become more readily available with the decrease of potential competition. Although it may benefit the individual, it has been shown that the presence of cannibalism decreases the expected survival rate of the whole population and increases the risk of consuming a relative. Other negative effects may include the increased r ...
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Dehydration
In physiology, dehydration is a lack of total body water, with an accompanying disruption of metabolic processes. It occurs when free water loss exceeds free water intake, usually due to exercise, disease, or high environmental temperature. Mild dehydration can also be caused by immersion diuresis, which may increase risk of decompression sickness in divers. Most people can tolerate a 3-4% decrease in total body water without difficulty or adverse health effects. A 5-8% decrease can cause fatigue and dizziness. Loss of over ten percent of total body water can cause physical and mental deterioration, accompanied by severe thirst. Death occurs at a loss of between fifteen and twenty-five percent of the body water.Ashcroft F, Life Without Water in Life at the Extremes. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2000, 134-138. Mild dehydration is characterized by thirst and general discomfort and is usually resolved with oral rehydration. Dehydration can cause hypernatremia (high levels of sodium ...
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Hell Ship
A hell ship is a ship with extremely inhumane living conditions or with a reputation for cruelty among the crew. It now generally refers to the ships used by the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army to transport Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and '' romushas'' (Asian forced slave laborers) out of the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong and Singapore in World War II. These POWs were taken to the Japanese Islands, Formosa, Manchukuo, Korea, the Moluccas, Sumatra, Burma, or Siam to be used as forced labor. Early use of the term The term was coined much earlier than its use in the Second World War. During the American Revolution, HMS ''Jersey'' and other prison hulks in New York Harbor were used by the British to house American prisoners of war in terrible conditions. More than 11,000 prisoners died on these ships. HMS ''Jersey'' in particular was referred to as "Hell." In the context of World War II, whilst the term was more commonly used to describe Ja ...
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Kachidoki Maru
''Wolverine State'' was a steam passenger-cargo ship built in 1919–1920 by New York Shipbuilding Company of Camden for the United States Shipping Board (USSB) as part of the wartime shipbuilding program of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to restore the nation's Merchant Marine. The ship was initially employed on the United States to India route until its cancellation in Spring 1922. After remodeling the vessel was briefly used by the Los Angeles Steamship Company on a run between Los Angeles and Honolulu as an emergency replacement for one of their burned out steamers. In April 1922 the steamer was renamed ''President Harrison''. In 1923 she conducted several trips between California and the east coast of South America, before being sold together with several other ships of her class to the Dollar Steamship Company. The vessel was captured in 1941 by the Japanese after she was deliberately run aground to avoid the capture. After repairs, the ship was renamed ''Kachidoki Ma ...
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