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

Gordon Highlanders Gordon may refer to: People * Gordon (given name), a masculine given name, including list of persons and fictional characters * Gordon (surname), the surname * Gordon (slave), escaped to a Union Army camp during the U.S. Civil War * Clan Gordon, ...

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...

regiment A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, service and/or a specialisation. In Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of front-line soldiers, recruited or conscripted ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Military career

Urquhart was born in

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 ...

in 1919. He was

conscript Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...

ed into the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

in 1939, at the age of 19, and served with the

stationed at

Fort Canning Fort Canning Hill, formerly Government Hill, Singapore Hill and Bukit Larangan (''Forbidden Hill'' in Malay), is a small hill, about high, in the southeast portion of the island city-state of Singapore, within the Central Area that forms Sin ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

.Seeing Pampanito, 64 years after a near death
Carl Nolte, 17 September 2008. ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

'''You never forget the horror of it'
Gillian Bowditch, 21 February 2010. ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

'' He was taken prisoner when the Japanese invaded the island during the

Battle of Singapore The Fall of Singapore, also known as the Battle of Singapore,; ta, சிங்கப்பூரின் வீழ்ச்சி; ja, シンガポールの戦い took place in the South–East Asian theatre of the Pacific War. The Empire of ...

, which lasted from December 1941 to February 1942. He was sent to work on the

Burma Railway The Burma Railway, also known as the Siam–Burma Railway, Thai–Burma Railway and similar names, or as the Death Railway, is a railway between Ban Pong, Thailand and Thanbyuzayat, Burma (now called Myanmar). It was built from 1940 to 1943 ...

,The man who refused to die
Alan Little, 25 February 2010. ''

The Today Programme ''Today'', colloquially known as ''the Today programme'', is a long-running British morning news and current-affairs radio programme on BBC Radio 4. Broadcast on Monday to Saturday from 6:00 am to 9:00 am, it is produced by BBC News and is the ...

'',

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

built by the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

to support its forces in the Burma campaign and referred to as "Death Railway" because of the tens of thousands of forced labourers who died during its construction. While working on the railway Urquhart suffered

malnutrition Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

and

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

at the hands of his captors. After working on the railway and in the docks in Singapore, Urquhart was loaded into the hold of the '' Kachidoki Maru'', an American passenger and cargo ship captured by the Japanese and put to use as a "

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 ...

" transporting hundreds of prisoners. The ship was part of a convoy bound for Japan; on the voyage prisoners endured more illness,

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. Mil ...

, and instances of

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, b ...

. On 12 September 1944, the ship was

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, su ...

ed and sunk by the US submarine USS ''Pampanito'', whose commander was unaware of its cargo of prisoners. Urquhart was burned and covered in oil when the ship went down, and swallowed some oil which caused permanent damage to his vocal cords. He floated in a single-man raft for five days without food or water before being picked up by a Japanese

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, Japa ...

and taken to Japan. In Japan, Urquhart was sent to work in coal mines belonging to the Aso Mining Company and later a labour camp ten miles from the city of

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 ...

. He was there when the city was hit with an atomic bomb by the United States.Alistair Urquhart's full incredible interview
. 25 February 2010.

STV News ''STV News'' is a Scottish news service produced by STV. The news department produces two regional services covering STV's Channel 3 franchise areas of Northern and Central Scotland. STV's news programmes are produced from studios in Glasgow ...

Post-war

In 2010, Urquhart published ''The Forgotten Highlander: My Incredible Story of Survival During the War in the Far East'', an account of his experiences.
The Forgotten Highlander
'. Alistair Urquhart, 2010.

Little, Brown and Company Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily ...

In the book he expresses anger at the lack of recognition in Japan of its role in war crimes compared to the atonement in Germany. He resided in

Broughty Ferry Broughty Ferry (; Scottish Gaelic: ''Bruach Tatha''; Scots: ''Brochtie'') is a suburb of Dundee, Scotland. It is situated four miles east of the city centre on the north bank of the Firth of Tay. The area was a separate burgh from 1864 until ...

, Dundee, for many years and died on 7 October 2016, aged 97.Dundee veteran who survived ship torpedo, jungle camp and atomic bomb dies
/ref>

References

External links

Review
of ''The Forgotten Highlander'' in ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Urquhart, Alistair 1919 births 2016 deaths British Army personnel of World War II World War II prisoners of war held by Japan Gordon Highlanders soldiers Scottish torture victims 20th-century Scottish autobiographers War writers People from Aberdeen Writers from Aberdeen People associated with Dundee Burma Railway prisoners Military personnel from Aberdeen