Book description
Major Vic Ebbage was a Colonel with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps,
serving in Hong Kong in 1941, when his garrison was attacked by the
Japanese Army. He was captured and taken prisoner to the notorious
Hong Kong death camp, Shamshuipo, where he was held from 30th December
1941 to August 1945. His story is an extraordinary one of survival
against all the odds, but more than that it is a story of how a group
of men worked together to improve conditions in the camp for their
fellow prisoners. They were offered nothing by their captors, but
their constant command of 'improvise', which they learned to do by
recycling salvaged materials into everything from homemade nails,
cooking pots and plates to surgical instruments, beds and nesting
boxes. His diary demonstrates how individuals can work together in an
almost unimaginable adversity to improve life for their fellow man,
and how imagination and innovation can flourish in even the worst
conditions. This story is a model of care, humanity and inventiveness.
