We Shall Suffer There

We Shall Suffer There is the first work that documents the experiences of Hong Kong’s prisoners of war and civilian internees from their capture by the Japanese in December 1941 to liberation, rescue, and repatriation. While the prisoner-of-war main camps in Hong Kong itself have been mentioned in many other works, there has so far been no definitive chronology of their operation. Where the camps in Japan (to which many of the Hong Kong POWs were sent in six main drafts) have been mentioned, coverage has been superficial and limited in scope, and many camps have been entirely overlooked. This book includes them all, and the movements between them, using only primary sources and only—as far as possible—the words of those involved.

Tony Banham is a long-term resident of Hong Kong, having arrived in the 1980s. He has been studying the Battle of Hong Kong for almost twenty years and has written on the subject, aided in the production of numerous television documentaries, and helped many children of veterans in their researches into their fathers’ war years. He is the author of Not the Slightest Chance: The Defence of Hong Kong, 1941, and The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru: Britain’s Forgotten Wartime Tragedy.

“Tony Banham’s sequel to Not the Slightest Chance does not disappoint. The general reader is given an arrestingly poignant study full of detailed information about Hong Kong’s wartime POWs, while scholars are shown how the modern researcher can profitably use information technology when managing information concerning the lives of several thousand individuals. This is a definitive work which will stand the test of time.” —Peter Cunich, The University of Hong Kong; director of the HKU Centenary History Project

“Tony Banham’s work will be essential reference reading for anyone interested in studying the Second World War experience related to Hong Kong. Banham understands that history is the lived and learned story of human beings and that the Hong Kong story did not end in December 1941. He completes the record definitively.” —Brian Farrell, National University of Singapore; author of The Defence and Fall of Singapore 1940–1942