Canon Professor Michael Snape
Forgotten Warrior: The Life and Times of Major-General Merton Beckwith-Smith 1890-1942. Foreword by Field Marshal Lord Guthrie
Forgotten Warrior: The Life and Times of Major-General Merton Beckwith-Smith 1890-1942. Foreword by Field Marshal Lord Guthrie
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- More about Forgotten Warrior: The Life and Times of Major-General Merton Beckwith-Smith 1890-1942. Foreword by Field Marshal Lord Guthrie
During the Fall of Singapore in February 1942, Major-General Merton Beckwith-Smith DSO, MC led the British 18th Division. He was the most senior British officer to die as a prisoner of war in the Far East. This new biography by Michael Snape charts his career and reveals why he was so admired by his fellow officers and soldiers.
Format: Hardback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 18 May 2023
Publisher: SPCK Publishing
Eighty years after his tragic demise in a Japanese prison camp, this captivating new biography unveils the remarkable career of a distinguished yet overlooked hero of the British army. Major-General Merton Beckwith-Smith DSO, MC, commanded the British 18th Division during the catastrophic Fall of Singapore in February 1942. A highly respected and highly decorated veteran of the First World War, he was among tens of thousands of other soldiers, including British, Indian, Australian, and Malay, who were captured and held prisoner on Singapore Island. Amidst the harrowing conditions of hunger, disease, and widespread despair in Changi, over the next six months, he rallied the spirits of his soldiers, established a makeshift university and theater, and played a pivotal role in inspiring a remarkable revival of collective church life. Simultaneously, he improved conditions for hospital patients and promoted sports and other recreational activities. While the fate of many of the men he led was to endure arduous toil and often succumb to death on the infamous Burma Railway, Beckwith-Smith was exiled to Karenko Camp, Formosa (present-day Taiwan), where he suffered mistreatment and malnutrition, ultimately passing away on November 11, 1942, from diphtheria and heart failure. Beckwith-Smith, the highest-ranking British officer to end his life as a prisoner of war in the Far East, has remained a strangely forgotten warrior until now. Drawing upon exclusive access to family archives and a wealth of other eyewitness accounts, Michael Snape has crafted a meticulously detailed biography that rectifies this neglect. The result is a captivating narrative that offers profound insights into one man's experiences of two world wars, while also shedding light on the reasons behind his profound admiration among his fellow officers and ordinary soldiers who served under him.
Weight: 566g
Dimension: 165 x 242 x 35 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780281086917
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