Warfare in News

Posted on Friday 11th May

Fergus Anckorn, the inspirational subject of the book Captivity, Slavery and Survival as a Far East POW, will be appearing on The One Show on BBC1 at 7pm tonight.

Gus, who has already been featured in Warfare, will be talking about his remarkable experiences during the Second World War, when he was taken prisoner in Singapore in 1942 and held captive for over 3 years, and how he narrowly escaped death several times during this ordeal. Gus was the youngest member of the Magic Circle before the war, and is currently the oldest member, earning him the sobriquet The Conjuror on the Kwai.

Gus will also discuss how he met the author of this fascinating biography, and how publication of this story, described by the Mail on Sunday as 'highly readable', came about.

Tune in at 7 pm tonight, or watch it later on BBC iPlayer.

Further Reading

Conjuror on the Kwai

Only £19.99

Conjuror on the Kwai

(Hardback - 256 pages)
by Peter Fyans

The Conjuror on the Kwai is the incredibly moving story of Gus Anckorn, a British soldier who was captured by the Japanese and held for over three and a half years. Before the war, Gus was a magician and throughout the war, entertained both fellow soldiers and Japanese guards with his tricks.

Gus has a brilliant sense of humour and a \'tell it as it is\' attitude which got him into a… Read more...

Of further interest...

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The Fall of Singapore – 1942

Mon 23rd April

Article by Peter Fyans, extracted from Captivity, Slavery and Survival as a Far East POW, reproduced by permission of Pen and Sword Books Ltd. Read article...

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The Railway Men

Tue 7th January

The Hollywood blockbuster The Railway Man starring Colin Firth and Jeremy Irvine will be released in UK cinemas this Friday. Pen and Sword Books have a wealth of books on their list telling the stories of Far East POWs who worked on the Death Railway. Read article...

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Healing in Hell - Memoirs of a Far Eastern POW Medic

Wed 6th August

This article is based on extracts from Ken Adams' Second World War memoirs of life as a POW medic in the Far East. From the fall of Singapore to the difficulties of returning home. Contains graphic images. Read article...

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A Talent For Adventure

Tue 15th May

The remarkable wartime exploits of Lt Col Pat Spooner MBE (Mil), by Pat Spooner, reproduced from A Talent For Adventure by permission of Pen and Sword Books Ltd. Read article...

Dates in History

German forces cross the Somme River

24th March 1918

On March 24, 1918, German forces cross the Somme River, achieving their first goal of the major spring offensive begun three days earlier on the Western Front. Operation Michael, engineered by the German chief of the general staff, Erich von Ludendorff, aimed to decisively break through the Allied lines on the Western Front and destroy the British and French forces. The offensive began on the morning of March 21, 1918, with an aggressive bombardment. The brunt of the attack that followed was directed at the British 5th Army, commanded by General Sir Hubert Gough, stationed along the Somme River in northwestern France. This section was the most poorly defended of any spot on the British lines, due to the fact that it had been held by the French until only a few weeks before and its defensive positions were not yet fully fortified. Panic spread up and down the British lines of command, intensified by communications failures between Gough and his subordinates in the field, and German gains increased over the subsequent days of battle. On March 23, Crown Prince Rupprecht, on the German side of the line, remarked that The progress of our offensive is so quick, that one cannot follow it with a pen. The next day, German troops stormed across the Somme, having previously captured its bridges before French troops could destroy them. Despite having resolved to concentrate on weaker points of the enemy lines, Ludendorff continued to throw his armies against the crucial villages of Amiens (a railway junction) and Arras—which the British and French were instructed to hold at all costs—hoping to break through and push on towards Paris. By that time, German troops were exhausted, and transportation and supply lines had begun to break down in the cold and bad weather. Meanwhile, Allied forces had recovered from the initial disadvantage and had begun to gain the upper hand, halting the Germans at Moreuil Wood on March 30. On April 5, Ludendorff called off Operation Michael. It had yielded nearly 40 miles of territory, the greatest gains for either side on the Western Front since 1914. He would launch four more offensive pushes over the course of the spring and summer, throwing all of the German army’s resources into this last, desperate attempt to win the war. (www.history.com)

Further Reading

The Somme
(Paperback - 355 pages)
by Richard van Emden

The offensive on the Somme took place between July and November 1916 and is perhaps the most iconic battle of the Great War. It was there that Kitchener’s famous ‘Pals’ Battalions were first sent into action en masse and it was a battlefield where many of the dreams and aspirations… Read more at Pen & Sword...

Only £14.99 at Pen & Sword Books.

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