Suez to Singapore, [Hardcover]

What a story. Mr. Brown gives you the feeling that you are there. In the first few pages, he is running from the Nazis, captured by them and sees the horror of war up close and personal. He communicates all the saddness and feeling of injustice for the Yugoslavs, etc.

He travels to Cairo, through Turkey, Syria and Palestine, and that is another tale of wonder and exasperation at the bungling of the British. He is a radio reporter, newly accredited to report the war in 1941 for CBS, and he is in the thick of it. But there are the British censors to work through. His battles with trying to get the true story out is the basis for this book, as well as the general story of the war from where he is.

My enjoyment of this book is based on the value of personal experience and perception that he tells about. When the 'Repulse ' is sinking, he lets you know that he was scared and at a loss for what to do. He talks about the places he goes, and the people he meets so well, you feel awed or happy or sad as the occasion presents itself.

The title of the book is a bit deceptive. It takes only about twenty pages to go from Cairo to Singapore, the rest of the book is about the war fought in the Western Desert, the development of the war in Singapore and his travel to Australia and on home to America. His last sentence, "Have you ever wanted to fall on your knees and kiss this American earth?" sums up the passion of his writing.

The book, by Columbia Broadcasting System correspondent Cecil Brown, was published in 1943 and has a small share of war time talk of 'why we fight'. This is overwhelmingly surpassed by his criticisms of how the war in the Pacific theater was run prior to 1943, both by the British and the United States. Most of his reports were radio broadcasts which were transmitted to America, but only after approval by British or Australian censors.
The value of the book is the authors experiences and first hand view of the fall of Malaya, and Singapore, which he left on a PBY weeks before the fall. This is also the only account I have read by a survivor of the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse by Japanese bombers, on the east coast of Malaya in December, 1941. Mr. Brown was on the Repulse. If Mr. Brown did not witness an event himself, he quotes names and dates for those who were there. He reports word for word how his radio broadcasts from Singapore and his cabled stories back to America were censored by the British, and how eventually the British authorities in Singapore muzzled him by pulling his press credentials and asking him to leave. The reason, his factual descriptions of the deteriorating situation were 'bad for morale', especially for the local Asiatics. On page 529 of the book, Brown quotes one of the last correspondents to escape Singapore, Harold Guard, of United Press, as saying near the end in Singapore, General Percival had called in all correspondents and said, "I am very much exercised by these alarmist reports you are writing. They are certainly unjustified. I can assure you that no Jap will set foot on this island." The next day the Japanese crossed the Straits of Johore onto Singapore Island in force. Brown also compares the British censors with those he dealt with in fascist Italy, and notes that only by reporting the actual situation on the ground will the folks at home take the measures necessary to win the war.

Mr. Brown mentions the scene in the Canberra just after reports that Darwin had been bombed by the Japanese: "I sat through part of that session at the House, listening in amazement to the inane, vapid utterings of the men who represented the people of Australia. They were concerned with pork barrel measures and incidentals of no importance even in peace time." He also mentions that ships sunk at Darwin had not all been unloaded of vital aircraft and parts from America due to a work stoppage and strike at the docks. Brown met with the Prime Minister of Australia and many other leading public figures in his work as a leading American correspondent.

It is an excellent book written when the outcome of the war was by no means certain, and captures the people and the mood of the times as the Japanese advanced towards Australia. It is written like no one, but someone who had lived through it, could do.

This is a hardcover copy of Suez to Singapore (Cecil Brown's story is interesting), but I was disappointed that it didn't come with the dust jacket pictured. No dust jacket at all, just the hard cover.