Browse Titles - 1 result
End of Empire
directed by Guo Fangfang; produced by Mashizan Masjum, fl. 2004, Four Square Productions and Crest Communications Production (New York, NY: Filmakers Library, 2002, originally published 2001), 1 hour 5 mins
This film tells the harrowing story of the Japanese occupation of Singapore from 1941-45. Archival film as well as fascinating interviews with two historians, Professors A. Jayathurai and Brian Farrell, relate the tragedy of this important theater of war. But it is the story of Alexander Colburn a young Scotsman w...
Sample
directed by Guo Fangfang; produced by Mashizan Masjum, fl. 2004, Four Square Productions and Crest Communications Production (New York, NY: Filmakers Library, 2002, originally published 2001), 1 hour 5 mins
Description
This film tells the harrowing story of the Japanese occupation of Singapore from 1941-45. Archival film as well as fascinating interviews with two historians, Professors A. Jayathurai and Brian Farrell, relate the tragedy of this important theater of war. But it is the story of Alexander Colburn a young Scotsman who had recently signed on for a four-year stint as a pharmacist in the bustling colonial city that gives the dramatic history a persona...
This film tells the harrowing story of the Japanese occupation of Singapore from 1941-45. Archival film as well as fascinating interviews with two historians, Professors A. Jayathurai and Brian Farrell, relate the tragedy of this important theater of war. But it is the story of Alexander Colburn a young Scotsman who had recently signed on for a four-year stint as a pharmacist in the bustling colonial city that gives the dramatic history a personal dimension. Instead of enjoying a brilliant career in Singapore, Colburn witnessed its swift and violent end, as well as the symbolic end of the British Empire. In the 1930s it was widely believed that Singapore was an impregnable fortress. When the well-trained and equipped Japanese invaded Northern Malaya in 1941 shortly after Pearl Harbor, they easily defeated the under-prepared Indian, New Zealand and Australian troops who had joined the British there. When British officials realized Singapore would fall they evacuated the colonials, leaving the Chinese, Indian and Malay populations to fend for themselves. Throughout this Colburn worked as a medical volunteer, cleaning up the bodies left from Japanese bombing. Two British battleships were sunk with nine hundred British sailors lost and the British surrendered after six weeks. Under the Japanese occupation, one hundred thousand prisoners of war were arrested and imprisoned or executed in six weeks. Colburn was taken prisoner by the Japanese and spent four years in horrendous conditions, with almost no food or medicine available. He used his experience as a pharmacist to help his fellow inmates as much as he could. It is estimated that twenty to thirty thousand people perished in captivity. As Prof. Jayathurai says, "Churchill gave up Malaya for the defense of Europe. This was the end of the British Empire; everything after that was borrowed time." College Adult
Show more
Show less
Field of Study
World History
Content Type
Documentary
Contributor
Mashizan Masjum, fl. 2004, Four Square Productions, Crest Communications Production, Eva Petryshen
Author / Creator
Guo Fangfang
Date Published / Released
2001, 2002
Publisher
Filmakers Library
Speaker / Narrator
Eva Petryshen
Topic / Theme
Air raids, Bombardment, Invasions, Massacres, Lines of defense, Military maneuvers, Military occupation, Military strategy, Prisoner of war camps, Prisoners of war, Torture, Civil defense, Japanese invasion of Singapore, February 8-15, 1942, War and Violence, World History, 20th Century in World History (1914--2000)
Copyright Message
Copyright © 2002. Used by permission of Filmakers Library. All rights reserved.
×