This is the story of one man’s war - an RAF Volunteer Reserve, Hubert Farewells Birks, trained as a Wireless Operator / Air Gunner in the Second World War.



On his first operational flight with RAF Coastal Command in the Battle of the Atlantic, Hubert and his crew believed they had sunk a German U-Boat.



When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in December 1941, Hubert volunteered to join a 59 Squadron crew ferrying a Lockheed Hudson to the Far East, by way of Gibraltar, Malta, Cairo, Karachi, Rangoon and Palembang.



The crew took part in the Battle of Java, sinking a Japanese ammunition ship and making a ‘miracle take-off’ past a barrage of Japanese tanks. After escaping over mountain ranges and through raging torrents, Hubert and his comrades were finally forced to surrender.



Then followed three and a half years as a Prisoner of War, mainly in Changi, Singapore. Daily life became a battle against malnutrition, starvation, disease, ill-treatment and, for one in three, death. When the Japanese surrendered following the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hubert weighed less than six stone. He survived, but many of his friends did not.



Hubert's story is told mostly in his own words, taken from the log book he reconstructed, his own lively account of the squadron's journey to the Far East and the meticulous diary he kept as a POW.



Combined with commentary, quotations, poems, autographs and stunning illustrations by fellow POW Bob Gamble, this is a vivid and personal account of adventure, friendship and survival.