White Coolies
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: Damaged
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner
One of the most harrowing and ultimately triumphant accounts of survival to emerge from the Second World War, White Coolies is the true story of Australian Army nurses who were captured by Japanese forces following the fall of Singapore in 1942 and endured years of brutal imprisonment across the jungles and prison camps of Sumatra. Betty Jeffrey, one of the nurses herself, chronicles the daily horror of forced labour, starvation, disease, and unrelenting cruelty with unflinching honesty, yet tempers it with a remarkable spirit of camaraderie, dark humour, and indomitable resilience that kept these women alive against all odds. Written from personal diaries secretly kept during captivity — a dangerous act of defiance in itself — this account stands as a vital historical document and a deeply moving testament to the strength of the human spirit under the most extreme conditions imaginable. Jeffrey's prose is direct and unadorned, giving the narrative an authenticity and moral weight that no fictional account could replicate. A cornerstone of Australian wartime literature, White Coolies forces the reader to confront the forgotten suffering of women in war, and leaves an indelible question: how much can the human spirit endure before it breaks — and what happens when it simply refuses to?
Author: Betty Jeffrey
Format: Hardback
Published: 1954, Angus And Robertson
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: Damaged
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner
One of the most harrowing and ultimately triumphant accounts of survival to emerge from the Second World War, White Coolies is the true story of Australian Army nurses who were captured by Japanese forces following the fall of Singapore in 1942 and endured years of brutal imprisonment across the jungles and prison camps of Sumatra. Betty Jeffrey, one of the nurses herself, chronicles the daily horror of forced labour, starvation, disease, and unrelenting cruelty with unflinching honesty, yet tempers it with a remarkable spirit of camaraderie, dark humour, and indomitable resilience that kept these women alive against all odds. Written from personal diaries secretly kept during captivity — a dangerous act of defiance in itself — this account stands as a vital historical document and a deeply moving testament to the strength of the human spirit under the most extreme conditions imaginable. Jeffrey's prose is direct and unadorned, giving the narrative an authenticity and moral weight that no fictional account could replicate. A cornerstone of Australian wartime literature, White Coolies forces the reader to confront the forgotten suffering of women in war, and leaves an indelible question: how much can the human spirit endure before it breaks — and what happens when it simply refuses to?