The Sumatra Railroad

This is the gripping historical tragedy of the 220 km railroad that bored its way through the hot, humid Sumatran jungle during World War II. The railway was commissioned by Japan and built with the blood and tears of Allied prisoners of war and press-ganged Javanese romushas. Henk Hovinga interviewed nearly one hundred former railroad workers and did painstaking archival research. The result is a moving book, richly illustrated with numerous authentic drawings of life in the internment camps, charts and photographs.