This is the chilling story of a massacre of 145 helpless and badly wounded Australian and Indian soldiers by the Japanese at Parit Sulong in Johore during the battle of Muar in World War II. Only two Australians survived the massacre to tell their story after the war. One was Lieutenant Ben Hackney whose own story of his terrible experience, 'Dark Evening', is here published for the first time.
This book is more than an account of wartime barbarity but an examination of the repercussions of such excesses. Mant has pieced together a fascinating account of what followed the war when the guilty were vanquished and the time came for the victims to weigh up the competing notions of vengeance, justice and the possibility of reconciliation between enemies.
