Survival and Separation on the River Kwai: The Ordeal of a Japanese Prisoner of War and His Family

Eric Roberts was conscripted in 1939 into the 1/5 Sherwood Foresters. After service in France and evacuation from Brest in 1940, the Battalion were sent to the Far East arriving in Singapore three weeks before the surrender. Eric became a prisoner of the Japanese and was sent to the Burma—Thai Railway. His Commanding Officer was Lieutenant Colonel Lilly who was later to become the inspiration for Colonel Nicholson in the film Bridge on the River Kwai.

Eric’s fiancée, Eunice Lowe, learnt of h...