Gordon Smith (British Army officer)
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Smith went to
In 1945, Smith was facing execution by his captors but was saved by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which brought about the end of the war and Smith's liberation. He was said to have displayed "immense courage" to survive the horrific treatment he endured as a prisoner, and by the end of the war, he weighed only 6 stone. His resourcefulness in helping other prisoners was also noted: he made surgical tools to treat prisoners, sedating them with chloroform; he created a distillation unit to obtain clean water; he fixed a radio smuggled into the prison; and he found a way to diagnose malaria in his fellow prisoners earlier.
After the war, Smith served in Germany on bomb disposal work for the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. In 1945, he moved to
See also
References
- "Major Gordon Smith - obituary". The Telegraph. 15 May 2014. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
- "Obituary: Major Gordon Smith, former PoW". The Scotsman. 21 May 2014. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
- "Obituary: Major Joseph Gordon Smith, 93". The Evening News. 29 May 2014. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
- "World War Two veteran is the last officer who survived horrors of Burma". The Daily Record. 25 February 2012. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
- Ross, Shan (25 February 2012). "Severed heads and DIY anaesthetic – memoirs of a PoW of the Japanese". The Scotsman. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
- White, Steve (25 February 2012). "My hell on Burma Death Railway: Last surviving British officer tells of horrors". The Mirror. Retrieved 3 June 2014.