Summer Will Come Again

Summer will come again

By John Lane

Ratin 8.5/10

This account of a POW’s life in Japan by John Kenneth Lane was a riveting experience. It outlined the life of a prisoner in the infamous Kobe House in incredible detail and personality. One common flaw many war time memoirs have in my opinion, is that they will devote large sections of the book to telling their entire life story and family history, most of which is irrelevant to the tale at hand. Lane does not suffer from this. He cuts straight to the chase, with the only back story being condensed to a 20 page prologue which includes his army time pre-POW.

The book kicks off with accounting the atrocious conditions of life on a hell ship bound for Japan. The harrowing experience of being cramped in a confined belly of the ship with limited air and next to no water. He portrays the claustrophobia and even the terror, particularly when they are attacked by a US submarine.

In Japan, he spares no detail. He describes everything from the treatment by the guards to the food to the endless labour. He tells in detail how the men survived on megre rations and the methods of ‘looting’ carried out just to survive. The story is remarkably complete, with seemingly no details skipped over. To top it off, it is chock full of deeply personal stories that make the whole experience seem more real.

In my opinion, Summer will Come Again is a fantastically composed memoir, and a must read for anyone studying or simply interested in the subject of war time POW’s.