Against the Rising Sun

From Singapore to Nagasaki – An Australian POW’s Incredible Story

Don Graham just wanted to serve. But war had little regard for intention.

Serving with the ill-fated Australian 8th Division, he faced the disastrous campaign in Malaya, the retreat to Singapore, and the brutal reality of surrender after the greatest military catastrophe in British Empire history.

Captured by the Japanese, he was sent first to the notorious Changi prison camp and then to the infamous Selarang Barracks, where disease, starvation and fear ruled.

Marched out of Changi to an uncertain fate, Don and hundreds of others were taken on a hell ship to Japan and forced into slave labour at the Kawasaki shipyards in Kobe, and later the deadly Yoshikuma coal mine near Nagasaki. Each day was a gamble of exhaustion, punishment or death – until he witnessed the strange, mushroom-shaped cloud that would signal the war’s end.

Japan had surrendered, yet peril remained. The Japanese commandant ordered Don and the prisoners to dig trenches – their own mass graves. Could they survive when freedom seemed within reach?

Against the Rising Sun is the true story of an Australian soldier’s endurance under the Japanese. Amid unimaginable horror, Don became a lifeline to his fellow POWs, using humour, song and sheer will to keep hope alive – a testament to courage found not in victory, but in survival.

‘When the war took everything, he gave his mates a reason to carry on.’

‘This is more than a war story – it’s a testament to human spirit and brotherhood behind the wire. Jeff Steel’s gripping narrative brings Don Graham’s courage and wit vividly to life.’

About the Author

Jeff Steel is a child of World War Two. Shocked at the sight of bombed-out London as a child, he has grappled ever since with the simple but profound question ‘what happened’. His deep interest in the war has led to many heart-rending interviews with those who took part. He has undertaken endless reading.

He has visited World War Two sites from Churchill’s War Rooms in London to Pearl Harbour via Dresden and the Burma Railway. His first book ‘No Heil Hitler’ as ghost writer, told the compelling story a young boy’s Odyssey through the horrors of Nazi-occupied Poland. It won the Philpott Prize for a (then) unpublished manuscript.