During his one thousand days of captivity at the hands of the Japanese army, Len Baynes kept a diary recording his horrific experience. The risks involved in doing so were immense, but he persevered and his resulting memoir is all the more reliable and evocative for it. Reading this account of life and death, during the fruitless fighting and Len's subsequent captivity in numerous camps and on the Death Railway, is a humbling and moving experience. However, the author describes not only the appalling hardship and brutality he endured, but also his relationships with fellow POWs, his captors and the local population. The Will To Live is a fine and inspiring example of the ever-popular POW genre and one that reveals in fascinating detail the nightmarish experience of being captured by the enemy. The Will to Live
