Cambodia: The Lost Story of Captain Ian MacDonald

    (Donald MacDonald, 2025)

From the author...

I was clearing out the attic of my 96 year old mother's house when I came upon an old box full of random bills and receipts. There seemed nothing there worth keeping, but just as I was about to put it in the rubbish, I caught sight of a bundle of papers in my late father's handwriting. The first page was headed simply "CAMBODIA".

As I read on, it became clear that this was his personal account of a little-known and secret operation in the Far East at the end of WW2 to liberate thousands of Allied prisoners of war from their Japanese captors.

My father, Ian Macdonald, was a Captain in the elite Rajputana Rifles, part of the Indian Airborne Division. He and his small team were seconded to Force 136, the Far East arm of the SOE, reporting directly to Admiral Mountbatten, the Commander in Chief of all Allied Forces in the Far East. Their mission was to parachute into Phnom Penh, and rescue an estimated 2,000 Australian POW's. He was 22 years old.

I felt it deserved to be more widely read, and so I transcribed his handwritten story word for word and had it privately published, with accompanying illustrations and background appendices. Everyone who has read the book has loved it. The reception has been so enthusiastic, and the story is so dramatic, that I became convinced it might be even more compelling as a graphic novel.
Jump to issue:
  NotesWriterArtist